We do still eat out, and sometimes we order in, (and sometimes we order in with friends!)  Sometimes we re-discover dishes we used to cook and have forgotten about.  Now we can bring them back, sometimes with a different technique in cooking, or in a new combination.  Apricot chicken, which used to be a dinner, has become a party appetizer.  Peanut butter and jelly can also be for parties, as fig spread with almond butter on manchego cheese and a cracker.  (Can’t say that one is better nutrition, it’s just crazy good.) We eat some things much much less often, (see above PB&J take off).  When we do have cupcakes,  or whatever is being served, we eat it with enjoyment. 

When we are playing with plates and cups, I hear “Mama, let’s have a little convermation together.”  When we are with others, we try everything being the guests. We expect A to do the same. Of course we have eaten salty golden fishes, sometimes organic and sometimes not, the only answer is "Thank you." We never turn down what we are served!  (Are you kidding , we know what goes into a party – bring the host a nice gift for goodness sake!) It is more about the camaraderie than having certain food.  We are celebrating with fun and friends, not just food.

So, without costing a fortune, without chaos and stress at the dinner table, and without setting ourselves up to fail nutritionally because of the food we pick, we have practices our family can live with. Sharing what we do is the idea behind WhatIFedMyChild.  I can’t imagine, predict, proscribe, or reproduce what works for other families.  What Suburban and I discovered, over the phone, was that we were thinking about all kinds of things, and that it was a great part of our friendship to think about it together.  So it isn’t just food, or parenting, or nutrition, or cooking, or health, or weight, or growing up, or sitting around discussing policy!, or being married. What we share are discoveries, developments, and sometimes the dumps. We describe, we laugh, we change, and describe it all again. What we post is a description of the Fats, the Thins, and the Vegetables in between. Simply put, these are our practices.  At WhatIFedMyChild we encourage you to share yours too. 

What do I feed my child? Imagination.

 What is Sauteed Escarole? 

I’m having the fish, because this is the only way I’ll ever get to have any.

Fennel and apricots?  I’m in! 

Not only was flavor now the deciding factor for us in restaurants, we were also putting flavor on the plate at home. And what was on our plate, was on A’s plate.  Variety not only meant flavor and fun, it meant nutrition.  Our tastes began to change, and for two of the three it was a new experience. One of us had always been adventurous, spicy salsa being my favorite treat as a toddler (yes, toddler!).  One of us had grown up eating fish, one not so much.  And one of us was brand new to the world, so just eating at all was a good time (like walking, talking, and waving, it's a life of novelty and spectacular feats!).  The timing was great.  We had begun cultivating palates.

The greatest addition to our lives, aside from the little one, and the better nutrition one, was the camaraderie.  Who knew how important this would be to first time parents. As time went on we finally had begun eating out less.  And rather than eating out, we began inviting others over.  We cooked with friends.  We brought others into our home more. Only because we had some cooking experience, was it actually simpler, to be the ones to host.  It only took a small amount of convincing among those we knew, when we said, “No really, we’d rather you come to our place.  We’ll cook for you”.  We could feed A in the usual way.  Have A go to bed in at the usual time (this really worked for a while, up until it didn’t).  The conversation, the camaraderie, I wouldn’t change a thing.  We experimented with recipes because we have really great friends, or really hungry friends, whichever.  The result was an improved take on the Weekly Roast Chicken.  By bringing others to the table, we found new tastes, new favorites – some of our friends are excellent cooks! – and had more fun!  There’s a life lesson in there somewhere.

Yes, we cook at home, meaning both of us together in the kitchen.  Both cooking, both cleaning up, both eating everything we cooked.  One of us has discovered that this was the key.  We both ate the successes and the failures.  When there were failures ( some spectacular! ) we ate it anyway, and always laughed about it.  Our inside joke is “Catastophic fail!”  and others look at us funny when we say that to each other, but we laugh.

First, we make dinner enjoyable and food is fun for us.  Maybe that’s why we don’t need any other entertainment at the table.  We have no TV’s, no screen devices what so ever, no giant sheaf of paper with vast amounts of editing going on, neither work nor toys at the table.  (Bunny, by the way is not a toy, he’s a companion.  Looking back on this, he should have had his napkin in his lap.) We are evidently ridiculous enough to be our own entertainment.

Then we started to shop a little differently, enjoy some new flavors, and were able to have dinner ready with better speed.  We had stumbled across, or dredged up from family memories, some cooking skills.  But we not necessarily skilled at cooking.

 “Why do you mix the dry ingredients, mix the wet ingredients, and then combine the two?”

“ You just do , it’s the dry wet thing….”

And this was a screwed up conversation about making vindaloo paste! A complete misappropriation of buried dusty baking memories. 

Along the way however, dinner when it wasn’t vindaloo was getting to the table fast, and Faster (thank you Ludwig Bemmelmas)

We also noticed a change in how we ordered in restaurants.  Yes, we still ate out every weekend, and once during the week also.  Looking back, I’m surprised that learning to cook a bit better didn’t change the number of times we ate out.  I can’t say that eating out less was our intent either, so perhaps this steady habit is not a shock.   Instead, it did change the way we decided what to order, and that was unexpected. 

Here are a few how-to style sites that I think are fun concepts to a specific audience.  I can see myself in each of these audiences from time to time!

The Kitchen has a great concept tailored for apartment cooking, http://www.thekitchn.com

For the trained chef point of view, cookbook author Michael Ruhlman has an amazing concept on improving home cooking (clearly an issue near and dear to my urban heart!) http://ruhlman.com/about/

Have a favorite that speaks to you? Comment here or send me a facebook message (http://www.facebook.com/whatifedmychild) or tweet @whatifedmychild.

So we changed dinner. Something had to change with our loss of nap.  Sleeping from 4 to 5:45 was counterproductive for a pre-midnight bedtime.   A now eats dinner at 4:45 pm.  Which means I make a toddler dinner at 4:15, otherwise known as immediately when we arrive home from preschool. 

Since I am not making a family dinner (which would then have 2 portions sit uneaten for 2 hours), I have returned to that old toddler menu.  I've turned back the clock to that which we ate when A was 18 months old.  I've brought back circle chicken, small portions of two to three different vegetables, a fruit and a piece of cheese or a scoop of beans.

A eats, A goes through a bedtime routine, A goes to bed. Spouse arrives home in time for a kiss.  There is one final story while I then go start dinner.  Together, we can finish making dinner.

And then we have dinner by ourselves, quietly.

Maybe afternoon preschool was genius.

What I have taken away from all this is actually much simpler than any diet.  Buy it fresh, chop it yourself, and cook it in seasoning. 

But most of all, make it in less than 30 minutes, because you’ll be doing this again and again, for each and every meal.  At various times I have regarded food as a huge time-waster, or as the center of family sharing, or as a science experiment.  Now I regard food as a way to enjoy a new flavor. 

Looking for new flavors influences my choices in restaurants, my shopping, and my cooking.  Most of all food, and cooking it, is no longer a burden. Food is a fun part of life.  We enjoy the food the day brings.

My comfort food is chips and salsa, anything Mexican - oh the seasoned meats! Both spicy and hot, wrapped in corn tortillas for the finger protection as much the lime flavor.  Mineral lime that is, not the fruit.  But for nostalgia I frequent health food stores. I am immediately taken back to childhood. The grain husk motes drifting in the air, the unmistakable smell of what I now know as vitamin B blend.  Odd grains in open bins.  Hand lotion samples that might as much burn, from some crazy herbal ingrdient I was allergic to, as provide any natural healing.  The free “candy” from the shop owner – not that exciting, just a chewable vitamin C tablet - but for us it was amazing!  When this is the highlight of your day, you think maybe your life is a bit unusual, but really this is just me.

Time to go to the store.

But also a good opportunity to think about what we buy. I spent about $200 to restart our refrigerator and frequent pantry items.

At the larger grocery store I spent $130, and this produces meats, lunch, and breakfast, and exotic fruit. Given the weight of these items I didn’t carry it home on foot, so $6.50 of this was for delivery. The fruit from this grocery store is either imported or quite unusual. We buy some of it.

The remainder of our fruits and our vegetables come from the produce store. I spent $80 here and carried it home the few blocks by the shaded route, as opposed to the sunny sidewalk route I blissfully used on the way. This is post vacation after all and the bliss is lingering.

We generally walk to the grocery store, both the larger one (small for Suburban's neighborhood) and the produce one, a locally owned locally sourced place. We also make frequent tiny trips to the nice folks a block away, but largely for a few boxed or frozen things, eggs, and english muffins. We shop once or twice a week, taking along a rolling grocery cart. 

Thanks to a spouse with an eye for quality mechanics, it has really nice wheels.  He gets compliments in the store, "Nice wheels."  This is not ironic. He really smiles, and says "Thanks!"

Yogurt parfait became my solution for what came to be known as early breakfast, (as in I already had early breakfast, but sure I’ll eat with you!)  I kept all the ingredients on hand, and streamlined the assembly.   Each morning by 4:34 am, this is what I was eating.  Every morning, every day for nearly 8 months.  This is likely a record for me and my “reptition avoidant” self.  Thinking about what I was eating cames to the forefront for me in a different way when I was pregnant.  Unlike concerns about weight, appearance, or health issues, when I was pregnant I was not thinking about me.  I was thinking about this other person.   And now I continue to think about food for this other person, my daughter A, and talk with my closest friends about what I fed my child.