culinary leanings

violet started rejecting the spoon this week, with the exception of her very favorite purees, so we've been ramping up the finger foods. it's bittersweet for me that i'll soon have to retire my trusty beaba, but it's pretty exciting to watch her decide what she wants to eat when presented with a tray of options. i'm sure i'll regret having said that once toddlerhood hits and "what she wants to eat" is cheese, period.



here's what's on the menu lately:

favorites: sweet potatoes, snap peas, green peas, mango-banana sauce, puffs, dada's meatballs, waffles.

likes: cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, zucchini and yellow squash, winter squash, bread, strawberries, peaches, plums, blueberries, cantaloupe, green beans, hummus, black beans from loteria (mmm illicit salt), mozzarella from los olivos cafe (with a hint of olive tapenade, mmm illicit salt), roasted corn (off our new grill!) pureed with veg stock.

so-so: carrots, spinach, watermelon, honeydew, applesauce, pears.

no thanks: potatoes (with butter!), rice cereal (but remember you used to like it!), plain yogurt, cherries (despite a stockpile of frozen puree that now goes in "my" yogurt that you refused).

gag: avocado, egg yolk, figs.

we already spend a lot of money on food. on the lynn family budget, food ranks third after rent and child care costs. some months it may even rank second (what's up sushi takeout?). i'm a little afraid for the future of our grocery bills, but then if you ask me what's the number one thing i want to spend money on, it's food. then retirement savings. then cardigan sweaters. (booze goes into the same category as food.)

and we want our kid to eat well, so we'll be fighting the good fight in the whole foods parking lot as long as we can afford it.

if you're reading this, you probably know that i haven't eaten beef and poultry for twenty years, while kevin is a committed meat eater (who probably doesn't eat as much as he'd like due to my influence in our kitchen). i've got my reasons (ethical, economic, nutritional), just as kevin's got his (delicious), and we want violet to figure out her reasons on her own.

so my awesome husband has been making meatballs for her, first beef, then chicken. i'm perfectly willing to cook meat for her - i did for kids i nannied for while in college - but obviously kevin's going to be better at it. his baby's beef meatballs are made with spinach, and the chicken ones have onions, garlic, and cornmeal. violet gobbles them up. GOBBLES. i can already picture her wolfing down a dodger dog with dada while i stumble around the stadium in search of a pretzel from the warmer.

the four-legged members of the family have been benefiting from violet's still developing pincer grasp (and well developed eagerness to throw everything on the floor). but even they wouldn't eat the figs. which work nicely in plain yogurt with defrosted cherry puree, if i do say so myself.