Morocc 'N Roll

I’m not sure what to talk about: the Sprog’s enthusiastic embrace of the Moroccan feast I put together or his newfound taste for cat food. I think a little bit of both is part of the story.

Regarding the former, I first encountered Moroccan food myself about 25 years ago in Spain, and fell in love with it. I made pastilla for my friends here in L.A. a couple of years back, and they have requested it again, so this weekend, we went down to Huntington Beach for the occasion. While I cooked, Ted took the Sprog out for his first private flight on our host’s Cessna, out to Catalina Island and back.


When they returned, I put out the spread beginning with meze, the appetizers.

Grilled flatbread, falafel, roasted eggplant dip, olives cured until they resembled raisins, and Turkish salad with plenty of chickpeas.

The entrees were cous-cous with roasted vegetables, lamb tagine with apricots and dates, and the aforementioned pastille which is a sort of a pie with chicken, (one of my favorite things under the sun) preserved lemons, coriander, almonds, and cinnamon. The fact that my friends all dressed the part for the evening added to the magic, as did the Sprog devouring it all. For dessert, I made frozen mangos and yogurt, with rose water, orange flower water, cardamom, and pistachios. The Sprog just called it, “Ice cream.”

The taste for cat food is, of course, all about getting a reaction from us. It began when our cat Floyd sniffed at something the Sprog was eating, which aroused protestations.

“Don’t worry,” we assured him. “Floyd doesn’t like people food. He only likes cat food. You don’t like cat foot, do you?”

“No?” The Sprog replied, but you could see the wheels turning right then. A few hours later, he went into the office my partner Ted shares with the cat’s food bowl, and cleared his throat before demonstratively picking up a morsel of dry cat food and popping it in his mouth.

“Is that good or yucky?” I asked.

“Yucky!” the Sprog said, eyes shining.

But that didn’t stop him from popping another in his mouth. And another today, grinning away. Obviously, if we wanted to raise a critter that only ate cat food, we would have been content with Floyd, but we’re not worried: this pure shock value. There’s nothing about a kibble or a bit of cat food which would hurt the Sprog. If only there was a way to keep him from purring quite so loudly while bathing himself with his tongue …

"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.