I finally got around to going to our local library. It’s a really nice one, and over the weekend, I devoured the first two books I’ve read in a year. One of them was called Hungry Monkey, and it caught my interest because it was about a restaurant critic trying to raise his daughter to be an adventurous eater.
I live with two of the least adventurous eaters in the world. Despite my valiant efforts to teach Izabelle about the virtues of fresh fruit, she prefers cold chicken nuggets (her mom packs them in her lunchbox. Don’t even get me started on that). If she could, she would live off of those, pretzels, and water ice.
Joe has made strides but he is not much better. We eat chicken 6 or 7 days a week. He’ll occasionally try fish, but that’s about it. I, on the other hand, love food, the more adventurous, the better.
My biggest failing is salad. I suck at making it, and it almost never occurs to me to eat it. That may have something to do with Joe’s technique—he unvaryingly favors romaine and hunks of raw vegetables. On the rare occasions I am served salad, like a wedding, or decide to order one I love it.
So I’m on a mission: to find out how to make a really, really good salad. I’m going to try a new one every week for a while (recipes welcome). First up: a strawberry, candied nut, and gorgonzola spinach salad. Wish me luck!
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Try spinach, mandarin oranges & sliced green onions. I use one small can drained mandarin oranges & 3 or 4 green onions sliced added to one bag of baby spinach (4 or 6 oz bag I think). The cookbook came complete with instructions for honey mustard vinaigrette – but I’m at work now so don’t have it handy. But a bottled one or a raspberry vinaigrette should by yummy. And I think it called for a sprinkle of sliced or slivered almonds. It doubles or triples well for taking to potluck dinners (I sometimes increase the proportion of mandarin oranges if a lot of small children need to be enticed into eating it).
Enjoy!
somehow i remember carl waldbieser being one of the least adventerous eaters i have ever known.
Cheryl, yummy suggestion–I added it to my list, thanks!
Jim–That was true, until Carl married a vegetarian. He now eats sushi and more vegetables than he probably has in his life. Love is a powerful thing.