Wednesday, June 3, 2009

The Beginning...

Foodie
S: (n) epicure, gourmet, gastronome, bon vivant, epicurean, foodie (a person devoted to refined sensuous enjoyment (especially good food and drink))

I'll start with an embarrasing confession... Pre-kids, my smug but well-meaning self proclaimed to anyone within earshot that my children would never eat chicken nuggets and mac & cheese for dinner every night or be completely, utterly and totally obsessed with candy.

Oh I was naïve.

You guessed it, my kid’s favorite meal? Nuggets and mac & cheese. Up until now out of some combination of desperation and surrender, (a husband, two small daughters, a household, a full time job) I’ve given in. Sure I bought those organic, free-range, antibiotic/hormone-free nuggets whenever possible, and the mac & cheese is Annie's, but boy have I had to eat my words (no pun intended.) And don’t even get me started on candy – it's literally the bane of my existence.

But those days are over. I want my two young daughters to love, appreciate and understand good food -- why it's important, where it comes from, how to enjoy it. Maybe it's asking for too much, but I want them to be little foodies. Desperately.

My desire is two fold: for one, I really don't want to cook two differently meals every. single. night., and there are only so many dinners of organic nuggets and Annie's mac and cheese that I can stomach. But my primary motivation is to create in my two daughters a healthier, more confident, more passionate attitude about food than I had as a teenager and young adult (for too many years, as as someone who came of age in the era of snackwells, food was the enemy.)

So this is the space where I’ll share our family's food "experiences" and where I'm hoping you'll share yours too, as I'm guessing I'm not alone here. What worked, what didn’t, what we cooked together, what we read, where we went and what we ate when we went there…

Welcome to our family food journey.

Let’s see how it goes!

14 comments:

  1. I am so excited to see how this works out for you! I have a 9 month old girl and my lofty ideas of a healthy home sound quite similar to your early proclamations. Good luck and I look forward to stealing lots of tips!

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  2. just read all of your posts. can't wait for more. bad for my productivity. good for the soul. keep 'em coming!

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  3. In the netherlands, where I live, the doctors and family health practitioners encourage families to introduce their children to the *family* food as soon as they start eating solids/can chew. so both my children have been eating adult food before they turned one. My daughter is now almost 10 and would stuck her nose at mcdonald's etc what she calls junkfood. We have a toddler and he is even eating curry.
    Besides exposing them to better food, I think ti is also good for us because we are conscious not to oversalt etc.
    Good luck with yoru adventures and I look forward to reading more stories!

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  4. Great blog and so timely - I have a 6 month old daughter just starting solids. I hope to bypass the rice cereal ASAP to get to the good stuff. I find myself to be highly concerned with putting only the very best quality foods into her mouth, when I haven't committed to doing that for ourselves (at least, not all the time). I think we deserve it, too.

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  5. I'm right on board with you.. I just finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and I'm back to being more committed about feeding my kids "real" food. I'm so so excited to see this blog take shape.

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  6. I'm loving your new blog Joslyn, thanks for doing this. I need to get inspired to push my girls a little more!

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  7. LOVE your new blog! I have a 4 year-old & a 1 year-old and am trying to feed our family as organically (and locally, when possible) as possible. Can't wait to read more posts. Thanks for doing this!

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  8. I LOVE your new blog!! I can't wait to join you on your eating adventures!

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  9. So excited for your new blog!
    No kids, so I can't chime in with my experiences, but I was definitely raised in a house that promoted good food. Simple, yummy cooking, from scratch and I think that it made a huge impression. We never had to do anything more than try each dish and if we didn't want to eat it, we had to fix something for ourselves. It worked out pretty well.

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  10. this is so great! i have a five year old and it's nice to see that i'm not alone on this journey.

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  11. Rachel -- if audrey turns out anything like you, this will be a success!!
    xo

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  12. what a swell idea this blog is — congrats! it's just me and my husband right now, but I'm excited to follow and find some great, easy recipes and inspiration since I'm always battling bowing into takeout rather than taking the time to cook a great, homemade meal.

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  13. Good luck on this! I'm fairly lucky, my kids will eat anything from Samosas to sushi, but they do have their quirks -- one won't eat fruit with any "skin" on it and the other won't eat any vegetables I roast, he only likes them steamed. I've found some tricks and have been scouring sites, have you tried Chowmama? Some of their food works for my kids...love both of your sites :)

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  14. Just found your blog and skimmed all the way through it-- will be a regular follower from here on out!

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