Eat: Watermelon and Feta Salad

When I was Big E's age I earned honors from the Good Eater club at my school every week.  Clearly this was before childhood obesity was a concern, because I earned this accolade by choking down all of my American Chop Suey, canned pears in a paper cup, waxed beans or whatever else was slopped on my plate in the cafeteria line.  I didn't enjoy the food and some days I would struggle mightily to clean my plate, but I was highly motivated by the little paper apple, fresh from the mimeograph, that was my reward and so I made it work.

My husband and especially my daughters lack this ability to soldier through a meal.  If they aren't fans of a particular food, no amount of insisting, coercion or pleading makes any difference; as a result, I don't bother making a lot of my favorites because there seems no sense in preparing a dish that only I will eat.  This salad is the one exception to that.  I am the only one in the house who eats it, but I love it so much that not only do I make it but I actually spent my precious alone time between leaving work and volunteering in Big E's class today going to the store for ingredients and assembling this salad.

It's so easy that you don't really need a recipe, but here it is in all its summery, sweet-salty glory:

Watermelon and Feta Salad

1/2 watermelon, cut into bite-sized chunks

1/2 cup of crumbled feta

2 handfuls of baby arugula

fresh ground black pepper (to taste)

In a large bowl, toss together the watermelon and feta.  Season with pepper, then toss in the argula.  Allow it to sit for at least 30 minutes before serving, so the flavors can mingle.



Eat: Late to the party, loving the buttercream

Somehow, I always tend to be a little late to the party.  I watched Sex in the City in late night syndication, I set up my Facebook account a month ago, and last weekend I ate my first fancy bakery cupcake.

When it becomes clear that everybody likes something, I tend to avoid it.  This is partly a contrarian move, but it's also practical, as my tastes tend to be out of step with everybody's.  Until recently (and probably again in the near future), I have been on the losing team during election season.  If I love a television show, it is surely destined for an early demise (and I'm still waiting for the Arrested Development movie).  And since cake is not my dessert of choice, I figured shrinking it and wrapping it in paper wouldn't do much to help.

Thanks to my husband's barber, I realize that I was wrong about that.

She turned him on to the bakery that sold him the cupcakes that showed me that maybe everybody was on to something...in this case.  As it turns out, the cupcake's appeal lies in something bigger than taste.  It's about choice.

My culinary tastes tend to be incompatible with those of the rest of the family, so the autonomy offered by the cupcakes more than makes up for its being cake. Generally, I design our menus to avoid things that they hate, like cheese, tomatoes, artichokes, cream sauces, mushrooms; the list goes on and on and, coincidentally, is nearly identical to the list of items that I most enjoy eating.  But I am outnumbered.

 The cupcakes freed me to eat exactly what I wanted with no guilt or compromise.  I could enjoy my chocolate ganache with peanut butter mousse while everyone else had their cinnamon, lemon or cookies and cream.  Sure, the towering crowns of buttercream were a challenenge after my birthday dinner of spicy shrimp tandoori masala.  And my training run the next morning was somehwhat hampered by my overdose of butter and confectioner's sugar.

It was worth it, though.  Cupcakes, it turns out, are a little taste of culinary independence.  Sometimes everybody has a point.     

Eat:Crackers and cheez

Three years ago, Little E started on solid foods and I embarked on a mission to create myself a kindred eater in my family.  I'd suffered long enough tailoring the menu to suit first my husband's numerous aversions and then Big E's finicky palate.  I was not going to let Little E grow up to be a sauce-on-the-side, make-mine-plain-kind of girl.

I skipped the little tubs of Gerber, which had clearly done nothing for Big E's palate, and instead spent hours steaming, blending and freezing my own recipes.  She ate mashed sweet potatoes spiked with cumin, ginger peach puree, pumpkin with a dash of cinnamon, chicken-mango whip...and she liked them all.  My heart swelled when she moved onto finger foods like bites of mango-brie quesadilla and tiny handfuls of rice vermicelli and Vietnamese spring roll. Big E's fascination with my shoe wardrobe had assured me that I had a shopping partner in the making, and finally I had hope of a culinary partner in crime.

I now fear that hope was unfounded.

Somehow Little E's eating habits have veered off my carefully mapped course.  At 3 1/2 she has decided that her favored cuisine is not Vietnamese or French or Italian or even American; it is Vending Machine.  She eschews the spiced fruits and exotic quesadillas of her baby- and toddlerhood in favor of pouched applesauce and cheez crackers.  And it breaks my heart.

You might suspect that my preschool-aged daughter isn't the primary shopper in our house.  You would be right, and I accept blame for her culinary regression...but not all of the blame.  I would also point fingers at both my job, for occupying time that I might otherwise spend preparing and packing fresh and interesting lunches, and our daycare center, for the draconian measures it takes to remain certifiably devoid of any all potential traces of nut germs.

The convenience and provable nut-freeness of shelf stable cuisine has made it a staple in her lunchbox and, due to exhaustion and inattention, we have allowed it to creep onto our table.  This has to stop, so I am attaching an addendum to the food promise that I have made my family.  In addition to cutting out the fast food, I will endeavour to banish vending machine foods from our table.  Sorry, Little E.

With luck, I will be successful and regain my eating sidekick.  If not, I can take solace knowing that she'd be happily sated should she ever be forced to spend time in a bomb shelter or the waiting room at the Sears Automotive.