Eva Paschke, 12, of Grosse Pointe Farms whips up a mean stir fry. And it turns out Michelle Obama agrees.
The first lady recently picked Eva’s recipe for top Michigan honors in her fourth annual Healthy Lunchtime Challenge, which she hosted with PBS. It invited kids ages 8-12 to create an original recipe that’s affordable, healthy and delicious.
Eva created her award-winning “Fizzle Sizzle Stir Fry” in a mere two days.
“I really enjoy cooking, because it’s a very important thing to my family,” says Eva, who says she cooks with her mom and hunts with her dad. “We have fresh game in the house, like pheasant, duck and venison. I mean, most families will go out and buy a Kroger chicken, while my mom cooks pheasant paprikash.”
For her dish, she mixed up chicken with edamame, kale, water chestnuts, a sweet Asian chile sauce and more. Naming it, though, was the tricky part.
Peeking at past winners’ recipes, Eva saw many were playful presidential variations – “like ‘barackomolli and chips.'” She wanted something original.
She spotted “sizzle” while looking up synonyms for stir and fry. “I thought, OK, well what rhymes with sizzle? Fizzle. Hey, that kind of works!”
Eva attributes her family’s healthy habits to making meals fun. “A family that eats together keeps together,” she says. And, she adds, eating healthy is a mind-over-matter endeavor. “You just have to push yourself to do it, because you have to remember, we can’t end up like the people in the WALL-E movie.”
Eva joined the first lady and 54 other winners for a special dinner at the White House last month, complete with fine dining featuring the winning recipes.
Get the recipe for Eva’s “Fizzle Sizzle Stir Fry” on Metro Parent Daily!
