happy meal

I considered a long diatribe on the differences and spectrum variances of liberalism, conservatism, socialism, and communism that would summarize what the Eleven babbled about between the end of the debate and bed last night. I know you’re yelling at your monitor in disgust that I haven’t produced this stirring piece – consider yourselves lucky. I decided to do food instead.

Early on in this kibbutz experiment – way back in the N. Park Dr. days – I was put off by the fact that the boys would mostly sniff-sniff, or lick-lick with a lizard-like tongue at dinner food no matter what I produced. It bothered me quite a bit because my personal issues back then were two-fold: first, I’m not making two separate dinners, and secondly, the question in my mind that asked why they were such little heathens. The heathens question was answered after more than too many encounters with the “I’m not hungry. Can I have a bowl of cereal?” dinner conversation. The most important aspect to the solution was that they, and most kids of that age (including my daughters), don’t care for dishes that are too complex: they want to be able to visually identify what’s going into their precious little gobs. Fair enough. What I’ve managed over the last six-to-twelve months is the building of a limited number of foods they’re willing eat. That small food pyramid is based partly on their likes and dislikes, and partly on how easy the food is to concoct while I’m cooking real dinner for the adults. Our dinner table last night was what brought this all to mind: wild rice stuffed squash for us (a stuffing of onions, garlic, carrots, celery, sweet red peppers, oregano, thyme, sliced almonds, and gruyere), and pan-grilled salmon fillets and homemade mashed potatoes for them. It went swimmingly. Of course, if I give them the mashed every night they’d probably eat just about anything else chucked in front of them. On occasion they’ll eat big people food – on Monday night we had a woodsman’s rigatoni that they managed to gobble up with little fanfare. It’s a work in progress.

Monday night was an interesting story at the dinner table – beyond the aforementioned rigatoni. The boys had a friend over who apparently eats nothing but take-out Chinese, Taco Bell, and Pollo Loco. How or why his eating habits have come to this isn’t as frightening as what it’s done to any idea he has of real food or a meal. We set him a place at the table and dished up pasta and a very basic salad but his ability to even consider it as food was nil. He looked at it and literally said something along the lines of “that’s disgusting”, said he wasn’t hungry, and got up and walked away. Again, I’m not so much bothered by the disgusting/not hungry/walking away checklist as I am by the fact that here’s a 12-year old kid whose eating habits are so numbed that there’s not even an inkling in his mind to ask what had been served, what’s in it, or that he might even give it a try. It was a pretty uncomfortable situation.

We’re doing asparagus and caramelized leek soup with fresh bread tonight.

I’d like to give a shout out to Rockbrook Elementary School in Omaha *wink*

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