Cooking for One

Good morning. For all following along on last week's wine glass journey, thank you for your helpful suggestions, opinions and feedback—I have a few samples coming my way and I’m excited to spend the next few weeks agonizing over the decision, though I know based on my preferences and what you’ve shared, some of you will be disappointed with my eventual choice. I still hope you come drink wine! 

When I became a parent, people liked to say to me some version of, “Oh, that baby is going to eat so well!” A compliment, of course (which, I love!). And, yes, this baby would be eating well…if he was perhaps a different baby that was interested in the food I was making. 

But my 18-month-old, like many toddlers around this age, has become…let’s call it “discerning.” It wasn’t always like this. The joy I derived from discovering my 6 month-old would eat just about anything with glee was indescribable. I felt like I had achieved my final form. Showing a human how to eat, how to appreciate the texture of nicely roasted squash, the pleasure of a peak-summer raspberry—this was what I was put on this planet to do. Of course, I knew (and you told me) that it wouldn’t last forever. Babies, like all of us, go through phases. Preferences ebb and flow, lines in the sand are drawn, can’ts and won’ts are established and reversed. 

At around 15 months, he learned what opinions were, and ever since has not hesitated in expressing them: pushing away fruits previously enjoyed (mango used to be your favorite...what happened), carefully picking all of the meat out of a plate of pasta without eating a single noodle, loving bread except if there is anything on it including butter because then he will not eat it, discerning the cold avocado from the room temperature avocado and rejecting the former. I refused to feel defeated about this extremely typical, classic toddler behavior. He would come around. He would defy the norm. He would be…my son.  

Unfortunately, this is all actually exactly what “my son” would do. Loves room temperature avocado but will not even entertain a cold one? Extremely me, I hate to say it. The Sally Albright of children…that is my son (this all makes me think I’m a lot more like a toddler than I’m comfortable admitting. Something for me to think about later). 

Despite the constant rejection, I try to expose my sweet boy to different flavors, textures and temperatures weekly. A new-to-him condiment, a different way of making eggs, a raw preparation of a vegetable I had previously only served cooked. While of course I feel smug that I have a child who would rather eat smoked salmon than buttered noodles, that’s sort of it these days. The smugness ends when I realize he won’t eat anything else. (And no, you can’t put the smoked salmon in or on top of anything. He wants pure, unadulterated smoked salmon) Completely uninterested in the wide variety of gorgeous summer produce or exquisitely simple pastas I make for him, this boy will eat an entire bagel’s worth of lox without so much as slight curiosity about the cream cheese or bagel. All of that to say, I end up eating most of the food I make for him because I hate food waste, and nothing wastes more food than cooking for a toddler. 

The other day, what started as a lovely little snack for my gorgeous, beautiful child became my lovely little lunch. I cooked down thinly sliced zucchini—everyone’s favorite love-to-hate, why-is-there-so-much-of-this vegetable—with shallots and butter to a jammy, almost paste-like consistency, added it to a bowl of whisked eggs, and made a thin, quirky, omelette-ish thing so perfect I could cry. Ideal for his tiny hands and unadventurous palate, I thought. He’ll love it, of this I’m sure. 

And he did! Just kidding: He didn’t. You know he didn’t. And you know what? I’m glad he didn’t, because I did and wow, what a nice little lunch I made. A perfect buttered zucchini omelette, just for me. My son, already giving me the gift of self-care. 

The upside of cooking food for him that he inevitably doesn’t eat is that it helps me reconnect with the joy of cooking for one. Cooking enough zucchini for four people so that it all browns just so and the texture turns custardy and the flavors concentrate can take a small eternity. (I’m often guilty of giving up before it’s halfway there.) But cooking enough zucchini for one person to perfection is…quick? Meditative? Easy? Fun? Shockingly delicious? And would I take the time to do this if not for him? Not likely. 

This little omelette has single-handedly reframed my attitude around cooking for someone who might (will) throw the food on the floor. The food I make for Charlie is no longer food that might be thrown on the floor: It’s food that might be my lunch. So…I’d better make it good. And I do.