Family Daze: The Kid Cookbook

Zagat’s Restaurant Guide? The Culinary Club of America? Phooey, I say! Everyone knows there is no more discriminating eaters on this planet than children. From the very second they take their first taste of solids, they become professional connoisseurs with strong opinions about what sort of food is worthy of their palate. And, as any parent will tell you, it’s not much.

But it’s not because children are naturally difficult or fussy eaters. Nooooo. It’s more because their epicurean standards are based on more important things like, say, what color shoes they happen to be wearing. In short, a child’s relationship with food is unpredictable. Granted, understand this doesn’t help us deal with mealtimes any better, but it sure explains why the same child, who’ll scoff at a dinner of filet mignon steaks with Merlot sauce and wild mushrooms, will happily eat a fuzzy purple lollipop that she found underneath the sofa cushions.

Take, for example, my daughter. When she turned two, she developed a strict food criterion: Everything she ate had to be round, crunchy, and colorless.

This left her with only one choice: Cheerios. She ate them dry and in milk. Off her fingertips and from a plate. For breakfast and lunch and dinner. One day, at the height of her infatuation, she made necklaces out of them and ate twenty-four strands, six for each meal.

This was followed by a period where she only ate foods that were lime green, and after that, only crunchy items with just a hint of purple. Finally, she switched to eating just about anything as long as she picked it up off the kitchen floor. Just try explaining THAT to your in-laws at Thanksgiving dinner.

So to save you this same sort of anguish, I’ve narrowed down a list of dishes that are usually a big hit with kids:

Mac and Cheese Au Naturel: Kraft macaroni and cheese, but with all ingredients separate. The noodles are eaten raw and crunchy style with cheese powder sprinkled on the side.

Pancakes Au Jus: frozen pancakes, slightly warmed and dunked in grape juice.

Bologna Fricassee: single slice of sandwich meat finely chopped into exactly nine equal pieces.

Neapolitan Parfait: three flavors of ice cream melted together, mixed with red Jell-O and sipped through a straw.

Potatoes A Latte: French-fries dipped in milk and left to set overnight to achieve "perfect" consistency.

Invisible Souflette: a dish that contains bread crumbs, sour cream, peas, and meat that’s served without any sign of bread crumbs, sour cream, peas, and meat.

Protein Popsicles: corns dogs, still frozen, dipped in mustard.

Chicken a la King: five nuggets served to a child wearing a paper crown. The nuggets, of course, must be slathered in catsup, but not touching each other.

Apple Crisp: vanilla pudding mixed with applesauce and scooped up by a zwieback cookie.

Mushroom Chicken Casserole: bow-tie noodles boiled in unsalted water, put in a bowl and sprinkled with crushed potato chips. If mushrooms or chicken is visible, must immediately be made over.

Potatoes A Bleu: blue Kool Aid poured over mashed potatoes.

Spaghetti: cooked noodles with just a hint of red sauce. Parmesan cheese allowed on the side, but must be consumed separately, by straw or moistened finger, and is strictly forbidden to touch noodles.

Eggs Au Gratin: leftover Easter eggs sprinkled with flavor powder from Kraft macaroni and cheese.

Of course, these dishes aren’t foolproof. I mean sometimes, just when you think their eating habits couldn’t get any worse, kids will shock you and eat something really wild and crazy like, say, lasagna with meat sauce, cheese and noodles all at the same time.

Face it, there’s not much you can do about your child’s eating habits but wait it out and keep setting a good example.

Or you could sneak off to the kitchen and, while wondering if your children will ever eat normally, console yourself with a nice big jar of peanut butter and a bowl of maraschino cherries.

I mean, you just can’t beat that for comfort food.