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April 07, 2009
Cinnamon Toast
Lucas subsists on a diet mostly comprised of the few things I avoid—hot dogs, bologna, chicken nuggets, and snack foods that come in bags. I have a hard time with this, partly because I’m concerned about what a diet like this is going to mean for his health and well-being in the long term, but mostly because I just don’t understand not eating a wide variety of foods. It’s a personality thing. Lucas is not by nature a risk-taker. He seems to think that if he tries a new food and doesn’t like it, the world will end. He also seems to believe that he is biologically incapable of eating a food he doesn’t love entirely, which leads to these spectacularly dramatic scenes of gagging when his mother insists he try at least one bite of whatever she’s made for dinner.
Lucky for me, I get Lucas for the one meal a day he really seems to love, breakfast. I love breakfast, too, so we have all manner of wonderful things—yogurt-and-fruit smoothies, pancakes, muffins, breads, grapefruit. I make all the pancakes and breads, so I pack them with good things, like whole wheat flour and fruit. One of Lucas’s specially favorite breakfasts is cinnamon toast, which, in case you are some sad person who doesn’t know, is toast with butter and cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top. A couple months ago, Lucas had a rare moment of culinary daring and suggested that we try topping our cinnamon toast with some of the peach jam Tammy and I put up in the fall. This was such a good idea, and now it’s how we always eat our cinnamon toast. Just when I thought cinnamon toast could not get any better, when Lucas asked for cinnamon toast this morning, I realized that I only had apple walnut bread in the house. I asked him if he wanted to try it, and he said yes, and boy I’m glad he did, because toasted apple walnut bread topped with butter and cinnamon (you can really skip the sugar here) and peach jam is freaking awesome. Highly recommended.
Posted by adrienne at April 7, 2009 09:30 AM
Comments
Oh man, I haven't had cinnamon toast in like forever! What happened? I don't even have cinnamon in the house! gasp! Will have to have this week now :) Breakfast foods are awesomeness.
Posted by: Cheryl at April 7, 2009 11:06 AM
That jam!Heavenly!
Posted by: momster at April 7, 2009 11:21 AM
Cheryl, No cinnamon??? Oh, my, I can't do without it.
Momster, Thanks, and I quite agree!
Posted by: adrienne at April 7, 2009 11:23 AM
What time is breakfast?
Posted by: Pat at April 7, 2009 12:11 PM
:) Usually around 8:00.
Posted by: adrienne at April 7, 2009 12:34 PM
Try it with cornbread instead of regular bread. Mmmm...cornbread.
Posted by: Jeffrey Lee at April 7, 2009 01:17 PM
Oh welcome to my life! I don't even think my oldest would venture to try peach jam (which sounds deliciable...kudos to Lucas). I mean, she's THAT BAD. I feel like I somehow deserve this, as I was a *staggeringly* picky eater as a child. It's really hard, as you nailed it here, when you want them to eat healthy and continue to grow and love excellent, interesting, fresh foods.
Perhaps I can't complain, because what she eats every night (raw spinach, raw carrots, some kind of nut sometimes, bread, black or green olives, and sometimes those bogus chicken nuggets from either Boca or Morningstar Farms) is good for her, and my husband and I determined that if half of our plates are filled with that nightly and the other half with whatever we cook (which she REFUSES to touch), we'd be healthier, as well as lose twenty pounds (which, well...I hate it when beautiful women in all shapes and sizes go on about needing to lose weight, but we really could stand to lose 20 lbs for our own health). But she absolutely refuses to try anything she doesn't recognize or that she doesn't love entirely -- as you put so perfectly and which made me nod my head vigorously.
Okay, waaaay too much info about my daughter's eating habits that you didn't wanna know.
Cinnamon toast is our favorite late-night snack.
Also, Adrienne, speaking of food (sorta), I just read the very antithesis of a Straight Talk About the Food Chain picture book (probably my favorite 7-Imp post ever), which just....just....angered me in all its ridiculousness. I'll dish later.
Posted by: jules at April 7, 2009 01:29 PM
Oh and when I said "we," in terms of losing weight, I meant my husband and myself....not all women. Yeesh. How that must have sounded.
Posted by: jules at April 7, 2009 01:30 PM
Jeffrey, I have not gotten the hang of cornbread. Whenever I make it, it's just kind of eh. Do you have a good recipe you might be willing to share?
Jules, I got your referent with the weight-loss thing, and I'm impressed your daughter will eat raw spinach--I wouldn't even do that at that age, and I was born eating whatever was around. (As a child, for instance, clams were one of my favorite foods.) I'll be looking forward to hearing about the picture book that made you angry. Intriguing.
Posted by: adrienne at April 7, 2009 03:06 PM
Sometimes it's a struggle to get her to eat the spinach, but my heavens, if she didn't, she'd be eating NOTHING green.
I honestly don't get how parents can get their children to eat healthy withOUT the small-snack-after-dinner bribery and whatnot.
Posted by: jules at April 8, 2009 12:00 AM
I'm not sure what I would do if I had to deal with it 24/7. I mean, you hate to turn mealtime into a daily fight, but you want the kids to get the right nutrition to grow and everything. And ultimately, you can't force people to eat, even little people. I know that as a kid, I ate a lot of different kinds of foods because they were around and I was curious what they were like--but I don't know how that works if one has the kind of personality where he or she is simply not curious about that sort of thing. I do know that Lucas likes grapefruit because he saw me eating it a lot and finally asked for some one day, but that's the only time I can think of that happening. He has still showed no interest in the oatmeal or cream of wheat I eat on a fairly regular basis. I keep hoping for the oatmeal, though--that's such a nice, healthy food.
Posted by: adrienne at April 8, 2009 02:04 AM
Oh I love that grapefruit role-modelling. If my girls do that, they'll be drinking coffee any day now.
Posted by: jules at April 8, 2009 10:40 AM
Sometimes I suggest to Lucas that he should take up drinking coffee so he can *really* stunt his growth. I'm hoping the reverse-psychology will keep him away from the stuff until maybe college.
Posted by: adrienne at April 9, 2009 12:57 AM
Lucas ate a piece of rosemary, olive oil, & sea salt italian bread with dinner. He did this without being prompted and perhaps because Ron was trying to be annoying.
Posted by: tonderdo at April 12, 2009 09:15 PM
Good for him (and you!)--sometimes he'll really surprise you. :)
Posted by: adrienne at April 13, 2009 06:35 AM