picky picky

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Grocery Shopping with the Kiddo

I really, sincerely appreciated everyone’s thoughtful comments in response to my latest Food Fret. My big takeaway was that I should shut up about food, model the type of eating habits I want Carla to emulate, and try not to worry too much. This is usually the approach I take, and I think it is probably the smartest. That doesn’t mean it isn’t HARD, though. Food and eating are SO FRAUGHT. 

One of the Big Tips you hear repeatedly when you are looking for information about helping your child eat more/better is to take them shopping with you. This is a practice I have been employing for years – and if Carla expresses an interest in trying a food, I am happy to procure it for her. 

(There was the time when she wanted to try a clam, though, and I did end up drawing the line there. For one thing, I have no idea how to cook a clam so that it is remotely edible. For another, I personally do not find clams in any form to be edible. But the clincher was when, through gentle questioning, it turned out that Carla had confused “clam” with “oyster” and her real interest in getting a clam was to see if it had a pearl inside it. I am not researching “how to cook a clam” just so my child can see that it does not produce pearls.)

(I love her, she is so darling.) 

Yesterday, I dragged Carla with me to the grocery store. It was after camp, so she was hungry, and she was very interested in buying food. I said yes to everything she asked for (except ice cream because we are already eating ice cream approximately eight million times a week and we do not need another pint of ice cream in our freezer) and I have washed all the fruit and made sure that everything is on a Carla Eye Level shelf for easy access, and now will anxiously wait to see how much of this bounty she eats. 

I thought you might want to see what she chose. She bagged all of her own groceries, which made it pretty easy to photograph. 

I did not organize the items in a way that makes it easy to see what is what, but I trust you can figure it out. 

  1. Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese: We already had an unopened block of cheese in the fridge, but in my opinion you can never have too much cheese. And cheese has protein and calcium so I am Pro Cheese.
  2. Demi Baguette: Carla ate half of this baguette in the car and the other half for dinner. 
  3. Chobani Flip Cookie Dough Yogurt: Do these have more sugar than I would prefer? Yes. But they are still yogurt, so I let her eat as many as she wants.
  4. Watermelon: I hate watermelon, and I hate preparing a watermelon, and then having pounds of watermelon on hand, so I am happy to pay a convenience fee to buy the super expensive pre-sliced stuff so I don’t have to deal with it. The thing is, I don’t think Carla really likes watermelon either? I think she kind of likes the idea of watermelon. We’ll see if she eats this. 
  5. Fully Cooked Bacon: She ate four slices of this for breakfast this morning, alongside a yogurt. I am choosing to see it as PROTEIN.
  6. Black Seedless Table Grapes: These grapes are teeny tiny, and Carla has – for unknown reasons – been looking for them for AGES. So when we saw them at the store, she immediately requested a carton. When we got home, she said she wanted to eat them the way the Romans did, and then requested that I feed them to her. No thank you, dear. 
  7. Crepes: We had a brief conversation about what she might put IN the crepes, and she said fruit (so I also bought some strawberries, not pictured), so I said why not. This seems like something we may end up not eating, just because they seem kind of labor intensive.
  8. Golden Berries: She grabbed these on a whim, and so far I’m the only one of us who has tried them. They have the texture of a grape tomato but a pleasantly sweet-sour flavor.
  9. Raw Slivered Almonds: This was another impulse buy. As far as impulse buys go, I feel okay about it.
  10. Wax Beans: These are Carla’s favorite kind of string beans. I think they are a decent source of fiber and I am happy with any vegetable she wants to eat.
  11. Ham: Usually the only ham Carla will eat is inside a Lunchable, and I have declined to buy Lunchables anymore except on very rare occasions. But Carla went up to the deli counter herself and asked for the ham and then she ate some for dinner last night. 
  12. Protein+ Spaghetti Noodles: This is Carla’s favorite noodle. She will eat a bowl of spaghetti with some meatballs on the side.
  13. Wholly Guacamole: While Carla eats way more chips than she does guacamole, I am happy to encourage her to eat guacamole. It’s got to be a gateway to avocados, right? (This was on sale, buy one get one free, which is a STEAL for these little packs.)
  14. Cookie: This was another impulse buy. It was at the checkout station and looked delicious, so why not. Carla took a bite, discovered it contained walnuts, and declined to eat any more of it. What a disappointment! 

There were a few things I forgot to photograph!

  • Frozen Meatballs: These were on sale, so I bought two packages. I do not eat ball-shaped foods, but I have no problem with other people doing so. 
  • Parmesan: Apparently Carla will put the powdered parmesan cheese on her pasta at school, so we bought some so she can do so at home. (Typically, she eats pasta with nothing on it. No olive oil, no butter. She won’t even let me salt the water.)
  • Artichoke: The other night, we got takeout for dinner and my meal included a roasted artichoke. Carla TRIED THE ARTICHOKE, pronounced it “not bad” and then requested an artichoke at the grocery store. The jury is out on whether she will eat any of it, but I am hopeful! 
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Dinners This Week

A friend and I were discussing this weekend the tiresome nature of cooking dinner for a family every day. It is just The Worst, isn’t it? And I have a generally very easy audience: my husband will eat anything, and always thanks me for making dinner, even if it wasn’t his favorite thing. My kid eats nothing, so I have to make her separate meals anyway (unless we happen to be eating tacos, which she loves). I recognize that things really could be much worse. 

And yet it is still extremely wearying, to constantly be thinking of what to make and what to buy and then having to do the grocery shopping and prepare the meals and eat them. I am so burnt out. I imagine cooking for a larger family or family members with specific dietary restrictions or limited palates would be completely soul sucking. 

If you are feeling like you simply cannot make one more meal, or deal with a single comment from the people who eat the meals you make, or think up one more thing to make, or face making the same exact thing one more time… well, I have all the empathy in the world. 

And yet. We still must eat. Those of us who are in charge of feeding our families still must feed our families. 

Here’s what I may – or may not! the week is young! – make for dinners in my own house this week. And by the way: we have eaten both sandwiches from Jersey Mike’s and delivery pizza this past weekend alone, and I fully endorse making things easy on yourself and leaning on takeout and/or prepared meals as often as makes sense. The thing is that I do PREFER making meals at home, both because it feels healthier and because it is definitely less expensive. 

Dinners for the Week of January 8-14

  • Beef with Sugar Snap Peas: I haven’t made this in a while, and it’s VERY easy. This is because I buy pre-sliced “stir fry meat” from my grocery store, and a bag of pre-washed sugar snap peas. I also don’t use fresh ginger, I use cubes of frozen ginger which is just as good. My husband isn’t crazy about the sugar snap peas, but he will handle it with grace. 
  • Japanese Curry: My husband found a recipe for this curry in a fairly recent issue of Cook’s Country. The linked recipe is very similar, and has lots of details about choosing the right curry and customizing the dish to your tastes. While the first time I made this, we used potato and carrots. But I hate cooked carrots so passionately that we switched to sweet potato the next time, and threw in some frozen peas at the end. I have also used broccoli, and if my husband wasn’t a factor, I would probably skip one variety of potato. We use the S&B Golden Curry, which has two packages of the sauce mixture. My husband likes to have chicken with this dish as well. Depending on the veggies you use, this does require some chopping… but it is nonetheless extremely easy. I think it would work well with frozen veggies, too, which would cut the prep time way down. 
  • Crockpot BBQ Chicken with Apple Slaw: I will not use the recommended BBQ sauce (Sweet Baby Ray’s) because I hate it; but I will use my favorite grocery store brand. And there is no way that I am adding sugar to this recipe. Otherwise, sounds good and easy and allows my crockpot to do the heavy lifting. 
  • Ramen: This is another super simple, easily customizable recipe. I buy ramen noodles and beef broth and then add whatever things I have on hand that sound good. Usually, I start with some frozen cubes of ginger and a good spoonful of crushed-garlic-from-a-jar in a little bit of oil. Then I throw in some beef stock, the cube of ramen, and whatever veggies seem like they would work well. Edamame (frozen or not) is excellent. Peas are good. I like to slice a red and green bell pepper and throw those in at the end. Broccoli is delicious. The best veggie for this dish is whatever veggie is easiest. If I have leftover salmon or shrimp, I add those too. Then I top with sriracha sauce and scallions (if I have them) and go to town. 
  • Tacos: Even though we do a bunch of toppings – iceberg or Romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions – this is one of the easiest meals I make. I can have it on the table in thirty minutes flat. My mother taught me that you can slow cook taco meat (same recipe, just use less water!) and that makes this even simpler. Plus, everyone in my house will eat tacos. AND we have leftovers, which means my daughter has something for dinner that isn’t chicken nuggets.

That’s it for this week. I hope your meal plan is full of very simple meals. 

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Things I’m Thinking About Thursday

This is the week my parents move to my state, which is extremely exciting. And yet everything – everything!!! – seems to be going wrong for them. I am so furious at the community to which they are moving, which in my opinion seems to have the viewpoint that their clients should feel LUCKY to be paying them money, and should not complain about things like borked timelines and shoddy workmanship and complete lack of transparency about EVERYTHING, because there are a bunch of people lined up and ready to take the abuse that my parents are objecting to. I really could go on and on about their experience, which has been a shitshow and I do not use that word lightly. But I can’t do anything about it, and nor can my parents who have already paid a lot of money for the privilege of being jerked around. My ONLY HOPE is that this moving-in nonsense is all the fault of the one seemingly incompetent person in charge of bringing new residents into the community, and that once my parents are finally settled they will find it to be a lovely place that doesn’t suck. 

Anyway, while my blood pressure surges with impotent rage, I thought I might type some things. 

It’s been a busy few weeks, and the next few weeks don’t seem to have a whole lot of let-up on the busyness front. But it’s very nearly all good busyness, so I’m trying to focus on that and not on the stressy feelings that I get from being so regularly busy.

Realtor Guilt: My husband and daughter and I continue to look for a new house, which is adding to the busyness because it seems like every week or two we have to drop everything to squeeze in a viewing. We are in the excellent position of not needing a new house; our house and neighborhood are wonderful. But we would all like a little more space. And that has become especially clear lately, because we have had one houseguest and will have two more in a couple of weeks and it’s sadly VERY possible that my parents may also need to stay with us instead of in their newly renovated home which was supposed to be done June 1. No, June 6. No, we really promise June 8. We have a guest room; we have two full bathrooms. This is more than many people have! It really shouldn’t be an issue to have a couple of houseguests, and yet it just feels cramped and crowded when we do. My daughter gives up her bathroom so the guests can use it, and uses our bathroom. And it’s fine, it really is, but it would also be SO NICE if we had a separate bathroom that guests could use. Plus I really, really, really want a mudroom. You know how there’s that saying that kitchens and bathrooms sell houses? In my case, a house could have the most gorgeously appointed gourmet kitchen but if it doesn’t have a proper mudroom I’m not buying. 

So we are looking for a house, but it has to be The Exact Right House for us to leave our perfectly wonderful existing home. And that means that we are being SO PICKY. Which leads to my realtor guilt. I love our realtor – she is a very brisk, efficient type of person who gets us in to see whatever we need. But I am a little worried that she secretly hates us. She never acts like it; she’s too much of a pro. But she takes us to see all these spectacular homes and then we find some little stupid thing to nitpick and I wonder if she thinks we are jerking her around. We AREN’T. We actually put an offer in on one of the first houses we had her show us, and she was so surprised that she kept saying, “I didn’t think you were that serious yet!” as we were scrambling to get pre-approved for the mortgage and find a lender and put together an offer on a Sunday night. 

This was several months ago now (and we still think about the house that got away), and we have seen probably close to 20 houses. The market is BONKERS. A house pops up on the MLS and then by the next day, it has five offers – all over asking. So if there’s any chance of getting the house we want, it feels like we have to act immediately. And our realtor is great about getting us in right away, even if that’s at night or on the weekend. I am aware that she chose this line of work, and that this is apparently what the job entails, and that at some point whatever commission she makes must make it worthwhile. But I feel SO GUILTY. 

Earlier this week, we saw a house at, like, eight in the evening. And it was GORGEOUS. The inside was perfection. The neighborhood was lovely. It had a beautiful pool and outdoor eating set up. And yet… the yard was small and not particularly private, and the lot was on a busy road and near the freeway so there was quite a lot of road noise outdoors. Plus, none of the doors seemed to want to stay open, which was odd. Like, you’d open the closet door and then it would slam closed of its own volition; the office had French doors and one was propped open with a door stop and if you opened the other door it closed by itself. THIS IS HOW PICKY WE ARE BEING. 

Anyway. I am just feeling so guilty. Not guilty enough to put an offer in on a house that we aren’t fully in love with, but guilty nonetheless. 

Skin Update: My face has been doing pretty well lately. I went to see the dermatologist and he prescribed me a) an antibiotic to take if I ever have a flare up again and b) a sulphur-based face wash. I haven’t tried the face wash yet. My dermatologist said that it smelled of sulphur while using it, but that the scent goes away once your face is dry. The pharmacist said this is a lie. The pharmacist’s wife, apparently, also has rosacea and so he has been able to give me both his professional opinion on the things I’ve tried as well as his personal experience. He says that the face wash smells revolting and that the smell lingers. “Your partner will be able to smell it,” he said, a look of revulsion on his face. How fun for all of us. 

Also on the topic of my skin, I am still not eating dairy… although I have been trying to add it back into my diet in dribs and drabs. A little half-and-half here or there… A couple of slices of pizza… A taco with a little cheese sprinkled on. I haven’t noticed any big skin differences, so I am going to keep at it. My acupuncturist says that goat and sheep milk have smaller proteins in it than cow’s milk, so I should start there. I didn’t have the heart to tell her about the pizza, with mozzarella that definitely came from a cow. I don’t really MISS dairy, except that I do like pizza and I do occasionally want some mozzarella or goat cheese in my salads. I do sometimes miss yogurt, and I guess maybe the next step is to try a smoothie with yogurt in it. 

Note: I have tried almond milk yogurt, which I do not like, and coconut milk yogurt, which is fine. (I cannot eat soy yogurt, so I haven’t tried it.) But I don’t like these non-dairy options enough for how many calories they have, so I’d rather skip yogurt entirely. Also, I tried almond milk sour cream and it was abominable. 

Summer Movie Watching: My daughter has a gap between the end of school and the beginning of camp, and I plan to spend our time together doing fun things like going for long walks at the dog park and watching movies. I have decided that as long as we are watching a movie together, it doesn’t count as Excess Screen Time. We have already watched Freaky Friday together, which I think went over pretty well, and Bend It Like Beckham which was both racier than I remembered and also kind of boring, and now I want all your mother-daughter movie recommendations. 

I have never seen Little Women, so that’s on my list… but I’m sort of afraid to ruin the book before Carla has a chance to read it. Maybe Thirteen Going On Thirty, which I am pretty sure we watched together several years ago; Carla has no memory of this. Another one we’ve watched together that she doesn’t remember is The Princess Bride, which I would be delighted to watch again. We watched The Labyrinth at some point in the past couple of years, but maybe that would be a good one to rewatch? I’m not as hip to more recent releases, although Carla and I did go to the theatre to see Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (it was just as well done as everyone assured me it would be). Carla loved it and wants to watch it again. 

All movies are fair game. Just please don’t suggest E.T. ; she has thankfully already seen it and that is my most-hated movie of all time, right up there with Space Camp and The NeverEnding Story. (My husband watched the latter with Carla fairly recently; I cannot get past the agonizing death of the horse.) 

I will say that my big bias against movies these days is content about sex and dating. For some reason, that’s what I find myself wanting to “shield” from Carla (although “shield” isn’t quite the right word), more so than anything else. Probably an impulse that requires more in-depth analysis, but I think on the face of it is that so many movies are so casual about sex and romantic relationships and tend to overelevate their importance. Like… Bend It Like Beckham has this whole side plot about the two soccer players both having the hots for their soccer coach. And… why? Why did that have to be a plot point? There was plenty of conflict already, between the protagonist and her parents, between her and her sister. If there had to be conflict between the two friends, why not make it about soccer? Or the protagonist’s refusal to be honest with her parents? And yes, I know that Bend It is also about how the main character’s culture plays up the importance of traditional values of femininity and marriage and wifeliness, but that was super clear without any sort of reference to shagging one’s soccer coach. (Or calling someone a bitch because she tried to kiss said soccer coach, after you specifically told her you didn’t like him!) And yet I am fine with The Princess Bride, I think? That’s a romance, and Buttercup doesn’t have a whole lot of agency if my memory is correct, but it seems different??? Maybe because the movie is an adventure, and yes, true love is the driving force and the reward, but the adventure is really what the movie IS, right? Am I remembering this correctly? 

I don’t know; like I said, I haven’t really examined this bias in any meaningful way yet. Carla is not yet ten. We’ve talked to her about the mechanics of sex and have bought her books that are frank about sex and try to be open about any and all things she’s curious about, so it’s not like sex is a big mystery. Plus, romance and love are wonderful, in fiction and in life, and make for thrilling, excruciating conflict in movies and books. But I guess I don’t love how important sex and dating are in so many movies, especially those from my youth. Maybe I am just hoping to stave off, for a few more years, that all-encompassing, dizzy, yearning feeling of boy craziness I felt from fifth grade straight through until I met my husband???

Calcium Update: Possibly you remember how I regularly freak out about Carla’s poor calcium intake? Well, we have resolved this by simply giving her Tums during the day. (This is what my father suggested a year ago and we have just now come around to it for reasons unknown.) It’s probably not ideal, and she’s probably not getting exactly as much as she needs, but it’s better than nothing. There was a blissful period of time when Carla was regularly eating yogurt. She wanted the yogurt lumps I made back when I was still eating dairy, but they ran out. So she decided to mix raspberry jam and mini chocolate chips into yogurt each morning for breakfast. Yes, I know; high in sugar. But also high in protein and calcium! She has sort of fizzed out on that fad though, but it was really nice while it lasted. 

Home Improvements Inch Forward: One of my aspirations for the past couple of years has been to get our house trim painted. And it is DONE. Well, sort of; the person who painted the trim around the garage somehow only painted the trim that faces the driveway; the trim on the sides is not painted. Looks like he sanded the sides and just… forgot them? The painter in charge assures me he will come back, and I really believe that he believes he will… but I think the nature of the jobs he takes on means that it might be a long while before he gets back to us. For instance, he was able to do the trim the same day I reached out to him because he had another job in my neighborhood and he was waiting on the go-ahead from a larger job. Sigh. I am also hoping to have him paint the front door, which is awful and peeling. In fact, I asked him to paint the door when I asked him to paint the trim and there was some sort of misunderstanding. Anyway I hope that he eventually finishes the job. We shall see. He did our deck last year and it still looks good, so I’m hopeful. 

Birthday Angst Redux: We have finally settled on a birthday party plan for Carla, at long last, and after many permutations. It looks NOTHING like what she requested originally, but she seems happy and excited. The theme for her friend party will be succulents, because why not. (Do not ask me how we got to succulents from wolves.) I am trying to gather the courage to call my awesome local plant store to see if they can source party-favor size succulents for the guests. This is an okay thing to ask, right? I mean, I can order them online from multiple places, but I would much rather support a local business. But maybe they won’t be able to do it? Or maybe they won’t be able to do it as inexpensively as the online options? What then? Do I just spell it out up front: I am looking to spent no more than $X on Y small succulents in small pots – is that something you can do?

Also, Carla still wants a wolf theme for her family party. She wants a wolf head cake, and she drew a very detailed picture of her expectation. And look, I know my strengths and abilities and there is no way I can do something like this. Maybe I should just make the cake she wants and buy this cute topper from Etsy and hope she loves it???? I know that I could possibly call a bakery and ask them to do it, but I don’t know of any local bakeries that do this kind of detailed project and my experience with (okay, just the one) local bakery makes me reluctant to put the whole thing in their hands. Also it’s probably too late now, since I’ve been dithering about this for weeks and her birthday is IMMINENT. Please tell me there is some super! easy! way to do a wolf head that I am overlooking. Maybe I could print out a wolf head silhouette and cut a sheet cake in the shape of it and… it’s going to look awful. 

All right. That’s all I’ve got for today.

What are you thinking about this Thursday?