Parenthood

MY4SONS

MY4SONS is my vanity license plate and has served me well as my good luck charm. That license plate helped me get out of minor traffic violations more than once as the police offers felt sympathy for me having to raise four boys. I always played along, lamenting about how stressful my life was and they bought it. I always felt a little guilty about my disingenuous, hyperbolic stories, but it saved me some coin and a rate hike on my insurance, so I got over it.

So, when I had the ambitious idea of writing a cookbook featuring all of family’s favorite recipes, MY4SONS was to be its title. My angle was to include only those recipes that all six of us enjoyed and brought joy to the family dinner table. It ended up being a very short book. Sadly, only two recipes made the cut.

I am blessed with a husband who will eat virtually anything that is put in front of him. That is, if it isn’t chocolate. I know! Who doesn’t love chocolate?! I learned about this idiosyncrasy when we were first dating. It was almost a deal breaker, but I went ahead and married him anyway, figuring that there would always be plenty of chocolate for me and I wouldn’t have to share. I also learned that he really didn’t care for sweets of any kind, either. I thought that he had the strangest eating peculiarities out there, that is, until I became a mother.

Trust me; it was not for lack of trying that I could not come up with more than macaroni and cheese and cheese pizza for my cookbook. Joel and I established very early in our careers as parents that we would not be short order cooks. We exposed our children to all kinds of food and insisted that they at least give everything a try. Our efforts over the years proved to be epic failures.

As a child, my parents would not let us get up from the table until we licked our plates clean. Many breakfasts were spent with tears dripping into my soggy bowl of Cornflakes. Too many dinners consisted of holding my nose as I tried to swallow the greenish-gray orbs which at one time were peas, but ended their lives in a can. As I sat at the dinner table, I swore that when I became a mother, I would never force my children to eat what they didn’t like. Easier said than done, as is the case most parenting declarations.

I had high hopes that as our sons’ taste buds matured, dinner time would be easier. Wrong again! Calling our teenage boys to dinner was akin to a call to arms. Feeling the effects of battle fatigue, Joel and I would salvage what we could in our quest for a pleasant dinner experience by waving the white flag and telling them that if they didn’t like what was served, they could go get themselves a bowl of cereal. We bought boxes of cereal in bulk – just saying.

Every parenting manual, book, and article I read, in addition to parent education classes and casual conversations with other moms about this subject proved worthless for me. These “experts” clearly had never met MY4SONS.

JASON – Ah, our first born. As rooky parents, we thought if we followed the instruction manuals we could mold him into a healthy eater but, it didn’t take. His dislikes are:

Cooked green vegetables

All peppers except for green bell peppers

Wheat bread

Nacho cheese

Ricotta and blue cheese

Mushrooms

Sausage

Ham

Beans

Cooked fish

Crab

Lobster

Creamy soups and sauces

JONATHAN – Our least picky eater and the one whose DNA most closely matches mine when it comes to food adventures. Throughout his extensive travels for work and school (39 countries at last count) he has yet to meet a food that he doesn’t like, except for the following:

Black licorice

Warm pineapple (as on pizza)

Fish sticks

JACOB – I am not really sure that he’s our child; he may have been switched at birth! He is a world class triathlete and marathon runner, yet eats with so many limitations. I can only imagine how many gold medals would be wrapped around his neck if he would just eat a tomato! I am quite certain that this is not a comprehensive list, but his dislikes are (in his words):

Tomatoes in anything (except pizza sauce is ok, though pizza is usually better without it)

Milk

Ranch dressing

Really just all condiments in general are disgusting, so ketchup, mustard, relish, etc.

Weird vegetables like eggplant and squash

Olives

Refried beans (maybe they were good when they were fried the first time and we are just wasting our time)

Avocado

Hummus

Weird cheeses like blue cheese or goat cheese

Cheesecake

Pickles

Sour cream

Mayonnaise (Nothing ruins a PERFECT food item as much as mayonnaise or sour cream)

JUSTIN – He, like Jonathan, was fairly easy to cook for, that is until he became a pescatarian (something to do with a philosophy class) So, anyway, his dislikes are listed below:

Factory farmed meat

Oysters

Green olives

Now, review the above lists, create a matrix, an Excel spreadsheet, or whatever, and I challenge you, my friendly reader, to come up with something other than macaroni and cheese and cheese pizza that everyone would eat.

So, in an attempt to achieve world peace (or at least peace in our home), I came up with a solution which softened the dinner time combat just a bit – deconstruction. I would prepare all of the ingredients, set them all out in separate bowls on the table, and everyone would take just the ingredients that were acceptable to their palates. We would have taco bars, pasta bars, potato bars, soup bars, etc. This method worked well for virtually every meal. You may be thinking that it is a lot of extra cleanup with so many extra serving bowls and spoons, and that I, as a mom should not spoil my children and go to all of that extra work. Oh, but it’s really not my problem. You see, I’m a mom and naturally a little devious and quite clever when it comes to these types of matters. The long standing, indubitable household rule is that the person who cooks does not have to clean! So, while everyone else is in the kitchen cleaning up, I’m sitting on the couch with my feet up and enjoying a favorite digestif. Clever, eh?

As fine as the concept of deconstruction is, it is nice to know that I can order a cheese pizza or lovingly prepare a large bowl of homemade mac and cheese with the angels singing and no one complaining. And, Lord, have mercy on me if anyone in my family becomes gluten or lactose intolerant!