the picky eaters

soooooo my family is tops in picky eating. seriously. i was vegan for 17 years. then i started eating beef, not just oh hey i'm out i'll have a burger beef, grass fed, free range, my herbalist raises the cattle himself out in utah, beef. then eggs from the farm nearby, no not from the diner on I95 so it's easy to travel eggs.... and chicken sometimes from said farm. but not milk or butter or .... well you get the idea, so now i'm not vegan anymore just picky. my husband, tom, he doesn't eat vegetables. none. never. zilch. he orders chicken fried rice, no vegetables, cheesesteak, no peppers or onions, cheeseburger just the burger and the cheese... again, you get the idea. so ok again, picky. now the kids: kid #2 is 19 months old and she will eat anything i give her, look me in the eye and say "thank you mommy" "mmmmm good" "i love you mommy". ohhh nice! not picky! and she likes meat. really, she sees me take meat out of the fridge and she says "meat! meat! i want meat!" crazy. but kind of explains the HUGE cravings for beef i had when i was pregnant with her. she's a little crazy too, which might explain the cravings for jack daniels..... but she didn't get any of the latter inutero... anyway i digress. she also nurses like it's just business, pops off and says "i'm done. thank you"...but she's got time...

kid #1, he wouldn't even eat food until over 18months old. breastmilk was all the kid wanted. he ate oatios, an apple here or there, but had NO interest in food. he's now 4 and somedays he'll eat curried red lentils and spinach, somedays he'll eat sauteed kale and a burger...grass fed ;) somedays he'll eat at my favorite ethiopian restaurant. and somedays....or some weeks he will only eat pancakes. or wait, crackers. or the newest love, pancake puff. and these weeks are becoming more of a common scene then the healthy options. and he won't eat my soup anymore! soooo enter my new favorite cookbook. my friend fiona heard of my pancake weeks issue and lent it to me. it's jessica seinfeld's deceptively delicious. and seriously, it may be deceptive but it is delicious! i made brownies with spinach in them. really! spinach! the boy ate em up. i make pancakes with sweet potatoes in them, woo hoo! she changed everything with suggesting adding the purees to things. very cool. tonight i made chicken rice balls. and tom ate them! my nana told me long ago i should mash carrots and put them in tomato sauce for tom. my reply, "i'm not his mother, if he doesn't want to eat vegetables he doesn't have to" now. i AM someone's mother and dammit my boy is going to eat his vegetables! so right on jessica seinfeld, thanks! and nana, well i told her she should have written a book about mashing those carrots into the sauce, then she could have been a millionaire! ha!