The Storytable brings curious children together around food, flavor, and discovery.
The StoryTable is a weekend experience where children sit at a beautifully prepared table and discover new foods through story, shared meals, and guided curiosity. No pressure. No performance. Just the quiet magic of a child saying “I’ll try it.”
The StoryTable
“Can I just have mac and cheese… again?”
You cooked. You tried.
And somehow, you’re back to the same 3–5 foods.
It’s not that your child is difficult.
It’s that something is missing.
Not pressure. Not rules.
A better experience.
And somehow, you’re back to the same 3–5 foods.
It’s not that your child is difficult.
It’s that something is missing.
Not pressure. Not rules.
A better experience.
Mealtime, reframed
The problem isn’t the food on the table.
It’s what the table feels like.
The problem isn’t the food on the table.
It’s what the table feels like.
“I don’t like it.”
“Eww, what is that?”
Children don’t change their relationship with food through explanation. They change it through shared experience.
We don’t teach kids to eat.
We take them on a mission.
We take them on a mission.
The Storytable is a 10-session immersive experience where children explore new foods through story, shared meals, and guided curiosity.
New foods appear as part of the experience, not as a test but as part of the story.
A story begins.
Some children hesitate. Some watch. Then curiosity takes over.
And they try.
And they try.
Key Principle
The StoryTable
We don’t force children to eat anything. You don't have to love every food. That's not the point.
We create the conditions where trying becomes natural. It becomes the habit of trying.
Over time, unfamiliar foods stop feeling “new.” Children start approaching it with curiosity.
We create the conditions where trying becomes natural. It becomes the habit of trying.
Over time, unfamiliar foods stop feeling “new.” Children start approaching it with curiosity.
Captain Poppy™ and The Taste Buddies™ introduce the mission.
They sit with a small group of peers.
They discover that unfamiliar doesn’t mean unsafe.
Each session is a small adventure at the table.
Children arrive at a beautifully set table.
Arrive at a table set with intention.
Linen, gingham, real plates, a small group of peers. Everything is prepared in advance. Children walk in and the room already feels like somewhere worth being.
01
A story begins, and the mission opens.
Captain Poppy™ introduces a flavor world — a country, a texture, a single Taste Buddy. New foods appear as part of the story, never as a test. Some children watch first. That counts.
02
They notice. They compare. They try.
Children leave with a collectible Mission Card — the day’s flavor, a family tasting idea, and one reflection prompt. Curiosity travels home with them.
03
Three steps. Ninety minutes. One quiet transformation.
The experience
“You don’t have to love it. You just have to try it.”
The only rule at the StoryTable
Meet Captain Poppy
Every great journey needs a captain.
Not a teacher. Not a chef. An explorer of taste — the kind of friend who travels through food the way others travel through cities and stories, and brings children along, one discovery at a time.
Not a teacher. Not a chef. An explorer of taste — the kind of friend who travels through food the way others travel through cities and stories, and brings children along, one discovery at a time.
Sunny Sweet
The feeling of comfort and energy. The first taste children trust — the doorway to everything else.
Zest Sour
Bright, surprising, alive. The flavor that wakes curiosity and turns a tongue into an instrument.
Brine Salty
The connector. The taste that makes everything else feel complete — and teaches that less is often more.
Bramble Bitter
Deep and complex. The taste that teaches patience, second tries, and discovery.
Anchor Umami
Depth, richness, satisfaction. The quiet force that doesn’t shout — but makes everything around it taste fuller.
Ember Spicy
The spark of courage. The moment food becomes an adventure — and a child realizes they can choose to go in.
Velvet Astringent
Dry, puckery, and mysterious. The taste that makes the mouth pause — and teaches children to notice texture, contrast, and surprise.
A sensory system, named so children can use it.
Inside every child is a flavor system already at work. We give it names, faces, and a vocabulary — so children can recognize what they’re tasting, and trust it.
Your child's personal food sommeliers.
Inside every child is a flavor system already at work. We give it names, faces, and a vocabulary — so children can recognize what they’re tasting, and trust it.
Your child's personal food sommeliers.
Your child's personal food sommeliers.
The Taste Buddies
Grains & Porridges
A mission about tiny grains that hide big stories. Children explore how one small seed can become soft, crunchy, creamy, golden, or surprising.
The Treasure Grain Mission
Grains & Porridges
A mission about the foods that hold civilizations together. Children explore how climate, land, and tradition turn grain into the daily foundation of different cultures.
The Grain Atlas
Fermented Foods
A playful mission about foods that change, bubble, soften, and surprise. Children meet sourness as something alive, friendly, and curious.
The Living Jar
Fermented Foods
A mission about time as an ingredient. Children explore how patience, microbes, and transformation create bold flavors.
The Time Lab
Soups
A mission about soups that match the weather: hot for snowy days, cold for summer heat, bright for sunshine, deep for rainy afternoons. Children discover that food can carry climate, season, and place.
The Weather Soup Mission
Soups
A mission about geography, climate, survival, and culture hidden in a spoon. Children investigate how cold summers, long winters, oceans, farms, wars, and old cities shaped the soups people remember.
The Secret History of Soup
Bread
Children follow the path from grain to bread through a familiar story. The mission shows that bread can be soft, crisp, flat, airy, chewy, or sour — and still be bread.
The Little Red Hen’s Bread Trail
Bread
A mission about bread as a record of place and people. Children explore how climate, history, religion, and daily life shape the breads different cultures bring to the table.
The Bread Map
Fish
A mission inspired by the question: why isn’t all fish the same color? Children explore color, texture, and the idea that food carries clues about where it comes from.
The Rainbow Fish File
Fish
A mission about how water, depth, movement, and habitat shape flavor. Children investigate why sea foods can be light, rich, delicate, firm, salty, or intense.
The Deep Sea File
Meat & Poultry
A fairy-tale mission about foods that make storybook heroes feel brave and strong. Children explore different kinds of meat and poultry through texture, tenderness, and “hero food” clues.
The Giant’s Feast
Meat & Poultry
A mission about strength, survival, and tradition. Children explore why different meats became important in different places — and how food once prepared people for travel, work, and battle.
The Hunter’s Table
Beans, Mushrooms & Plant Proteins
A mission about hidden foods from fields and forests. Children meet quiet, earthy ingredients that have fed travelers, farmers, and families for centuries.
The Forest Pantry
Beans, Mushrooms & Plant Proteins
A mission about what strength was made of before battle. Children explore the filling, lasting foods that helped people carry armor, cross long roads, and stay powerful without always relying on meat.
The Knight’s Table
Vegetables
A mission about the secret architecture of vegetables: some hide underground, some climb upward, some unfold like leaves. Children learn to sort, notice, and describe before they decide.
Above and Below the Garden
Vegetables
A mission about spirals, fractals, circles, roots, towers, veins, and patterns. Children discover that vegetables are not just “healthy foods,” but living designs with no two patterns exactly alike.
The Geometry Garden
Every mission starts with a map
At the beginning of each session, children receive a Mission Map — an illustrated route through the story world Captain Poppy leads them into. It's theirs to keep.
Try something new. Earn Poppicorns.
Every time a child tastes something unfamiliar, they earn Poppicorns — the official Taste Mission currency. Collect across all 8 missions. Spend them in The Taste Bud Store on real, curated rewards.
The experience follows them home
Kids leave with their map and discovery notes. Parents receive a recipe card for every dish their child showed real curiosity about — so the table moment continues at home.
Why children will ask to come back
The Taste Mission Cards
Upper Group (9-12)
20 August
Holliston
Junior Group (5-8)
16 July
Holliston
Try It First: Pilot Sessions Are Here — Full Program Kicks Off in October!
Your students get a thoughtful, memorable way to explore food, culture, and curiosity together — without adding planning work for your team.
For Private Schools
Bring the 8-Mission Journey to your students.
The StoryTable can be offered as a turnkey enrichment program for private schools, microschools, and learning communities. We bring the full experience to your campus: the story, the prepared tasting table, the guided sensory missions, the Mission Cards, and all materials.
The StoryTable can be offered as a turnkey enrichment program for private schools, microschools, and learning communities. We bring the full experience to your campus: the story, the prepared tasting table, the guided sensory missions, the Mission Cards, and all materials.
Olga Sloane
Co-Founder |
Food & Experience Designer
Food & Experience Designer
Olga believes the dinner table is one of the most important environments in childhood development.
With a background in nutrition and experience design, she has spent her career exploring how food choices are formed and how they can be gently reshaped through context, creativity, and consistency.
Before Storytable, she led educational initiatives focused on improving children’s food environments in schools and family settings, helping make healthier choices feel more natural and less forced.
At Storytable, she designs the structure of each Taste Mission ensuring every experience feels intuitive, engaging, and thoughtfully balanced between nutrition and enjoyment.
With a background in nutrition and experience design, she has spent her career exploring how food choices are formed and how they can be gently reshaped through context, creativity, and consistency.
Before Storytable, she led educational initiatives focused on improving children’s food environments in schools and family settings, helping make healthier choices feel more natural and less forced.
At Storytable, she designs the structure of each Taste Mission ensuring every experience feels intuitive, engaging, and thoughtfully balanced between nutrition and enjoyment.
Dr. Nati Punina
Co-Founder |
Scientist & Learning Designer
Scientist & Learning Designer
Nati comes from a background in biological sciences and education research, with a focus on how children learn through sensory experience and interaction.
After years of teaching science to school and food biotechnology to University students, she became deeply interested in how curiosity -not instruction - is what drives real learning.
Her work bridges food science, microbiology and molecular biology, pedagogy, and play-based learning, translating complex developmental principles into simple, engaging experiences children can actually participate in.
At Storytable, she ensures every mission is grounded in how children naturally perceive, explore, and remember new information in a safe way turning each session into a structured yet playful learning environment.
After years of teaching science to school and food biotechnology to University students, she became deeply interested in how curiosity -not instruction - is what drives real learning.
Her work bridges food science, microbiology and molecular biology, pedagogy, and play-based learning, translating complex developmental principles into simple, engaging experiences children can actually participate in.
At Storytable, she ensures every mission is grounded in how children naturally perceive, explore, and remember new information in a safe way turning each session into a structured yet playful learning environment.
The Storytable was not created as a program.
It was created as a system for how children meet food for the first time with curiosity instead of resistance.
It was created as a system for how children meet food for the first time with curiosity instead of resistance.
The StoryTable
FOUNDers
The Storytable was created at the intersection of science, education, and immersive experience design.
Two perspectives. One shared belief:
how children learn to eat shapes how they learn to explore the world.
Together, they built Storytable around one simple idea:
Children don’t change their relationship with food through instruction.
They change it through experience.
Two perspectives. One shared belief:
how children learn to eat shapes how they learn to explore the world.
Together, they built Storytable around one simple idea:
Children don’t change their relationship with food through instruction.
They change it through experience.
Still have questions?
We’re happy to help—especially if you’re deciding whether The Storytable is right for your child.
We’re happy to help—especially if you’re deciding whether The Storytable is right for your child.
FAQ
No.
Children do not cook at The Storytable.
Each session is a guided Taste Mission where children sit together at a prepared table, explore new foods through story, and discover flavors in a safe, social environment.
The focus is on tasting, curiosity, and confidence, not cooking skills.
Children do not cook at The Storytable.
Each session is a guided Taste Mission where children sit together at a prepared table, explore new foods through story, and discover flavors in a safe, social environment.
The focus is on tasting, curiosity, and confidence, not cooking skills.
That’s completely expected and one of the reasons The Storytable exists.
Children are never forced to eat anything. They are simply invited to try.
Many children begin by just observing, then slowly move to tasting at their own pace.
Children are never forced to eat anything. They are simply invited to try.
Many children begin by just observing, then slowly move to tasting at their own pace.
We work with parents before each session to understand any allergies or restrictions.
All menus are carefully adapted so that every child can participate safely and comfortably.
All menus are carefully adapted so that every child can participate safely and comfortably.
We have two guided groups:
Squad Alpha (5–8 years) — sensory exploration and comfort-building
Squad Beta (9–12 years) — deeper curiosity, food cultures, and flavor awareness
Each group is designed specifically for its developmental stage.
Squad Alpha (5–8 years) — sensory exploration and comfort-building
Squad Beta (9–12 years) — deeper curiosity, food cultures, and flavor awareness
Each group is designed specifically for its developmental stage.
No.
Some children are very quiet at first. Others are more expressive.
The environment is designed so that children can participate at their own pace watching, listening, and engaging when they feel ready.
Some children are very quiet at first. Others are more expressive.
The environment is designed so that children can participate at their own pace watching, listening, and engaging when they feel ready.
Each Taste Mission is part of a sequence, but we understand that life happens.
We help families find make-up options when possible, depending on availability.
We help families find make-up options when possible, depending on availability.
Sessions are held in carefully designed partner spaces in the Greater Boston area.
Exact locations are shared after registration.
Exact locations are shared after registration.
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