The 19-Month-Old Palate

...in which I generally brag on my daughter. Fair warning.

You hear all of these stories about kids and what poor eaters they are. 'Timmy will only eat fish sticks', or 'Jessica won't touch anything that looks even remotely green.' It's not that I don't believe those parents, and it's not that I don't think they're trying hard enough to coax their child into eating healthy, interesting food. It's just that here, at Casa de Stopster, we don't have to worry about that. As you all know, Maddie's always had a fairly healthy appetite, but what you may not know is that her taste buds are accustomed to a pretty wide range of ingredients.

Miss Thing still loooooves broccoli, but she's also expanded her vegetable repertoire to include corn (or kowns, as she calls them), peas, carrots (sometimes), asparagus, mushrooms, tomatoes (yes, yes, I know they're technically a fruit), onions, peppers of all varieties, and tonight--beansprouts. She'll eat just about any kind of meat you put in front her, adores almost all fruit, and as far as I know, has never met a carb she didn't want to devour. Oh, and she worships fish. Oh, yes. Fish. Whenever I cook anything that swims, she gets her own fillet, which she will stuff into her mouth by the handful. And when she's done, she will demand more. It doesn't even matter how it's prepared--baked, seared, pan-fried. All are fine in Maddie's book.

It probably sounds like I'm bragging, and I am. (To be fair, I warned you at the beginning of the post.) Also, I'm aware of the evil force that is toddler karma, and I know this will probably come back to bite me in the posterior, but I'm pretty proud of the fact that she'll eat good-tasting, good-for-you food. Not that Jon and I really take any credit for it. We do have a fairly strict meal-time policy that if you don't eat what you're given you don't eat, and we do continually offer her a variety of choices, but beyond that, she just seems to like to eat. In fact, one of her new favorite activities is "helping" me cook, and I think it's mostly because she gets to sample small tidbits of whatever I'm making, as we're going along. (By the way, this is a great way to introduce new vegetables to her because when I'm cooking, she'll eat an-y-thing I put in front of her--including plain yogurt, half a lemon, chopped parsley, and raw mushrooms.) Anyway, to sum it all up, I thought I'd share some of her more interesting meal choices over the last few weeks:

Baked fish with tomatoes, corn, and onions over couscous
Polenta with mushrooms, tomatoes, onions and garlic
Pepper steak (stir-fry style)
Tuna casserole (I found a great new, and unusual, recipe, if anyone wants it)
Steak pasta
Creamy salmon pasta
Mu-shu pork with cabbage, carrots, and beansprouts (which it turns out is all just a vehicle for Hoison sauce, but yes, my kid eats Hoisin sauce!)


Since we're on the topic of food, I thought I'd share a couple of photos from our first ever family ice cream outing. It was so unbelievably nice here today that we decided to head out for a little Sylas and Maddy's after dinner. Um, yeah, so not everything we feed her is healthy...but it is good. (Photos by Alaina)