Here is the latest from my fun and fabulous friend, Mississippi Mama!!!  Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  She is sweeter than Mississippi tea!

I have always prided myself on not having picky children.  They eat all manner of vegetables, tofu, vegetable lasagnas and red beans and rice.  They eat bean stews and carrot cake and love soy milk.  There’s not a restaurant I can think of where there wouldn’t be something they’d like to eat.  HOWEVER.  Not too long ago, one of my darlings was headed out to spend the night at a friend’s house.  The mother reported to me that they’d be grilling burgers and having coleslaw and baked pork and beans. Delicious, right?!  But, my first thought?  “My child’s not going to eat THAT!”  She doesn’t care for big-fat burgers.  She likes her meat as disguised as possible and would really rather not eat it at all most days.  The coleslaw?  Too mayonnaisey.  The baked beans were a possibility, but I knew she’d pick through to get the unidentifiable meat out of her beans.  I knew she’d know what to do and she did.    She accepted everything she wanted and said, “No thank you” to what she didn’t and politely asked for just cheese on her bun and built a cheese sandwich, which suited her just fine.  And she ate the pork and beans and actually loved them.  I have similar stories about my other two.  It’s time to accept the fact.  My children may be ‘¦picky.

My three children are picky in totally different ways. One hates peanut sauce, which would make me question his parentage if it weren’t for the fact that he and I look exactly alike.  One hates all seafood, across the board and makes exception for neither fried shrimp nor salmon.  Again with the questionable parentage, as far as I’m concerned.  All three hate tomatoes.  Two dislike big chunks of meat, but can deal with ground beef and turkey.  One hates salad.

I’ve fed a lot of children in my time and I’m convinced that most of you have a similar story to mine  because I’ve probably fed your kid and had to scramble a minute when I found out that your child didn’t like homemade pizza.  Or watermelon.  Or sandwiches, for crying out loud.  Or ham.  All completely normal foods as far as our family is concerned.  But for whatever reason your child doesn’t “do” them.  Maybe no one in your house likes it.  Maybe you don’t know how to cook  it or pick it out from the produce section.  Maybe everyone loves it and your child just doesn’t have a taste for it for whatever reason.   I’m not offended.  When my child came to your house, I’m sure we threw you for a loop when they didn’t dive into the crab legs everyone else was mad to get in to.  Or wouldn’t eat potato salad or anything spicy or roast beef.  And please don’t ask them how they want their steak cooked.  They don’t know how they like their steak cooked and even the 12 year old might ask you to cut it for her because I don’t cook the stuff.  It’s out of my lane. I love it, I just know how to stay in my lane when it comes to food preparation and steak is way, way out of it.   Just cook it medium for them and they’ll eat it once they figure out what to do with it.

I had a mother remark to me once at a girls night out that she might like cooking more if it weren’t so stressful.  That no one ever liked what she made or turned out not to be hungry or wished they had something else that night.  My heart broke for her.  What a wonderful, pleasurable thing it should be for a mother to feed her family! I feel pretty clueless about most things in my life, but this one I do have figured out.   I knew exactly how I would handle her sitation. It’s the same thing I do every week to some extent.  I put those suckers to work.

That’s right.  Get the children to play a role in the kitchen work for the week.   It’s hard for someone to claim they don’t like dinner when they’ve planned the meal.  Is this is a newsflash or is this done all over?  I’m not sure, but it seems like a no brainer to me.

Assuming this isn’t something that you are doing already (and if you are, let’s e-mail about it because this is a system that can be TWEAKED!), here’s how I do it.  On Sundays, I  (we) plan our meals.  I get out a big stack of cook books and my recipe book and we eat breakfast (or sometimes lunch) together and talk food.  Everyone has some input.  I have one child who will request a baked potato bar Every Single Week.  Sometimes we do it, sometimes we don’t.  Another one has a variation of macaroni and cheese they want every week.  Sometimes I can do it and sometimes I just don’t have it in me to make another pan of the stuff.  . My husband would like to request lettuce wraps and/or sushi bowls 9 weeks out of 10  but doesn’t in order to preserve my sanity.  Sweet man.  But, everyone suggests and requests until we have our meals down. We include what vegetables/sides folks are in the mood for and some suggestions for easy, fast breakfasts we’d like to eat, too.  The children know the nutritional and time parameters they need to stay in.  Meals cannot be too elaborate or expensive or made of junk.  Everyone knows this.  We bargain (“OK- how about I’ll do the mac and cheese, but I fix it with a side of collard greens and everyone just eats them up without complaining?”).  The fun part is looking through the cookbooks to get new, fresh ideas and my recipe collection reminds folks of favorites they haven’t had in awhile.  Sometimes someone suggests something I’ve never made before and we shrug our shoulders and agree to give it a try.  It’s a family experiment!  “Can Mom pull off decent shrimp scampi?!  Who knows?!  Let’s find out!  Someone get on Food Network and find a good recipe for it.  Better suggest a really good side dish , though, just in case‘¦  “

We’ve done this on the way back from soccer tournaments and sitting at restaurants after church and even on the fly during commercials while we watch a family show together.  But, we do it at some point every weekend.   Everyone gets some input.  No one is going to get their favorite meal every night, but SOMEONE is going to be thrilled with dinner each night of the week, and YOU, sister, will feel like a rock star, which is as it should be.

I bet y’all know what’s coming next, and you’d be right.  Someone has to cook all those recipes and I can promise it’s not just going to be me.  I love to cook, but even more than that, I love to work myself right out of this God-given and joyful job I’ve been blessed with. And if I don’t teach them to feed themselves, at the very least, then I’m not done with my job.  I think there’s a spiritual parallel here, don’t you?

We’ll talk more about that later.  Do you have picky eaters?  How do you manage to feed the family with them in mind?  Do you already do what I do at home?  How’s it working?  Do you have any tips I, or others, could use?  Weigh in!

Until next time,

Mississippi Mama