Last night I served a lovely dinner: grilled flank steak, oven roasted red potatoes with butter, spinach salad, rosemary sourdough bread. Wade and I ooh’d and aah’d at our pretty plates and happily toasted each other.
The children, on the other hand, each took one wee tiny bite of potato (with butter, even! come on! who doesn’t like buttery potatoes?!?) and made a face designed to indicate to any passers by that I was POISONING THEM with this BUTTERY POTATO and wouldn’t someone please SAVE THEM from the POTATOES?!?
And you wonder why I drink.
Ironically, I have just started writing a series of posts for the Egg Council’s Incredible group at Gather, about bloggers who are trying to help families eat healthier. My first post — are you ready for this? — is about the supercool Jenny of Picky Palate Chronicles. I’m wondering if she might want to move into my house and help me with these kids — the ones who think I’m trying to KILL THEM with a buttered potato.
You can read about Jenny here; the series will last for eight weeks, with a new post every Thursday. In between posts, I’ll be over here trying to kill my children with vegetables, because I am MEAN LIKE THAT. Just ask the kids.
19 Comments so far
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That is my dream dinner. Kids are strange. My niece thinks ketchup is ’spicy,’ so there you have it.
By Rhi on 07.31.08 1:46 pm | Permalink
So I seriously need some flank steak now. You planning any trips to VA any time soon?
By Crisanne on 07.31.08 1:50 pm | Permalink
Put ketchup on ‘em - that does the trick for absolutely everything around here.
By suburbancorrespondent on 07.31.08 3:16 pm | Permalink
My youngest (23 mos.) refuses to eat potatoes in any form. That includes FRIES. She also refuses to eat a lot of other foods, and this is foreign to me, because my oldest (4 years old) has only 1 food she won’t eat–mushrooms–and has been known to say things like, “Yum, Mama, ROASTED BEETS!” and “Mama, will you please please please make Swiss chard quiche again? I just love that.” Crazy.
By Shan on 07.31.08 4:20 pm | Permalink
This is why I say to my kiddos, “you’ll eat that frozen dinner and like it, by god!”
By gorillabuns on 07.31.08 5:50 pm | Permalink
Can I come over for dinner? Please? I promise to eat everything on my plate. And I’d probably even ask for seconds.
PS: My kid won’t eat any potato that isn’t a fry. She’ll lower herself to eat Tater Tots, but only if we call them “french fries.” She doesn’t know what she is missing…
By Erin on 07.31.08 6:03 pm | Permalink
Buttery potatoes. Oh, the HORROR!
By wantontraveler on 07.31.08 6:54 pm | Permalink
There’s no logic to it, my children love Brussels sprouts but turn up their noses at the buttery potatoes and just about every other food in existence.
Oh, they love chocolate too but I’m kind of with them on that.
By Caitlin on 07.31.08 8:53 pm | Permalink
That IS funny, but my 1 year old also refuses potatoes in nearly form…that is of course, unless we smash fresh garlic in them. Big, fatty chunks of minced garlic. Garlic. For the one year-old. She can’t get enough.
The same is true for things such as plain noodles. Won’t touch a bare buttered noodle if her life depended on it, those, I am told, are pure poison. Of course, if you put homemade spaghetti sauce on said noodles, (complete with two kinds of meat, italian sasuage and ground turkey, as well as a ton of garlic, diced onion, basil, oregano etc.) Then she’ll eat it.
I have no understanding of this phenomenon.
Your dinner sounded simply delicious.
By Stephanie on 07.31.08 9:29 pm | Permalink
It kills me when my daughter tells me she doesn’t like what I have made for dinner BEFORE I AM EVEN DONE MAKING IT! Hello. How do you know you don’t like it? It’s not even done.
By Laundry & Children on 07.31.08 9:51 pm | Permalink
tonight Charlotte claimed celery to be “spicy”.
By jenB on 08.01.08 1:24 am | Permalink
My son loves potatoes, green veggies, peas, beans…but really doesn’t eat meat! I cooked roast and potatoes a few weeks ago and he just looked at the meat and at the potatoes and the other veggies…and he is nine !
By Kim on 08.01.08 2:03 am | Permalink
Wanna come cook for me? Please….no seriously, please!!!!
By Sarah @ Ordinary Days on 08.01.08 9:34 am | Permalink
This made me laugh. I really needed to laugh. Thank you!
By A.C. on 08.01.08 11:30 am | Permalink
My kids too. As soon as the last one leaves the house, I am going to make dinners where all the different parts are TOUCHING EACH OTHER!!! Casseroles! Risotto! Stir fry! Woo!
(And watch out for Social Services! They have a whole Potato Swat Team, I hear!)
By Sue on 08.01.08 1:00 pm | Permalink
Add me to the list of mothers with kids who hate potatoes other than in french-fry format. If I hadn’t been there for the births, I’d swear they’re both adopted.
By Janet on 08.02.08 11:22 am | Permalink
That first paragraph made me start to drool a little. I promise that if you ever set that dinner down by me I would absolutely lick the plate clean. Amen.
By Anna on 08.02.08 8:10 pm | Permalink
I hear you… my kids won’t eat the potato either… and since my DH is English and can’t live without them, we think there must be a defect in their “English” gene.
My youngest doesn’t even like fries. Go figure! He also picks all the marshmallows out of his Lucky Charms and throws them away because “He only likes the Lucky, not the Charms.” What kid doesn’t like marshmallows?
The things my kids will eat, would amaze most people, but the boring, ordinary, everyday stuff that they won’t eat. Go figure. Just more proof that boys are weird.
By mimipz5wjj on 08.05.08 7:24 am | Permalink
That dinner sounds divine. Send their plates my way!
By Dianna on 08.07.08 6:52 pm | Permalink
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