Getting Your Kids to Eat (or at Least Try) Everything

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There’s a photo from 1978 of my daughter Kate, taken at about 6 months old. She’s sitting in a highchair, waving a stalk of broccoli in the air and grinning. I’d forgotten that shot, but looking at it recently — Kate, who has become the family historian, frequently pulls out pictures for the rest of us to enjoy — I recognize how unusual it was then and remains now: a baby eating not only normal food but a food that kids normally despise.

Although my wife then, Karen Baar, and I must have consciously decided to teach our daughter to eat real food, I don’t remember our ever discussing it. I moved in with Karen and her roommates in 1970, and in between student strikes, demonstrations and the occasional class, we made dinner. We shopped in our Little Italy neighborhood and used recipes from Craig Claiborne, “The Settlement Cookbook,” Julia Child and Paula Peck. By the time Kate was born seven years later, I had become the parent doing most of the cooking, mainly because I liked it. And when I started freelance writing, there was only one subject I was invested in enough to interest editors: cooking. This set up a productive cycle, because the more articles I wrote, the more I had to cook, and the more I had to cook, the better the articles — and the meals — became.

Because Karen and I were making dinner almost every night, it seemed only natural to feed Kate — and later Emma — the same things we ourselves ate. That meant meals ranging from Japanese mixed-rice dishes and salt-grilled mackerel to eggplant and tomatoes with pasta; from pork with cabbage or rosemary or potatoes to roast chicken with vegetables. I spent long stretches focusing on Marcella Hazan, Julie Sahni, Shizuo Tsuji, James Beard, Pierre Franey and scores of other cookbook authors.

Tarry Health Fitness, Weight Loss, Workouts and Healthy Eating

Getting Your Kids to Eat (or at Least Try) Everything

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