Eating in and out

D1 is not, as toddlers go, a picky eater. Not only will she eat nearly anything that's put before her to eat, she persists in trying to swipe raw onions off the cutting board, even though every time she makes a face and spits them out. Hope springs eternal.

Nonetheless, there is definitely a hierarchy of preference in her eating. Peaches come above waffles, for instance. And thus, when peaches came on the waffles, she decided to make use of her carefully-honed food-hiding skills, casually dropping them into her bib as she went along. She asked for waffle after waffle, and I absent-mindedly handed them to her and went back to cooking the rest of the waffles, eating my own food, feeding D2, and playing cribbage. It seemed odd that she was eating two entire waffles, but sometimes she's hungry.

Unfortunately, food hiding, like murder, creates the problem of disposal of the evidence. She pulled the waffles out of her bib, plopped them back on her plate, and, as if nothing had happened, asked to be excused. We informed her we would be happy to agree, as soon as she had eaten the waffle skeletons that remained.

As it turned out, it was a good thing she ate such a big breakfast, since we went to Home Depot that morning and lunch was delayed more than two hours while we matched screws, compared shower rods, and waited in line for our screen door behind a lady who needed ten of them.

Thanks to a kind friend, we had a house-warming gift of dinner out to use up that night. Now, when I eat out, I want to eat something I would not cook at home. I see no point in paying $10 to eat mediocre mashed potatoes. DOB is adventuresome as far as cuisine goes, but he was a bit skeptical about the neighborhood of the East African Restaurant I had read about, and also not impressed with the dour demeanor of the proprietor, who seemed upset that we were monopolizing a table for four when there were only two adults in our party.

However, when a giant platter arrived, covered with a piece of flat sourdough bread and piled with various stews, DOB's concerns vanished. The core grain of Ethiopian cuisine is teff, something I once tried to cook with when I was allergic to everything. I didn't know what to do with it, though, and it never tasted good. The cook, who was as jolly as her husband was solemn, clearly did know what to do with it, as well as what to do with collard greens, red lentils, cooked cabbage, and other foods that I never have had much luck with. D1 gobbled up the spicy meat, the boiled egg, and the greens and lentils, but she seemed a little skeptical about the bread. Maybe she'd already had enough for the day.