Saturday, November 03, 2007

Let Them Eat Birdseed

At T.'s special request, I made a new chili recipe tonight from my slow cooker cookbook. Everyone hated it. (Of course, K. hated it without even trying it, since chili is not on the extremely short list of foods which she currently eats.) In fairness, it was pretty awful. Because T. does not like beans in his chili, I pureed the kidney beans. This was a mistake, and I also think that it might not have been a very good recipe to start with. But, I wasn't feeling very fair at dinnertime, watching Ed do a bad job of pretending he liked his dinner and T. not even pretending to like it but giving me apprehensive sideways glances. I told them that they could make themselves peanut butter sandwiches for dinner for the rest of their lives, but then I relented and gave them oatmeal cookies for dessert (the oatmeal cookies are also from a new recipe, but they are quite delicious). I am grateful that I have food to feed my family, but sometimes making dinner every night is such a drag.

We went to town today and bought doormats to keep our pretty new floors pretty, and also a new finch feeder from the Farm Supply Store. I didn't feed the birds this summer for reasons of economy (I figured there is plenty for them to find and eat when things are growing, but in winter food is probably harder for them to find, and who wants to be flying around looking for seeds when it is really cold?), and now that I've refilled my feeder I'm not sure how to let them know that we are open for business again. I suppose some enterprising little bird will eventually check the feeders just for kicks and notice that they are full of lovely fresh nyjer and sunflower seeds.

3 comments:

Wisteria said...

I love cooking, but the day to day drag of trying to please all palates is daunting and many times sucks the fun out of one of my favorite hobbies.

My children are used to being guinea pigs for new recipes, but they are shameless teasers when there is a complete failure. Sometimes it takes days to hear the end of it.

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

My family is one that does not even want to try much in the way of new cuisine at home. Oh, they will if we eat out, but at home, a steady rotation of Jewish and American "comfort food" is better appreciated than anything new.

Every once in a while, I'll try a new curry or some other "exotic" on them. Then I get to eat the leftovers as they cook us macaroni and cheese. Sigh.

The birds will come back!

Melora said...

Wisteria,
I love Baking, but find nightly dinner preparation to be dull. It wouldn't be so bad if my efforts were met with more enthusiasm.
Elisheva,
Ed and T. would eat spaghetti every night. K. is currently eating only bread and a few fruits. I look through cookbooks and dream of making interesting meals, but I almost always regret it when I cook something new.