Feeding Babies

Jack is being picky with his food. He insists on feeding himself which is positive, but he's stubborn about textures and temperatures.

If his acini di pepe with cheddar and broccoli isn't warm enough, he pushes his plate away. If the blueberry yogurt turns up a whole blueberry, he spits it out.



His intake is sufficient because his output is abundant. I know he's fine, but I understand how feeding babies is a recipe that calls for doses of worry, work, patience, love and satisfaction folded gently together so the light, airy experience of eating doesn't get heavy and unworkable. There's no room in this delicate balance for toxins or chemicals.

I fed Jack this morning while reading that a fourth baby died today in China due to contaminated infant formula. More than 1,300 babies are currently hospitalized, and 6,200 have been sickened by tainted milk powder.




The root of the problem is melamine, a chemical used for adhesives and flame retardants. On Monday, two brothers were arrested for watering down the milk they sold with chemicals to enhance their quality checks and recover losses from earlier milk shipments that had been rejected.

The US FDA website issued a health information advisory on the infant formula that says, "This is to assure the American public that there is no known threat of contamination in infant formula manufactured by companies that have met the requirements to sell infant formula in the United States."

I've been engrossed lately in a website called, "The Food Timeline," which was created by Lynne Olver who's a reference librarian. She started the site as a response to frequent requests for help locating food history and period recipes at the Morris County Library (Whippany, NJ). It's a fascinating site that includes the following entry on the history of American baby formula.

"Food historians generally agree that manufactured baby food, as we know it today, was a byproduct of the European Industrial Revolution. The first mass-produced baby foods were invented by scientists/nutrition experts and manufactured in the mid-19th century by innovative companies. These were infant formulas, substitutes for mother's milk. At that time, tainted milk was often connected with infant mortality. Then, as now, there was much controversy regarding the use of artifical baby food. Ideas regarding amounts, timing, and what consitituted a healthy diet have likewise changed." from The Food Timeline.

Amazing how history keeps rolling full circle.

Nugget o' the Moment: When we serve the smart little pistol Jack anything he simply doesn't like, he fans his hand in front of his face and says, "Ooo hot. Hot."

Acini di Pepe des Bebes
"Acini," as we call it shorthand, is simply pearl pasta. We've given it to all the babies and even served it as a dinner sidedish.

8 ounces Acini di pepe pasta
1/2 cup grated cheese, we use sharp cheddar
1 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup whole milk
approx. 10 steamed broccoli florettes, chopped finely

1. Boil pasta per package instructions. Drain and pour back in to pot.
2. Add butter, cheese, milk and broccoli. Stir until well incorporated.
3. Serve when cooled.
You can also add marinara sauce to the whole mix to change up the flavors.

The Costco Crud

This is my new magnet on my fridge.
It's a gift from my friend.
And it's how I feel when I get back from Costco.

When I worked in Arkansas, there was a woman who came to work dragging during flu season. She moaned and insisted, "Oh, it's just the crud."

Well, that's how I feel after I go to Costco. I moan and get grumpy. I feel achy and want to say, "Oh, it's just the Costco crud."

Today, Jack and I hit the warehouse on the hunt for some family staples. Unlike my trip to Whole Paycheck, I stick to my list. It's because temptation is tempered by quantity. I love a good Lindt mint chocoalte bar like the next girl, but buying nine pounds turns me off.

There's also something about that place that zaps my energy. Yes, it could be the airplane hangar scape of endlessly high palettes of bulky purchases. Or it could be the interrogation lighting that makes me feel a little sick and guilty when Jack and I eat free cheesecake samples at ten in the morning. The guy insisted we try the mango one. Really.

Maybe I don't like it because it's artificial work for food. It's not like I'm harvesting, growing or supporting a local food chain. Maybe it's because I lug 256 fluid ounces of orange juice, six pound hunks of ground beef, 60 ounces of organic peanut butter and almost a pound of cinnamon from the depths of the warehouse to my car and up the driveway and in to the house.

I lose my lust for food in this place. I want to shout, "Life is too short to cook for you people!" Just like my new magnet. And then I want to buy frozen fried spinach balls and pizza with buckets of ice cream and call it a meal. It makes it so easy.

But no ... I stick to Fresh Mouth. I buy French cut green beans, broccoli florettes - three pounds of them - and gallons of organic milk. Jack and I load up the car and lug in our basics in bulk, and I drive home thinking how much I want a mint chocolate bar.

Nugget o' the Moment: "Calories consumed standing up don't count." - the guy at Costco doling out the cheesecake chunks.

Costco Curry Shrimp
This was an adaption of a "real simple" dinner I saw in a magazine like Real Simple or something ... anyway it's brought to you tonight thanks to Costco. It was great and really, really simple ... and a change in our culinary palette.

2 carrots from the gigantic Costco bundle, diced
1 onion leftover from the last Costco run, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped (I didn't see garlic at Costco this time)
1 of the zillion cups of rice in the Costco bag
2 cups of water, get these from your tap
2 teaspoons of curry that isn't available in bulk at our Costco
20 shrimp ... this equates to about 3 of the 11 servings of cooked shrimp in the Kirkland Signature Shrimp bag from Costco
Handful chopped parsley, we got this from our backyard
Salt and pepper to season

1. Chop carrots, onions and garlic and saute in olive oil over medium heat in large sauce pan for about eight minutes.

2. Add one cup of rice and two cups of water. Bring to a boil. Stir in two teaspoons of curry powder.

3. Let mixture boil for two minutes, and then turn heat down to simmer for 15 more minutes.

4. Add Costco cooked shrimp and cook for five to ten more minutes.

5. Plate and garnish with chopped parsley, salt and pepper.

The Corn Incident - The Food Mistakes We Make

Here's the apple crisp results from last night.
We reduced the sugar amounts and added extra cinnamon.

We all remember the corn incident.

"Mom, remember when you made me eat corn, and I puked ... everywhere," Aidan says squinting and wrinkling his nose as punctuation to the horror of the scene and my major maternal misstep.

"Oh, yes, Aidan. I remember," I say crinkling my nose right back to him.

He was four. It was dinner. The power struggle began when Aidan caught sight of five yellow kernels and pushed his plate across the table.

"You're going to eat corn tonight," I said.

I know corn is hardly the juggernaut of healthy vegetables and was not the commodity worth trading for a family dinner scuffle, but he was turning off to every green food, and this was one of the last veggie hold outs.

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Eat some corn or you lose your walk after dinner and our trip to the dairy farm on the weekend."

He picked at the corn and after a few slow-motion minutes, he added his meager allotment to a spoon. He swallowed them whole without chewing. We were all silent. Within two seconds, he roared a tremendous lion growl that actually made Patrick jump. Then he threw up all of the contents of his belly including the five whole yellow nubs all over our plates.

We were mutually horrified. I set him up to fail, and I felt disgusted with myself for being so insistent and pushing him to that kind of response. He cried because it was such a dramatic physical reaction and only the second time in his little life that he threw up.

I walked right over to him, pulled his dirty shirt off and hugged him. He looked up at me with teary eyes and a pukey mouth and said, "I will never eat corn again."

And he hasn't. Ever.

And I never force them to eat anything. Ever.

This is just one of my many "messed up mommy" moments and one of the top food mistakes parents make. A great New York Times article from this week notes:

“Parents say things like ‘eat your vegetables and you can watch TV,’ but we know that kind of thing doesn’t work either,” said Leann L. Birch, director of Penn State’s childhood obesity research center and a co-author of the study. “In the short run, you might be able to coerce a child to eat, but in the long run, they will be less likely to eat those foods.” More.

The piece also details a list of six common mistakes parents when trying to feed their kids which include:

1. Sending children out of the kitchen.
2. Pressuring them to take a bite.
3. Keeping ‘good stuff’ out of reach.
4. Dieting in front of your children.
5. Serving boring vegetables.
6. Giving up too soon.

If there's anything we've learned from Fresh Mouth, it's that you can't give up. By keeping up this ongoing experiment, the kids are more conscious and really making better choices. They still catch sight of a Pilsbury cinnamon roll can and clamor for the Doughboy, but overall eating has drastically improved.

Our biggest challenge is Aidan. He's still a pretty limited-diet kind of guy, but the limited food is all mostly healthy food. His top favorites include raspberries, blueberries, peanut butter, hamburgers, grilled chicken, homemade bread and apples. Vegetables don't rank high on his list, but he is trying them. To his credit, too, he's also been the one that most often turns away any artificial and processed foods.

I agreed this year to letting them both buy lunch at school. Boy, do I regret that. The choices are abysmal. Even the kids agree that the home lunches are a better option even though the lure of a fried nugget is unbearably tempting for Patrick. We're shaking up our packed lunch options so the kids don't get bored.

We found a great site called Meal Matters that offers back-to-school meal ideas and tips. Check it out.

Send us your best "packed" lunch idea to try!

Nugget o' the Moment: "Although obesity dominates the national discussion on childhood health, many parents are also worried that their child’s preferred diet of nuggets and noodles could lead to a nutritional deficit." - NYTimes article, "6 Food Mistakes Parents Make"

The Tempting Apple

We picked apples in Thomas Jefferson's backyard. Up a winding wooded mountainside just minutes from Monticello sits Carter Mountain Orchard and vineyards. Jefferson's favorite variety was the Taliaferro apple, which is now presumed to be extinct, so we indulged in the harvest of dozens of Galas, Golden Delicious and Jonagolds.


Aidan used the tools for picking the high ones, and Patrick went low. The little hunter gatherers collected about twenty pounds of apples so if you have recipes, send them along.


We told the kids they had to rub their apples off before they ate them because the orchard isn't organic.

"They're right from the tree, Mom. They're not dirty," Aidan said.

"Well, I think these are probably sprayed with some type of pesticides, Aid," I said.

"No, these are all natural ... from the tree."

"When you spray with any kind of chemical, it's natural, yes, but not organic. You need to wipe or rinse them. Actually, you really should rinse or wipe any fruit."

"Nah, these are fine."

He was in denial. The idea that invisible pesticides or other oogies could taint his all-natural apple experience was too much. He picked and ate with abandon. I let it go for the moment. Afterall, we all construct our own narratives, right? Eat the apple. Don't eat the apple. That timeless tempting question has gotten more than one of us in trouble before. So, I rubbed all the fruit when he wasn't looking, including the four Jack ate.


Dirk interpreted Rene Magritte's painting of man with apple ... I said it was more firing squad than Son of Man.

He said, "Cool it there, Eve."


No sooner did he stand from this shot than a two-foot black garden snake emerged from the grass and slithered across our path. The boys got too close. I yelled to them to back off, and then I started to take a picture. For some reason, I just couldn't.

I said, "Hey, Adam, I'm ready to call it a day."



Dirk and I walked the kids around the snake and through the neat rows of apple trees back to the barns. The day was hot with temperatures hovering in the low 90s. Not crisp sweater September weather. More like smoothie September weather. We cooled off with fresh peach and muscadine grape ice slushes and apple cider doughnuts.

There we were in the warm splendor of the sun, full with fruits of the garden, overlooking some of America's most fertile soil, and all we could talk about was the snake.

Nugget o' the Moment: "I couldn't stop watching that snake." - Patrick at once intriqued and repelled.

Here's what I'm making tomorrow:

Cinnmon Apple Crisp
from Bon Appetit, March 1993

1 cup firmly packed golden brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
3 1/2 pounds Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, sliced
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1. Preheat oven to 450°F. Butter 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Combine brown sugar and cinnamon in large bowl. Add apples and toss to coat. Transfer apple mixture to prepared dish.

2. Combine flour, 1 cup sugar and butter in medium bowl. Using pastry blender or fingertips, blend ingredients until coarse meal forms. Spread flour mixture evenly over apples.

3. Bake crisp 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Bake crisp until apples are tender and topping is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

The Right to Choose

There's power in choice. This week Aidan and Patrick begged me to buy lunch from the "big boy" cafeteria. I packed them milk and some fruit, and they could choose their "entrees."

I suggested pizza or even a hamburger. Maybe add a yogurt?

"What did you get for lunch today?" I asked in the car on the way home.

"A chicken patty, Mom!" Patrick said as if I should be impressed.

"Really, what else?"

"A soft cinnamon sugar pretzel," Patrick said.

"So you ate a soft pretzel with sugar and some chicken?"

"Well, I didn't eat the chicken because it tasted funny, but I ate the roll," he said again as if I should be impressed.

"Aidan, what did you eat?" I asked.

"No yogurt."

"Why?" I asked.

"It's Trix yogurt and it looked like it had dye in it. I only ate chicken, but I got one of those pretzels. They're really good," he said.

I can't entirely fault them. Lunch lines, hair nets and ladels of unidentifiable meat casseroles are the flashback images of my school lunches. Today's cafeteria is serving up a ton of options - a lot more than the old bloated, sweating hot dogs in silver chargers. Too many fried foods and "all natural" smoothies filled with sugar. It's a processed food party with plenty of granola bars and chips. So, we're sticking with "home" lunches for now.

When I went to back-to-school night, the kindergarten teacher requested that parents write down what kids can choose to help guide them in the lunch-hour rush. She said that without a little guidance, the majority of kindergartners who purchased their lunches ate "bacon and corn" the first week. She also said the kids weren't being pressured to purchase, but there was a subtle up-sell push among the food service staff. Sell more. Eat more.

Meanwhile, Jack's boycotting solids. He's eating pureed and "smooth" food with a flourish. Anything that has consistency is rolled out of his mouth. He chooses the soft stuff. So, I'm still offering yogurts and pureed carrots and spinach with diced carrots and cheese. We keep plugging along.

Did cave mothers have it this complicated? Throw them a little marrow and berries and call it a day.

Nugget o' the Moment: "Mom, you would love soft cinnamon sugar pretzels." - Aidan extolling the virtues of the lunch room loot.

Australian as Mom and Apple Pie

There's pie in Perth. My parents relocated from the land-locked state of Arkansas to the coastline of Western Australia in May. They're really far from us now, but there's comfort knowing that the first thing they did to wink to America was inaugurate their oven with an apple pie.

Both of my parents bake their own version of the same pie. Dad's are gigantic envelopes of steamy, sugary apples dripping in cinnamon. Mom opts for a drier version with bigger chunks of apples and less abundant crust. They're both good and very them.

When I was little, every fall weekend included pie and a drive. Now, my parents are tracking the coastline exploring local foods and the exotic wildlife. Where we once spotted Holsteins and ate apples through New Jersey countryside, they're now keeping the kangas at bay and buying local mandarine oranges along the road.

Mom's keeping us posted with Australian recipes, photos and the culinary difference of here and there. Stay tuned for some more food from down under.


The new view on Sunday drives!

Nugget o' the Day: "The carrots are so big here they're more suited to horses!" - Mom at the market in Perth.

Riley Apple Pie
For the crust
2/3 cup of butter
1 1/2 - 2 cups of flour
dash of salt
dash of sugar
approximately 1/8 cup of ice water
1 egg for an egg wash

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

1. Fork butter, flour, sugar and salt together until a crumbly mixture forms.
2. Add drops of ice water until a soft, cohesive ball forms. Less is more - less water, less handling the better the crust.
3. Form two balls - one for the bottom and one just slightly larger for the top.
4. Roll out on a lightly floured surface. Remember less handling the better. Add the smaller roll to the bottom of the pie pan.
5. Once pie is assembled, brush entire crust with an egg wash

For the filling
12 peeled, diced apples - go for the Jonathans, Jonagolds or Golden Delicious kinds
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Peel and dice apples and place right in the pan with the rollout dough.
2. Add lemon juice right over the apples.
3. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and pour over apples.
4. Turn the apples and dry ingredients right in the pie crust gently.
5. Add the top of the crust to the apples. And if you're feeling fancy take a little extra crust and make an extra little apple design for the top.
6. Fork some holes in the top of the crust for steam to escape.
7. Place pie plate on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 for about an hour or until crust becomes golden.

Madness Among Veggies and Cows

Cuke is still kickin'. By the grace of some decomposition deity, the veggie is still with us even though it's been three weeks since he was plucked from his prickly vine. His skin is patched by a few brown age spots, and his permanent features penned by a Sharpie are less crisp, but still clear. He looks good for a rotting vegetable his age.

Patrick rescued him twice from compost - once during a troubling thunderstorm that caused concern about his fear and once during a bout of nostalgia. Patrick just missed him.

Now restricted to the kitchen, he occupies a spot in a wooden bowl on a cloth napkin so he's comfortable. He's part of our family. We're all used to him and shuffle the cereal box around him and move dishes out of the way to glimpse his condition. Patrick is keenly aware of his position. At dinner tonight, we shifted him to serve the meal, and Dirk actually looked me square in the eye and said with his serious surgeon's tone, "Move Cuke over there so nothing spills on him."

"Fer sure," I said.

At this point, we're looking at chilled cucumber soup with mint or mysterious ascension in to the great produce stand in the sky.

We may be mad dealing with veggies like this, but a federal court ruling in favor of the USDA regarding Mad Cow Disease is actually more troubling:

"The dispute pits the Agriculture Department, which tests about 1 percent of cows for the potentially deadly disease, against a Kansas meatpacker that wants to test all its animals. Larger meatpackers opposed such testing. If Creekstone Farms Premium Beef began advertising that its cows have all been tested, other companies feared they too would have to conduct the expensive tests." More. - from The Associated Press.

We've been eating organic beef as much as possible, but I wondered after reading this if organic cattle had ever been linked to Mad Cow. The Organic Consumers Association has an FAQ page that explains organic beef is safer than conventional beef in the US. The site notes that there were cases in Europe where cattle on some of the organic farms had Mad Cow, but after further inquiry, investigators found that the cattle weren't born on organic farms. They had been purchased elsewhere. Check it out. The association also explains how beef in this country earns its organic label.

Also, check out our new poll about organics.

We ate wild Alaskan salmon for dinner. Recipe follows, too.

Nugget o' the Moment: "Start renegotiations!" - tens of thousands of South Koreans protesting import of US beef in to their country this July.

Salmon with Mustard a la Martha
- an adaptation of a Martha Stewart recipe

good size portion of Wild Alaskan salmon
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1/4 cup flat leaf parsley
juice of one lemon
1/2 cup bread (we used half an old bagel)

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. In a food processor, chop bread and parsley.

3. Spread Dijon mustard over top of salmon. Top mustard with parsley and breadcrumb mix.

4. Squeeze juice of one lemon over breadcrumb mixture.

5. Bake salmon for eight minutes at 450 degrees.

Whole Paycheck Eating

The seduction began with shiny metal carts. When I put Jack in the buggy at the newly opened Whole Foods in Richmond, he cooed, "Oooo. Wow." Then he nodded in approval until I nodded back.

The tiered rows of fresh sunflowers in the entryway also earned an, "Ahhh. Fi fi - fowers." When we passed the stacks of hundreds of ripe plums, he insisted, "Balls! Balls!" I rubbed one clean and offered him his first taste of the fruit. After he broke through the skin and hit the soft rusty insides, he hummed. He was taken with the place.

So was I. In the days when we were DINKS - dual income and no kids - Dirk and I used to shop at "Whole Paycheck" in Boulder and indulge in everything from $5 bags of organic gourmet kettle corn to $15 wedges of cheese. We've been without the store and with kids for years so when we witnessed the "Now Open" sign plastered on the new expansive box-top store side, we decided to make a trip back.

I can't shop there without a plan and a list. If I just go in cold, I get a serious case of attention deficit disorder paired with impulse shopping. Then I end up with a $100 hodge podge of snacks and extras and no meals.

The perfection of the place is mesmerizing and disorienting. You're off track as soon as you start. There are walls with stacked produce mosaics. There are beckoning opaque plastic containers of cubed fruit in convenient bite sizes. There are pastries you didn't even realize were your all-time favorite. There's lavendar soap that evokes your past life at the Petit Trianon in France and demands that you take it home for $7 a bar.



Armed with our list as a meager defense against all the edible wall art, Jack and I went for pot roast and veggies. We scored a three-pound cut of the meat and an admirable selection from the Great Wall of Broccoli. We also ended up with organic chocolate cake mix, two dozen crimson gold apples, a bottle of herbs de provence vinaigrette, frozen Chinese vegetable dumplings, organic arugula, two cartons of raspberries and a Vermont chocolate bar with peppermint chunks. None of this was on the list.

All the other shoppers were so quiet and cool. They breeze their carts up and down the aisles like they came shopping expressly for dark chocolate with sea salt . They add hunks of fig cake with hazelnuts and Indian naan to their collections and pass me buy to hit the seafood counter.

Everyone's quiet because it's all so indulgent, irresistible and abundant. It's all there for the taking. And it's easy to spend the whole paycheck when you're seduced.

Nugget o' the Moment: "Oooo. Wow." - a seventeen-month old at the sight of Whole Foods Market.

Plain Old Pot Roast
by Eileen

3 pounds chuck roast
1 cup vegetable stock
1 cup red wine
3 carrots, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
4 celery stalks, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
5 sprigs of thyme
olive oil
salt and pepper

1. Heat olive oil at medium-high heat in a large pan. Salt and pepper all sides of chuck roast. When pan is hot, sear all sides of meat. Once seared, remove meat and add to a Dutch oven or covered baking dish.

2. Reduce pan heat to medium. Add onions, carrots, celery and garlic. Saute until soft - about eight minutes. Add stock red wine, tomato paste and thyme leaves. Stir and simmer together for 5 minutes.

3. Pour over meat in Dutch oven. Add big extra chunks of carrot and onion (even potatoes) to the pot if desired. Cook for two hours at 325 degrees.