Tastes Change
I'm often asked, "Do your kids actually eat that?" Yup. I shot this image of Penelope after she wolfed down her plate of Kaddo Borani. The expectation of constant variety I've created in my kids means that they have very little anxiety about trying new foods and can simply appreciate each dish for what it is.
A couple of weeks ago I had a speaking gig with a crowd of moms with very young children. Inevitably, I spent a large portion of my allocated speaking time advocating an approach to eating that can be summed up in one word: variety. I believe this is our number one goal in educating our children about food and its importance to their bodies. We must be as committed to teaching our children to accept variety and the unfamiliar as we are to getting them to read and share their toys. I’ll elaborate on this in a future post.
I got a number of questions during the Q&A time, but the underlying theme was the mothers’ predictable anxiety that there is something abusive about compelling their children to eat foods with which they are at best uncomfortable and at worst don’t “like.” I tried to assure them and talked at length about the importance of repeat exposures and expectations. Most “pickiness” is really more about a food anxiety than it is about actual preferences. Read more
Cook like it’s a Rental
Posted by Jill | April 12, 2010 | Filed under: Foodlife, Home, Organization
Hmmmm. Six rubber scrapers and two meat thermometers. No vegetable peeler. No blender. The tiniest box grater. Whatever. Let’s make it work.
Before I had kids- which was before I even really knew how to cook- I figured out that cooking for myself when I travelled was the key to a great vacation. It’s fun to play with the local ingredients. You meet all kinds of interesting folks at the beachside grill when you’re all standing around with cutting boards full of meat in one hand and beers in the other waiting your turn. You can eat and drink what you want when you want for a fraction of the cost of dining out. And frankly, you don’t spend a week getting bloated and constipated. Read more
In search of America-shoku
Living in Shirotori, Japan was the equivalent of living in rural Appalachia. Here I am at age 20 on the only transportation I had aside from my own two feet. Enamored and fascinated by the countryside, I ran long distances so that I could see, smell and hear even more of this place. I ran so much that, by the time I got home that fall, I had unintentionally trained enough to run my first marathon. So I did.
I traded in tagines for dashi this winter. I’ve been having a two-year long affair with the food of Morocco. I still love it, but Japanese cooking has me under its spell of late. I guess it is- in part- about contrast. I joke with Bill that- should he meet with an untimely demise or just really piss me off- my next love would probably be a cowboy or logger or something. I mean, I’ve had a banker already. I’d want something new. Right? This is surely the origin of my crush on Mike Rowe (Dirty Jobs).
Crystal Flight
Kyle and I recently had the great privilege to go into someone’s home and purge their fridge and pantry of all the crappy fake “diet” and highly processed foods that were keeping them from having the foodlife they wanted. We did this with an audience. We are trying to market a TV show based on the ideas behind this website and this was the topic we chose for our “sizzle reel” episode. Read more
