Kids Dish

My friend Kelly suggested I take over this blog for her and I was thrilled at the suggestion. Cooking and blogging are my two favorite hobbies and now that I’ve got a toddler around the house cooking is more of a challenge.

I haven’t always been much of a cook and I haven’t always been a healthy or conscientious eater. Back when I was in elementary school our kitchen cupboards stocked barbecue flavor potato chips and sugary iced tea mix and the freezer contained hot dogs destined to be cooked to a rubbery crisp in the microwave and chocolate ice cream. The refrigerator? I don’t remember much of what was in the fridge other than a big glass bottle that was always filled with freshly mixed powdered iced tea. Dinners generally consisted of take out- fast food burgers and fries, pizza, Chinese, and fried chicken were the the old standbys.

When I got to high school things didn’t much improve. I spent an entire year eating nothing but Crunchberries and milk. A few years later I got a job working in a bagel store and the bagels, muffins and croissants I brought home fed my mother and I until I graduated. The availability of real meals, no matter how inexpertly prepared, led to a 15 pound weight loss my first year of college, probably because I wasn’t eating bagels and cream cheese all the time. Once I was off the college meal plan I bought a used copy of The New York Times Cookbook and haven’t stopped cooking since.

I’ve cooked Italian, barbecue, Chinese, Vietnamese, vegetarian, Indian, low-fat, low-carb, gourmet, and comfort foods. Since I stopped teaching to raise my son, I’ve had more time to experiment and cook elaborate, healthy, delicious meals. Then Sam started walking, making cooking elaborate meals more dangerous than healthy and it turns out that Sam, who’s almost 15 months old is a very picky eater, refusing to eat just about everything besides pasta, fruit, rice and crackers. But I’m soldiering on, still trying to cook delicious, healthy meals that my husband I will enjoy and our son will eat. I’m excited to document some of our successes and failures here at Kids Dish.

cooking, children