Adventures in Eating

SPINACH

Eating dinner the other night, Buddy asks for more chicken, "Mo' hickin?"

"Sure, Buddy. I'll get you more chicken when your spinach is all gone." He puts a leaf in his mouth and starts to chew. Moments later, I hear a happy voice, "Mo' hickin!"

"Good job eating that leaf. I'll get you more chicken when ALL of your spinach is gone."

"Ok."

I turn away to pay attention to something else. Buddy suddenly exclaims with glee,"Ta da! All gone!" and points to the now empty spot on his plate where the small pile of spinach leaves had just been. He had moved them to the other side of his plate.

"Uh, not quite. You have to EAT them all gone." Bobby and I look at each other and bust up laughing.



PETUNIAS
Alice earned a good chunk of money recently, and decided that she wanted to spend some of it today at the Farm Store (I'm looking for ingredients to make an organic/natural/slow release fertilizer for the lawn and garden). What on earth can a kid get at a farm store for a couple bucks?! I was dreading the pack of gum or cheapo key chain that she would settle for in the check out lane. Turns out, we started in the outdoor section and she fell in love with a 4-pack of pink and white striped petunias. Yay! She was going on about how this could be the magic flower when she plays "Rapunzel." I didn't pay much attention to that statement at the time. Alice then asked for a garden "all her own", and I was willing to give her some garden space, but the soil isn't going to be delivered until Friday. She just couldn't wait. We planted the petunias in pots and put them on the back patio. She even let Robert help scoop the soil and water them a bit. Once they were settled in their new home, she promptly picked the only flower and put it in a cup of water. It steeped for a while, then she put the cup to her lips...true to her "Rapunzel" plans.

"Alice! No! Wait! I don't know if petunias are poisonous!" I screamed. The look of horror on her face was hard to decipher. She froze. I couldn't tell if she was more terrified for almost drinking 'poison' or for purchasing and planting four new 'poisonous' plants for our backyard. I quickly rephrased my cautionary statement, "Let me look it up. Some flowers are edible. I just don't know yet if petunias are edible." Her face relaxed a bit and her voice quivered a bit, "You don't know if petunias are edible?" A quick search online indicated that petunias are, in fact, quite edible. Whew. Alice flit about the house with glee. The petunia water didn't taste any different, so she decided to taste the flower itself and found it pleasant enough. Then she started planning play dates where she could invite her friends over to nibble on her flowers. Bobby mentioned later that the flower could have been coated in fertilizers and pesticides from the nursery...oops. He's totally right. We'll see if we get any barfing tonight. Dang it all!



MANGO
Alice and Buddy are fans of mango. The little, yellow Atualfo mangoes looked really good at the store this week so I picked up a couple. We shared them at dinner tonight. Each person got a half that was scored in a checkered pattern and splayed out like a flower:

 

Buddy and Alice were a little disoriented by the new presentation style (we usually cut the chunks off before giving it to them), but not for long. They sucked and slurped and scraped those peels clean with their teeth in no time. Buddy asked for more. I told him that was all the mango we had, but Bobby remembered the seeds. When you prep a mango like this, there's a little bit of fruit left around the perimeter of the seed. It's usually Bobby's treat because he's usually the one dicing mangoes for everyone else. This time, he let the kids have at them. When I put one of the seeds in front of Buddy, his eyes got huge, "*gasp* Ohhhh." Pure delight and awe. Alice was thrilled, too. Buddy bit into it and realized that there was a seed in the middle, but quickly sucked and slurped every remaining tidbit of fleshy mango from the outside. Both kids made quick work of it. I love to see my kids love real food.