Squirting Flavor

In this household of five people, three of the five are extremely picky.  That would be Dave, Lucy and John - with Dave and Lucy being the worst.  It wouldn't be so bad if they all were picky about the same types of foods, but that's not the case.  Dave dislikes anything with onion, tomato, or peppers but will occassionally eat tomato soup from a can and loves plain old meat and potatoes.  Lucy cannot stand any type of potato except French Fries and hashbrowns - yet I'll make Cheesy Hashbrowns and she won't eat them.  John basically frowns and complains about anything I make - except pizza.  But at least he'll usually eat the food on his plate whereas Lucy has gagged and thrown up on more than one occassion at the dinner table.  It's to the point where Dave and I look at each other and smile as she starts gagging on her potatoes.  (Just so you know I'm not a totally awful parent, the first ten or so times she gagged I rubbed her back and talked her through it.  See, I'm not all bad.)

But I'm tired of cooking and having at least one person complain about it. Even as one complains, another is happy about the meal.  For example, I made Grandpa's Goulash (spaghetti noodles, tomato soup, and hamburger) recipe this weekend - Sophie was ecstatic while John and Lucy complained.  Dave, smart man, kept quiet.

It's been a long week here - with temperatures never seeming to reach above -20 degrees, Dave away in Philadelphia, and ballet practice going on three hours a night/each night. Throughout it I've been very conscious of making a good supper to last the girls through ballet practice. Last night it was chicken stew with dumplings - a hearty and warm meal, right?!

There were complaints all around. The dumplings had parsley in them (yes, I realized the parsley was a mistake the minute I added it to the flour) and there were corn and peas in the stew. And as Lucy said, "Didn't you know we didn't like this last time we had it? It was Dakota who liked it." (That's another story.)

Sophie at least ate most of it - her chief complaint being the dumplings didn't look the same as when she'd made them and they didn't taste as good either. But I was pretty frustrated with Lucy and John - and resorted to the timer. They had five minutes to eat and whatever they ate in that five minutes was all they got to eat for the rest of the night. They started eating - and talking - and eating.

As I washed the pots, I heard John say he wished there weren't such things as peas because they didn't have any flavor. And then he added, "But at least you can't taste them." To which Lucy replied, "They squirt though - they squirt flavor."

With my back to the kids I smiled - she had it right. Peas do squirt flavor and I, for one, love that squirt of flavor. Hopefully, one day she and John will too. In the meantime I'll just keep trying... and trying... and trying.