First, a daycare worker in Manitoba followed a well-intentioned, if misapplied, policy to ensure that children are given a well-balanced meal and the internet broke. Ritz crackers as a grain?! How stupid is that!
At the same time, there is this New York Times article on rich Manhattanites hiring an exclusive nanny consulting service to teach their nannies how to cook healthier and more sophisticated dishes for little Imogen and Atticus. Mr. Leandro, one of the founders of the service, was quoted as saying, “Some of these nannies already do the cooking in the family, but they’re throwing chicken fingers in the oven, or worse, the microwave — they’re doing the bare minimum.” And feeding children the easy way is clearly not good enough for one mother featured in the article who “wanted her daughter to adopt a more refined and global palate, whether it’s a gluten-free kale salad or falafel made from organic chickpeas.”
So, pretty much: The poor people I pay to take care of my children are feeding them poor people foods!
come by on a moment’s notice. I know, I know … it only takes a few minutes to steam some carrots or broccoli. And once your kid has enough teeth, it’s easy enough to slice up some raw peppers to go with those celery and carrot sticks. Still, fruits and vegetables require that much more forethought than your other food groups. That’s probably why I can usually dish up a nutritionally balanced dinner, but am always scrambling for veggie content at lunch. If we’re out and about it’s tricky to find veggies that aren’t a salad. (Colum’s not so good with the leafy greens.) And when we’re home I’m usually trying to whip something up in under 15 minutes to get lunch in before nap time.
is under attack for having a few unusual recipes in common with another best-selling cookbook, 
, by Missy Chase Lapine. For the record, then, any similarity between this post and the content of any cookbook is entirely coincidental. (How banal would that cookbook be? First boil the water, then drop in the pasta …) Let me go further. The very premise of pureeing spinach and adding it to brownies (a recipe common to both books) strikes me as ridiculous. Part of what we’re trying to accomplish as parents is an appreciation for vegetables and healthy eating that will last for life. If you’re so far gone that you need to completely disguise vegetables, then you’ve already lost. (Partially disguising them is perfectly fine, though. If the cheese sauce or ketchup or ranch dressing or whatever helps the vegetables go down, at least your kids know they are enjoying vegetables!) Not that I’ve read either book.