"I Like It."

Tonight, Friday night, we usually take the Sprog out for sushi, but it was getting a little old, so we thought we’d take him somewhere closer to home. There’s a Southern / Soul Food restaurant on Ventura called Stevie’s Creole Café, and we were craving their fried chicken. They have live music there too, but luckily we got there at 6:30, before the crowds.

We have been thinking lately about the concept of the “family friendly” restaurant. So far, we haven’t had to go to a Chuck E. Cheese or something similar, but we won’t be surprised if that happens someday. We just want to put off that eventuality for as long as possible.

Our working definition of “family friendly” is a place that’s not so stuffy that a giggling child would be viewed as anything but a delight, and not so crowded that the Sprog can’t wander a bit. Because two-year-olds are not big on sitting still for long periods of time.

Stevie’s Creole Café fulfills those criteria, and it’s yummy. We got to a table right away, and ordered up fried oysters, barbecue ribs (Ted), and fried chicken (me). The Sprog first devoured two cornbread muffins. And then the fried oysters came, burning hot, and after Ted and I took bites and announced that we had to wait for them to cool down, the Sprog’s interest turned into fascination. He kept touching them to see if they were still hot, and when they had cooled a little, he took a bit.

“I like it,” he said. It’s a new phrase of his, though typical for a two-year-old “I don’t like it” came first.

Then we had grits, collard greens, red beans and rice, yams, and our chicken and ribs. He is a meat eater for sure, and between the hot, sweet sauce and the experience of gnawing meat off a bone, he became an instant rib fan.

“He sure likes his food,” said one of the other customers.

That he does.

Roe, Roe, Roe

For Ted's birthday a couple weeks ago, his brother brought over some Osetra caviar. We had it with buckwheat blinis and creme fraiche, and the Sprog clearly liked it, just a bit. "Ca Ya Ya."

Jamie Oliver's TED Speech

You may have seen this before, but worth watching if not:

"Picy!"

Last night was a typical weekday dinner, where there was nothing planned and only a few minutes to bang something out. For Ted and myself, I made a Singapore noodle hodgepodge with rice vermicelli, bean sprouts, cabbage, ginger, bok choy, chicken, and lots of curry. It sounded a little bit much for Mikey, so I gave him just the chicken and some of the noodles without the sauce. We all sat down and began eating, but Mikey was more interested in playing with his noodles than eating them. We didn’t let him throw more than a few noodles against the wall before taking it away, an action he didn’t protest. The meal ended with Mikey first in my lap, then in Ted’s, and then back in mine, eating our dinner.

It shouldn’t have surprised me. One, Mikey likes to eat whatever we’re having. Two, we forget that Mikey likes spicy.


Our philosophy has been to try to have healthy food around the house, and when he shows an interest in any of it, we share it with him. Because man cannot live on brown rice alone, some not-so-good food sometimes slips into the house. I have a particular weakness for Tim’s Jalapeño Potato Chips, and catching me nibbling, Mikey asked for one, “Pease!”

“No, they’re spicy.”

“Picy chips, pease.”

“Very spicy,” I warned. As I’ve said before, I am a sucker for “pease.”

“Very picy chips, pease.”

When Mikey shows an interest in a rosebush, we take his hand and show him very, very gently that the thorns are “sharp,” so he understands what that means. I figured it was the same thing with the spicy chip. I gave him the smallest bit of a chip, and he ate it.

“Water pease,” he said, eyes wide.

I gave him a cup of water, and he drank it. A moment later:

“Mo picy chip, pease.”

At Senor Fred’s on Ventura, before we could stop him, he put a spoonful of salsa in his mouth. “Picy!”

At a party at friend’s where a celebrated Thai chef was showcasing her chili dipping sauces, we stupidly plunked Mikey right down on the counter next to the hottest one, and a moment later, his eyes were watering and his tongue was hanging out, “Picy!”

Yes, it’s important that his food is healthy, and his manners are good, but we like that Mikey dislikes bland food and wants big flavors. That’s what we call, in both senses of the phrase, having good taste.

Melmo!

My mother-in-law Carolyn tells the story of her father Charles going to the store with his grandson, my partner, Ted, when he was a toddler. Ted began screaming for something, and wouldn’t let up, and frustrated, Charles brought him back home and told Carolyn about it. “What would you do?” Charles asked her.

“I’d just give him the goddamn thing,” Carolyn replied.

That more or less sums up Ted’s parents philosophy on dealing with a toddler, and by extension, ours. You can and should certainly say no sometimes, but you pick your battles. Thus, when we were at Target recently, and Mikey saw a box of these organic yogurt rice crispy bars from Earth’s Best, we thought, “Sure, could be worse,” and we gave them to him.

Needless to say, it wasn’t the organicness that attracted Mikey, or the calcium or brown rice grain, or event the vanilla flavor. It was the image of the Sesame Street star Elmo, or “Melmo” as Mikey calls him, on the box. The insidiousness of fictional character promotion. There is no doubt of Mikey and Melmo which one is the puppet.

Much like the monster of Dr. Frankenstein came to be called Frankenstein himself, the organic yogurt rice crisp bars have become known as “Melmo” in our house. I don’t know why “organic yogurt rice crisp bars” isn’t as catchy, but that’s the way it is. And Melmo, I must tell you, is toddler crack.

On the plus side, there is nothing that Mikey won’t do for the promise of a Melmo. He could be in the middle of the biggest snit, and we murmur, “If you have a bath, change your clothes, comb your hair, and pick out a book for bedtime, then you can have a Melmo,” and he will rush to the bathroom, ripping off his clothes. On the minus side, the minute he is finished devouring the last delectable morsel of Melmo, the next two words out of his mouth: “More Melmo!”

We are experimenting with giving him half Melmos with mixed results. There may need to be an intervention.

On A Roll

The Sprog has been eating pretty healthily recently, but there’s always the danger of getting into a routine and not branching out to new cuisines. We’ve given him tastes of different regional fare, but we’ve been holding off on Japanese. We love sushi, but we know The Sprog’s immune system isn’t quite up to dealing with raw fish. We also know that he is far too antsy for the most formal of restaurants, but that’s part of what this blog is about: helping develop a tot’s good food habits all around, including in restaurants.

For lunch, we were going to go to IHOP. True confession, I’ve never been. The whole notion of going out for breakfast has always seemed a little strange to me. I know enough to know that it is the least formal meal at the least formal of restaurants, so we figured today being Saturday, we’d take him out and expand his horizons. We missed IHOP on Reseda Blvd., and since we were going to the mall in Northridge anyhow, we decided to go to the nearby restaurant chain, Marie Callenders.

It was terrible. I couldn’t eat my omelette hardly at all, and Ted, who can eat anything, only ate a bit of his frittata. The Sprog, on the other hand, gorged. Most of the blueberry muffins brought to our table went down his gullet. A pancake. Six or seven slices of melons. Some of Ted’s egg, potato, bacon, and sausage frittata, and the bite or two I could bear to give him of my omelette, plus some hash browns. He was a gut bucket.

He also behaved beautifully. After we arrived and before the food arrived, I took him out on the lawn for a walk around to burn off some energy, and he flipped back and forth between my side of the table and Ted’s, but he was in great form. Inspired by that, we decided that for dinner, we’d take him to our favorite sushi dive, Akari Sushi in Woodland Hills.

We got there at six thirty, and there were a couple people inside, but not many. Perfect. We settled him in and he devoured his edamame. Score. We tried feeding him that before and he didn’t go for it. Now he ate plate after plate. Avoiding the raw fish temptation, we ordered baked crab roll, spider roll, and hamachi kama, which is baked yellowtail collar, one of our favorites. The Sprog ate it all, and was given a pair of “Chinese chopsticks” to practice with. He broke two pairs, so he ended with regular ones.

He gave the waitress high-fives, fist bumps, and kisses.

“Come back next week!” she called after us as we left. We would, but next week is The Sprog’s 2nd birthday, and we have plans – some of which involve food.

Smear Campaign

I’m British, and while there are plenty of quite outdated jokes about British cuisine from the days before Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay, and Heston Blumenthal made it delicious and chic, there are still some controversial culinary traditions. In addition to teaching our son to love fresh, healthy food and have excellent dining room manners, I want to him to know and perhaps enjoy the food of his British heritage. Today, I came home earlier from work, hungry because I hadn’t had any lunch. I made myself a slice of bread, butter, and Marmite and came out to the backyard where my partner and the Sprog were playing.

“Please,” said the Sprog, eyeing my bread.

“I don’t know if you’re going to like it,” I said, giving him a small chunk. I am unable to resist a “Please.”

He woofed it down. A moment later, his hand came up again. “Please?”

So that was it. Two small morsels of bread, butter, and Marmite, and then I said “All gone,” and he agreed, “Ga ga.”

For those not familiar, Marmite is a by-product of beer brewing. It is very salty and yeasty, and the slogan for the company has been “Love It or Hate It” – which is not something most brands would embrace. Here in Los Angeles, it is available at a couple specialty British shops, but I try to pick some of it up when I’m in the UK, and I ask my friends visiting to bring some back for me. One friend arrived with a jar of it, and told me that he was asked at customs, “Have you brought over any food, or Marmite?”

Nutritionally, sodium content is quite high, not surprisingly, but so is Niacin, Folic Acid, and Vitamin B12, even in the tiniest 2 gram smear on a piece of bread. The amount the Sprog had was negligible.

The point of giving my son Marmite is not the nutrition, though it used to be advertised as “the growing up spread” because it was a way to get children their B vitamins. Looking at the label of ingredients, it is good stuff, which is welcome after I took a moment to read the label of the YoBaby yogurt I had been feeding him and seeing that the second ingredient was sugar (I have since switched to Greek yogurt with fruit, which he seems to like as well or better anyhow).

No, the point of giving my son Marmite is sharing something with him that I love. That’s as nourishing as any vitamins and minerals.

Now I have to go look up my other childhood favorites, Heinz Apricot Rice Pudding and Farley’s Rusks, and see whether they’re as good as I remember.