I normally don’t ask my daughter what she wants for breakfast (let’s just say Dr. Sears and I probably shouldn’t be seated next to each other at a dinner party), but for whatever reason, this morning, I did.  This was June’s response:

“Chicken and not rice and beans.”

The rest of our chicken nugget free week did not go quite as smoothly.  I’ve basically learned that my daughter essentially equated the word dinner with chicken.  Every time I served her a meal that did not include those lovely golden nuggets resulted in her giving me a look that was clearly meant to convey “WTF is your problem mom?”  It feels totally ridiculous to say this, I mean, it’s not like I had to stand in line for hours to get her food, or plant and harvest it myself – but cooking her other things admittedly felt harder.  Why is it so difficult to cook for kids?  Feeling defeated, I decided to look to some of my favorite food writers to see if they had anything helpful to say.

I turned to novelist and food writer Laurie Colwin first, as not kidding, she’s partially responsible for my having any interest at all in cultivating a nice home with things like clean sheets, pretty dishes, and ultimately good food to put on the aforementioned dishes.  She’s one of my all time favorite writers, and people in her novels are always drinking tea in a very civilized fashion, roasting something or baking a cake.  I was living in a wretched studio apartment when I became acquainted with her novel HAPPY ALL THE TIME and I thought, “wow, life could be a lot better.”  Her books HOME COOKING and MORE HOME COOKING are full of good advice on all domestic fronts so I was convinced she’d have something clever to say.  I put down HOME COOKING feeling more dejected, as Colwin admits that it was her daughter Rosa who actually taught her to like steamed zucchini.  But she does claim all kids like gingerbread, which is actually really spicy and a good way to get them to like other flavors.  I suck at baking, so this advice will be passed along to my husband who can follow directions.

Before Nigella Lawson became THE DOMESTIC GODDESS she wrote a brilliant book called HOW TO EAT which I can’t recommend enough.  It’s one of those semi-scary cookbooks that DOESN’T HAVE ANY PICTURES.  Oddly, those are my favorite kind, because a) it always makes me to feel like a serious cook (which I’m not) if I can use a cookbook without pictures and b) if there are no amazing pictures to compare your final product to, you can’t be disappointed if yours doesn’t look as perfect as the one in the picture, which let’s face it, it never does.  If you aren’t a Nigella fan I urge you to reconsider.  Her recipe for Linguine with garlic oil and Pancetta from NIGELLA BITES actually includes the instructions “go and run yourself a bath.”  My kind of recipe. Anyway, HOW TO COOK is full of great cooking advice and obviously recipes.  Nigella devotes an entire section to feeding kids, and I’m so glad I finally sat down and read it.  Here’s what she has to say, it’s helpful.

“If you want children to develop their own taste – and food other than burgers and pizza – they need to be given good food.  I distrust, however, those who have stringent rules about which food is good and which not.  The only way to judge whether food is good or not is by tasting it, but eating it.  If a child likes pizza and burgers, then it is pointless telling him or her that pizza and burgers are not good to eat (Anyway they are).”

June is going to wake up from her nap anytime now, but Nigella goes onto say many wise things. . but this one particularly got me:

“I accept that when they go to school we will have to enter a less permissive, more picky stage of eating.  But I believe that if you give babies and small children the right foundation, if they see you eat with pleasure and eat pleasurably with you, then, at the end of all the faddishness, they will return to familial normality, if that’s not a contradiction in terms.  There shouldn’t be too much veneration, too much pressure.  Let it all just happen.  Don’t look for trouble.”

And that, in my opinion, is why Nigella Lawson is a domestic goddess.  June can still have chicken fingers, because she loves them and they are delicious (I’ve tried them!) – but I am going to make some changes and focus on some other positives.  I’ve made a list to make myself feel better.

1. She likes fish too.  Yeah, it’s golden hued, but its fish!
2. She LOVES goat cheese.  For all of you parents who have kids who like cream cheese on their bagels, try goat cheese and crackers.  Peter and I had a glass of wine and June had goat cheese and we felt super impressed with ourselves.
3. We live in NYC, so pizza, which June loves, is never of the Dominos or Pizza Hut variety.
4. We’ve realized we’ve had some good successes eating ethic food out.  We had good luck with Soba noodles and Lo Mein, so we’re going to try to eat out with her a bit more and try to make it an occassional activity.
5. The cooking was a perfect rainy day activity, so I’ll plan more meals I can involve June in directly.
6. I bought her a cute, segmented plate.  I can put new foods in their own section next to foods she’s comfortable with without totally freaking her out.
7. We live one block from a huge farmer’s market and shop at one of the largest food co-ops in the country, so she’s exposed to all kinds of fruits and vegetables every time we go to the store.
8. I can 100% absolutely eat with pleasure in front of her, so I can continue to do that every day and just relax and stop worrying about it.

I’m taking a plane Friday. If we don’t die in a fiery ball of jet fuel and hermetically sealed packets of food (packets that probably don’t catch on fire since they’re made to last through some sort of atomic situation) we will be in the Lone Star state by Friday night, Austin, actually. After I get over my elation at still being alive (because really, anyone with any rational ability will realize that hurtling through the air at a crazy fast speed in a tin can will only get you there, like, half the time) anyway, after I kiss the ground and hug the baggage claim security folks we will head to some cool joint where it’s possible to grab a good margarita, have some kick ass tacos AND watch your toddler dive head first down a slide.

We have a lot of things in NYC but we do NOT have this.  You can take your kid to see the latest 3-D show at the planetarium, show him one of the most amazing cities in the world from on top of the Empire State Building, and even take him to check out the hippest contemporary art BUT you cannot take him to a restaurant that has an attached playscape so that you can drink and eat…and did I mention drink?…while he has an awesome time on the jungle gym.

WTF Bloomberg? You can take away the salt in our food but you can’t manage a McDonald’s type atmosphere sans the crappy food and add in the booze? Perhaps Justin Timberlake or JayZ would like to invest in this brilliant idea of mine (I get 60%)? I’d even go into biz with Eminem or Lil Wayne. I mean Marshall has a few kids now so I think he’d be fine plus Dr. Dre would probably step in if he got too creepy. And as for lil Wayne, he’s lil so he, like, already knows what kids need. Except vaginas…No vaginas, lil Wayne! Not Diddy though because he’d be all super controlling and only want to serve Ciroc vodka (there’s a lot of other alcohol out there, Diddy!) and the whole place would have to be white and let’s just face it kids and white furniture do.not.mix. Also, drunk people and white fabric don’t go so well either. Now that I think about it, I’m really glad I’ve never been invited to one of his white parties.  So, hey, Diddy, that’s a NO for me this year. Thanks but no thanks. I want to be able to wear clothes I can throw up in, should the occasion arise.

Once again, like my last post, I have no real point to this rambling idiocy other then to give the disclaimer that next week’s posts probably won’t be nearly as hilarious as Alonewithcats: “shit my mom says,” since my dad prefers bad puns and most of the jokes with my in-laws are inside ones.

Still, Brangelina, if you’re looking for an investment opportunity…call me.

Nugget Free Dinner Number One

You know what’s a really great way to end a long day?  Making home made spaghetti sauce with a two year old.  Really, it wasn’t that bad.  Pour yourself a nice glass of wine and brace yourself for a bit of mess.  I was seriously determined to get this kid of mine to eat something in non-nugget form.  She loves “helping” me make pancakes, so I thought “what the hell?”  What’s the worst that can happen if she helps me make sauce?  The answer is probably a trip to the ER, but luckily things went fairly smoothly.  I decreased chances of injury and increased our chances of success by making June her own toddler mise en place while she was at daycare.  For you full time working parents, or ad hoc parents who don’t work at home, I’m 100% aware of the fact that it is TOTALLY IMPOSSIBLE to do this in an office.  A quick note on the recipe.  Food processor = over my dead body.  If you’re thinking of trying Good Housekeeping’s turkey spaghetti Bolognese, don’t bother with the food processor.  I just chopped the onion, garlic and celery, and then shredded a carrot with a food grater since carrots require extra cooking time.   I timed how long it took.  Not kidding, six minutes!  And I totally suck at chopping.  June was pretty keen on throwing all the colored vegetables into the pot.  She was sent off to watch Curious George and was served the meal she helped make about 15 minutes later.

http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/recipefinder/turkey-spaghetti-bolognese-recipe

THE VERDICT:

Moderate success!  She ate the whole wheat spaghetti, but was sort of anxious about the sauce.  I will definitely “cook” with June again, but I’m sure as hell not going to be going to these lengths on a weekly basis.  I’m thrilled she ate the spaghetti though.

Nugget Free Dinner Number Two

June eats rice and beans at daycare, and I figured that sounded like a cheap, easy and very healthy dinner.  So I suggested we go home and make some “rice and beans.”  I’m surprised and excited when she responds with an enthusiastic “Yes!  Rice and beans!”  Really?  Could this be so easy?  Was all this insistence on chicken nuggets actually just the result of total lack of trying on my part?  June is settled in with a cartoon and some crayons, and a meal of cod fillet and black beans and rice are presented to a very hungry two year old.

THE VERDICT

Moderate success??  She eats the fish, but I have to come clean and admit the fish turned out to look more like a chicken nugget than I had anticipated, so while it’s not chicken – I gotta say, she could totally be under the impression she’s eating chicken.  The beans and rice are acknowledged.  She simply says “beans and rice” they way you might say “hey, a jell-o mold” and then just go about eating the 7-layer taco salad instead.  Sigh. . .

Thus far there have been few tears and nothing has been thrown at me, so I will keep trying new foods and will be more careful about presenting foods that may in fact LOOK like chicken nuggets. .  will report back at the end of the week.

I’ve got nothin’.  And that’s a “nothing” without a “g” because that’s how little I’ve got. 

I went to write this post and, mostly, just sat and stared at the cursor blinking. It was like a gun pointed at my head while Clint Eastwood whispered “got any good ideas mother f***er,” and all I could do was imagine a gorilla punching people: “right turn, Clyde.”

So let’s just all meditate on that shall we? 

I think I need a vacation. Or maybe just 48 straight hours of watching bad tv? Or maybe go fishin’ (without a g, since really the g just adds stress)

I guess though, while I seem to suck as a blogger, novel writer, cleaning woman and cook (I always suck as a cook so really this one is just a given and added to this list to make it seem longer) I don’t think I did too bad as a mommy today. 

I drew koalas with my kid, which is no easy task since I have no clue what they look like. We also looked up other animals on the internet, here’s what we learned:

Hippos live in “harmony” with crocodiles.

Most koalas have chlamydia.

Kangaroos lick themselves to keep cool and are quite infested with bugs.

He also asked to see lions but I quickly learned to search lion cubs so as not to disturb his belief that lions exist on leaves and cookies.

My head hurts now. So I’m goin’ fishin’. 

Save a Koala, Send a Condom to Australia. 

I have a pretty black and white, floral print binder that holds all of my favorite recipes.  Every time I make something that my husband I decide should be added to our “regular repertoire,” a copy of it goes in The Binder.  I’m a huge dork – and like the idea of having something that resembles a “family cookbook.”  My mom has a positively groovy recipe box from the 1970’s that’s bursting with handwritten cards with recipes for things like “chop suey” and “stuffed green peppers.”  I hope that my daughter will have similar warm feelings about my binder.  However, I’m starting to worry that I’m not getting her off to the best start food-wise.  Last week we were having lunch at a diner with some friends, when she pointed at a French fry and exclaimed “chicken!”  So, it would appear that despite my best intentions I’m raising a child who exists primarily on a diet of gold hued foods. .  to the point that she can’t differentiate the difference between chicken (a “nugget” obviously) or a French fry.  Awesome.

Ironically, the first page of my binder is a copy of an essay written by Ruth Reichl a few years ago in Gourmet Magazine called TEACH YOUR CHILDREN WELL.  I read this essay long before I was actually a mother, but felt it represented my feeling about kids and food.  I remember thinking, “how hard could it actually be to sit around the table and feed your kid THE SAME FOOD YOU ARE EATING?”  Well, um, a helluva lot harder than I thought.  I still agree with the premise of Ms. Reichl’s essay, which is basically that if you give your kid different food that what you eat or give them a different menu in a restaurant, you are basically saying a) We don’t expect you to like the food we are eating b) We don’t expect you to understand the idea of a family meal and c) We basically expect you to only like crap.  TOTALLY MAKES SENSE.  But then why is it so hard to feed my daughter a plate of home made turkey bolognase at the table with me and my husband, instead of a solo meal of organic chicken fingers and peas?  Here’s the thing, and this is what I didn’t know the first time I read this article.  DUH, IT’S BECAUSE MY HUSBAND DOESN’T GET HOME FROM WORK UNTIL 7:30 AND MY DAUGHTER EATS DINNER PRACTICALLY ON THE WAY HOME FROM DAYCARE BECAUSE SHE IS STARVING AT 6PM.  Secondly, we are cooking dinner for ourselves (and it is a miracle we do this at all) later and later.  It’s currently 9:23 p.m. on a Sunday night.  We haven’t even begun to think about dinner.  Cornflakes or Cheerios?  June has eaten for those of you who were planning to call social services.  We get distracted by things such as laundry, vacuuming, grocery shopping (see the irony there), work – and yes, okay, say it, my blog!  I am though, determined to do better.  While I just don’t think I can reach Ruth Reichl’s standards quite yet, I am going to set some new goals for my family this week:

1. I will attempt to go one entire week without serving chicken fingers or macaroni and cheese.
2. June will eat actual grown-up food.
3. Peter and I will eat dinner by 8:30

I will start with turkey spaghetti Bolognese http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/recipefinder/turkey-spaghetti-bolognese-recipewhich is super easy and I’ve gotten June to eat in the past.  I’m not for a second going to fool myself into thinking the three of us are going to eat together, but I’ll be extraordinarily happy if I have less chicken fingers in my life and I manage to eat dinner before 9 pm.  We’ll see how it goes.  I’ll leave you with some bits of wisdom from Ruth Reichl’s essay, which sadly, I couldn’t find online:

• For starters, the notion that children are a separate species who require a different diet from the rest of us pretty much does away with the concept of the family meal. The point of eating together, it seems to me, is not just that we all sit down around the same table but also that we share the food. The same food.

• When we offer our children a different menu, we are telling them that they are different from us. And being different, that we also have different expectations of them. Why, then, should we be surprised that many modern children have such poor table manners? In giving them children’s food, we are essentially telling them that they are not expected to behave like adults when they are at the table.

• But there’s an even more important reason for us to be dismayed by special menus aimed at pleasing young palates. When we feed children the old familiar grilled cheese sandwiches and vanilla ice cream, we are teaching them to stick with the tried-and-true instead of encouraging them to dare to taste the new.