Food is about experimentation?

I was reading an interesting article about a challenge to eat unprocessed foods for a month and had to laugh a little about the struggle many of the people had doing this. On the other hand, I felt a little sorry and sad that many people have not grown up eating or learned how to cook from scratch. Nourished Kitchen is a website I just recently discovered and they do have good information about going back to the basics of cooking. While I think most people will not bother to dredge flour or make yogurt from scratch, they do offer good advice and recipes if you have the time and especially the inclination.

One of the comments made was about the difficulty in meal planning for a family. I often find this difficult as well with a wife who does not eat much variety (don’t worry, she knows…), a very precocious, yet adventurous four year old, and an 8 month old infant. However, from my 20+ years of experience in the dining business, there are some easy ways to do this and at the same time balance the diet nutritionally. What we do at home is make sure whatever we are eating that the baby can try a little…

Since you are eating at least one vegetable at dinner anyway, make sure the one chosen can be mashed for the baby and eaten whole by the rest. Potatoes are a wonder food, but you have to leave off the salt and butter to keep it that way! I originate from the West coast so artichokes and avocados are a staple in my house once a week. Baby loves artichoke hearts! Anyway, plan your week in general first. Here is what we do… Monday is beef night, Tuesday is vegetarian, Wednesday is Pork or Chicken, Thursday is pasta or taco night (my wife makes the best tacos!), and Friday is my little girls choice. Weekends are a wild card of eating out or cleaning up leftovers. This is a basic plan and then you can start deciding about menus. If you like to have fried food occasionally like we do, bake it instead…

I could make this particular blog 100 pages about eating right, but one simple thing you can do is question what you eat. If you don’t think it is natural, then it probably isn’t. Food is about experimentation and in my short 37 years I am still eating exciting new flavors and recipes as I am exposed to many here at Rice University. Great job chefs! You have to train your kids early so that they will be accustomed to variety and have the will to experiment later on. Candy is not a dessert! Fruit is though. My little girl now considers dessert a choice and blend of several different ones… Especially blueberries. By the way, does anybody remember the MSG ordeal back in the early 90s? A little story about this in my next blog…

David