Elbows

One thing we’ve tried to instill in these kids from a very early age is the value of adventurous eating.  It’s one of the very few things we’ve actually been successful at instilling.  That and as I mentioned previously, staring out the window on long car rides.  I’m not exactly sure how these two skills will pay off in the long run but I’m sure I’ll think of something.

I remember back before having kids we spent a bit of time with a two-year-old and a four-year-old named William and Isabella.  They were always chomping down on blue cheese and mission figs.  Apparently it could be done.

Both Jake and Nate genuinely believe that the only reason they are big, strong, and smart is through the wonders of salad.  Nate eats a bite of lettuce and then immediately shows me his elbows so I can ooh and aah at how strong he is getting, right before my very eyes.  Next time you see them, just ask, “How did you get so big?”  They will invariably answer: Salad.

Last October, I hired a young man at work onto my team.  During the interview process, it never really came up that he was joining a team of relative foodies…  The first week on the job, we realized that he is not an adventurous eater and so I took it upon myself to talk him into trying new things.

I have to say, he has been an impressively good sport.  I’ve talked him into trying a bunch of things, mainly seafood, maybe half of which he tolerated and the other half he politely determined wasn’t really his thing.  I tried to match my own challenges and recently had uni, also known as sea barf.  I mean sea urchin.  At least I tried it, which is the rule around our dinner table.

Two weeks ago we had three days where I’m pretty sure Jake and Nate ate more “exotic” foods than my work colleague has eaten in several years…  It started with James’ birthday when we went out for sushi.  James ordered calamari, which Nate excitedly declared as octopus.  Both of the kids only wanted legs, which frankly I was happy to oblige as I’ve never been a fan of the legs.  I’ve always preferred the innocuous chewy Cheerio-shaped calamari.  Nate ate all the complimentary soba noodles and some salmon.  Of course the meal culminated in green tea ice cream— a household favorite.  The next day when we recapped our outing with Nonna, she was pretty skeptical of the merits of green tea ice cream.

Recently Jakey told me his favorite meat is buffalo.  “I just love buffalo, Mom.”  It’s a standard weekly ingredient in Dad’s spaghetti sauce.  I try not to think about it too much as I still feel squeamish after several childhood visits to Casa de Buffalo.  Fortunately Casa de Fruta has eliminated that attraction.

The next day was graduation day and full of more celebrations and feasting.  The boys can easily be counted on to knock back bowls of edamommy (as Granddad calls it) and two orders of Korean sticky ribs.  If I was Japanese I would totally change the name of this blog to Edamommy.

On Friday of that week, my work team took me out to celebrate my last lunch with them before moving on to a new job.  We had Spanish food and I brought home the leftovers: chorizo, paella, grilled octopus, and prawns with the head still on.

Nate decided to eat the prawn head, antennae and all, despite my recommendations not to.  He told me they’re good and crunchy.  But then he found out that there was only one octopus leg and Jake had already eaten it.

“Where’s my octopus leg?” he asked, on the verge of disappointed tears.

No matter how high my hopes were for raising adventurous eaters, I never could have hoped for that.

Jacob’s favorite breakfast: lox, toast w/ ketchup and a poached egg.  The lox was the same size as that giant piece of toast.