This is Not Dinner!
September 16th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Posted in dinner, kids
Daughter says there's nothing here she can eat
Sometimes, you just don’t want to cook anything.
I foraged this end-of-summer meal on short notice: assorted tomatoes from the farmers market, dressed with olive oil and tarragon vinegar, shredded mozzarella cheese and a chiffonade of basil; a cucumber from the garden, seasoned with salt, white wine vinegar and dill; a very ripe cantaloupe, cut into cubes; and full strength cottage cheese from the local dairy (none of that low-fat stuff for us).
I was rather proud of what I had produced, but daughter would have none of it. “That’s not dinner!” she cried. Meaning not only did she have a complaint with each item individually, but taken as a whole it did not qualify as an actual meal.
She left the table in a huff, but returned a few minutes later to announce that she was taking her scooter to the convenience store up the street to buy dinner with her allowance. “It’s my money, and you said I can spend it any way I want!” she declared.
My wife and I sputtered that instant ramen noodles from the corner BP station did not, in our opinion, constitute dinner either. We settled things by cooking a pot of pasta and concluding that I need to give daughter more warning about what I plan to serve.
Ah, the family meal. We do love our traditions.
For more great stories about how we are taking back our food system, read Fight Back Friday.
So, did she eat anything other than the pasta, or was the pasta what made it a meal, so the rest of it would fit in?