Food, Glorious Food? (Recipe Included!)

(A version of this post first appeared on Mothering.com at http://www.mothering.com/community/a/food-glorious-food-plus-marble-loaf-recipe)

I finally started trying to feed my oldest son, Parker, solid food after waiting and waiting in vain for him to show the slightest interest in consuming anything other than breast milk. I had had visions of my darling little boy happily gobbling up spoonful after spoonful of healthy, lovingly prepared homemade baby food, but the reality couldn't have been more different. Every time I extended my arm to proffer a pea-size amount of smashed banana or puréed yams or "super porridge," my son's brow would furrow, his lips would purse and his face would turn away. I tried feeding him in the morning, I tried feeding him in the afternoon and I tried feeding him in the evening. It didn't matter. He unfailingly turned up his nose at solid food, often with a look of utter disgust on his face, as if he were doing his best impression of Anthony Bourdain being served undercooked Kraft macaroni and cheese.

Eventually, every so often, my son would open his lips instead of purse them and allow me to spoon in some baby food. By that point, I'd given up on making my own; too many attempts at feeding him had ended in painstakingly prepared purées washed down the drain. But then the supermercado that supplied the island we were living on with groceries ran out of plain baby food. For weeks on end, there was a huge empty space on the shelf next to the meat-added "entrée"-style and sugar-added "dessert"-style jars of baby food. So everyday I mashed up some local avocado, stirred in some nutritional yeast, smiled big and offered the concoction to my son. There wasn't much else to make for him. A cornucopia of fresh produce the island was not. A week or so after I was finally able to once again buy some jars of regular old baby food (no meat or sugar added!), Parker astonished me by eating with actual gusto. His little mouth kept opening and accepting spoonful after spoonful. "At last!" I thought to myself. When he seemed sated, I pulled out the bottle of multivitamin drops the pediatrician had urged me to give him. I'd yet to even open the bottle; feeding him had been such an uphill battle I hadn't wanted to risk the added challenge of vitamin drops. Parker drank the drops down, paused a moment and then threw up his entire meal. By the time I'd cleaned up all the bits of regurgitated baby food, we were both exhausted and ready for bed. I threw away the rest of the bottle of multivitamin drops, figuring the nutrients in my breast milk were fortifying enough.

A week or two later, I needed to do some important errands so my husband, a chef, took our son with him to work. "I don't know why you keep saying he doesn't like to eat!" my husband exclaimed when I arrived to pick Parker up. There sat our son, in a high chair in a corner of the restaurant's kitchen, little legs happily swinging as he ate savory morsels of the three-potato hash his dad had prepared for the restaurant's dinner menu. I stammered, "B-b-but that has butter in it! And, Mike, it has salt! SALT!" My husband smiled and said, "Well, yeah. That's why he likes it." Then, with a smirk and a "Watch this, Megs" Mike handed our son a piece of the P'tit Basque cheese he'd been slicing. Parker's legs went into high gear and he practically levitated off his seat as he nibbled on the fancy French sheep's milk cheese. I didn't know whether to scold Mike for giving our baby boy decidedly non-baby food or to jump for joy that Parker was actually eating in earnest. I did know that the health nut in me was totally freaking out about all that salt and animal fat corrupting my son's taste buds.

I'm a second generation health nut. As a kid, I never got to eat sugar cereal and I thought carob was chocolate until I was about eight. My mom has only recently started using salt--but only pink salt--and has always, as far back as I can remember, swallowed down a mysterious hodgepodge of vitamins and supplements every morning. Once I flew the coop and could do my own grocery shopping, I unconsciously gravitated to the health food stores. By the time my oldest son was born, I'd been eating mostly vegan for years. For me, not eating animals and only very occasionally eating animal products is about choosing to live holistically, with minimal impact upon our planet. It's a lifestyle choice. I guess I forgot, though, that it really is a choice. I'd been attached--pretty much literally--to my son from the moment he'd been born. I breastfed him and co-slept with him and took him with me almost everywhere I went. How easy it is to forget that your child has a mind of his own when you're deep in the attachment parenting trenches. When it came time for Parker to begin eating solid food, I expected him to become a happy, health nut-y mostly vegan just like his mom. Watching him chow down on salty, buttery potatoes and über-rich cheese that afternoon was my first big reminder that he was his own (albeit very little) person, patently capable of making his own choices even at less than one year old. It wasn't that he didn't want to eat solid food; he just didn't want to eat unseasoned vegan mush.

After that day, I didn't just throw in the towel and start serving my son bacon, but I did realize that I needed to begin "thinking outside the jar" if I wanted him to eat nutritious, earth-friendly food. Though he's now six and his days of being fed smashed vegetables are far behind him, it is still a constant challenge finding food both that is good for him and that he'll actually eat. I know I'm not the only parent struggling with the what's-for-dinner dilemma. Whole books have been written about sneaking vegetables into kid-friendly food (an endeavor which has never been successful for me--the so-called hidden vegetables are always too detectable for my kid). In this new "listen to your body" era, with the clean your plate club and starving children in Africa guilt trips thankfully relegated to the compost bin, continuing to allow your child a fair amount of autonomy over what he eats can be trying when he hasn't eaten anything green in days. I just keep trying new foods, new recipes, even new presentations (Look! It's shaped like a TIE fighter!) and sometimes persistence pays off. My son ate pounds and pounds of fresh English peas this summer, for which I owe the local farmers market many thanks. And when we're out and about, I allow him to eat omnivorously. I don't want meat to become the forbidden fruit (so to speak!). My son definitely likes certain non-veg foods (salami, chicken tacos, the occasional hamburger). I've been talking with him for years about why I eat the way I do. He always shrugs and says, "Yeah, but I like meat." That's OK. It took me about thirty years to realize my parents were right about A LOT of things. Hopefully one day, Parker will realize I was right about not eating animals. In the mean time, I mentally take note of what non-veg foods he likes and then try to rework them, vegan- (or at least vegetarian-) style, at home. Usually it helps if I don't tell him they're my own healthier, more ecological version.

Starbucks Marble Loaf Cake, Vegan-Style

Note:

My mom and stepdad are Starbucks fanatics. (They even use the Starbucks iPhone app! I had no idea there was an app for that.) My stepdad in particular likes to treat his grandchildren to Starbucks goodies. I was OK with Parker enjoying the occasional slice of pumpkin bread but ever since Starbucks farmed their pastries out to La Boulange, my son has been eschewing pumpkin bread in favor of the crazy decadent mini marble loaf cake. I figured it was time for a healthier home version.

Adapted from Ms. Martha Stewart

http://www.marthastewart.com/339716/marble-cake

YIELD

Makes one 9-by-5-inch loaf

INGREDIENTS

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/4 cup vegan margarine (e.g., Earth Balance)

1 cup coconut palm sugar

1 tablespoon flaxseed meal

2 tablespoons egg replacer (e.g., Bob's Red Mill)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

I tablespoon apple cider vinegar

2/3 cup non-dairy milk

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder

1/4 cup mini vegan chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS

STEP 1

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan with coconut oil; set aside.

STEP 2

Make your "eggs" and "buttermilk": in small bowl, mix flaxseed meal with three tablespoons warm water; in another small bowl, mix egg replacer with six tablespoons warm water; in a liquid measuring cup, add ACV to non-dairy milk; set all aside.

STEP 3

Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.

STEP 4

In the bowl of an electric mixer* fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the coconut oil, margarine and sugar until light and fluffy, about five minutes. Add flaxseed meal and water mixture, then egg replacer and water mixture, beating until combined after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix in vanilla. Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the non-dairy milk and beginning and ending with the flour. Set aside 1/3 of the batter.

STEP 5

In a bowl, mix cocoa and 1/4 cup plus two tablespoons boiling water with a rubber spatula until smooth. Add the cocoa mixture to the reserved cake batter; stir until well combined.

STEP 6

Stir chocolate chips into vanilla cake batter.

STEP 7

Spoon batters into the prepared pan in two layers, alternating spoonfuls of vanilla and chocolate to simulate a checkerboard. To create marbling, run a table knife (or wooden skewer) through the batters in a swirling motion.

STEP 8

Bake, rotating the pan halfway through, until a cake tester comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes. Transfer pan to a rack to cool ten minutes. Turn out cake from pan and cool completely on the rack. Cake can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature up to three days.

* I don't own an electric mixer so I just cut the oil and margarine into the sugar using two table knives, then used a whisk to make the mixture nice and fluffy.

Roll with It

We wheeled our bikes out of the garage yesterday afternoon, happily looking forward to riding through the bright, warm summer afternoon to our local fro yo store. My littlest (21 months) was buckled in the Burley trailer, already flipping through one of the lift-the-flap board books I keep in there, and my oldest (6) was fast on his way to the street corner. He waited for me there while I closed the garage door, strapped my helmet on and pedaled down the block to catch up with him. This was only our second bike ride since summer began. Parker, my oldest, had broken his arm at the beginning of the summer; his cast had been off for a couple weeks but he'd only felt ready to begin biking again the day before. It had made my heart so happy to see him speeding along, a huge grin on his face, shouting, "See you later, alligator!" as he raced ahead of me. That sense of glee was still with us yesterday, at long last biking together again along the streets of our neighborhood.

Immediately, though, I could tell something was wrong. Whereas he'd been hard to keep up with the day before, yesterday he pedaled slowly, at times laboriously. We'd both woken up with a bit of a cold so I figured he just wasn't feeling quite up to snuff. It was hot, he hadn't eaten much lunch, we were pedaling sort of uphill and definitely into the wind; he'll get going once we turned the corner up ahead, into the shade, out of the wind, I told myself. But he continued to go very slowly. A car came up behind us so I pulled back to fall in line behind Parker. It was then I noticed that he was holding his supposedly mended arm funny, keeping it up at a weird angle. A block later, we'd stopped biking, our plans to get frozen yogurt abandoned. I stood there on the side of the road, trying to decide what to do. Parker kept avowing that his arm didn't hurt but I could see a distinct bulge where he'd broken it and he screamed when I tried to touch it. It was a Friday afternoon: what were the chances I'd be able to get him in to see either his pediatrician or his orthopedist before the end of the work day? Was it worth trying to call either one while we stood there in the hot sunshine in front of a strange house? Deciding not, I locked Parker's bike to a street sign, helped him into the Burley (which his little brother was none too pleased about) and biked home. "Mommy, PLEASE try to e-void the big bumps!" Parker called after I'd mindlessly ridden over a manhole cover.

Fifteen minutes later, we were back in the ER, exactly seven weeks after the initial break. We recognized several of the staff and they in turn recognized us. I highly recommend the Friday afternoon shift at Sequoia Hospital. They are cheerful, kind and patient. I figure pretty soon I'll be able to start writing Yelp reviews of the local ERs. Eighteen months ago, my ER experience was effectively nil. Yesterday's visit was my fifth since December of 2011. After my youngest was born, friends and family started making comments about life with two boys. "Oh, you're in for a handful!" "Watch out, mama! I hope you're ready for life to get crazy!" I'd just smile and give them a little half-hearted chuckle. The feminist in me felt affronted by these remarks. I have two sisters. Growing up, we played sports and climbed trees and jumped off furniture and did flips off the monkey bars; shy, retiring flowers we were not. Yes, little boys can be rambunctious but so can little girls. Besides, life had already gotten crazy. My husband had died while I was five months pregnant with my second child, while my first child and I were en route to visit family in California, at which point we'd just stayed with my family in California, leaving our life and friends in the Caribbean behind. How much "crazier" could life get? 

Twenty-one months into life with two boys, I say that my sense of feminist outrage over the "Oho, two boys! Hunker down!" comments was justified. Parenting little kids can get absolutely nuts at times but parenting little boys, as far as I can tell, doesn't get any more nuts than parenting little girls. All small children can be willful, energetic and high maintenance (to name a few). Tending to your offspring, whether one child or five, all boys or all girls, is tough work--the best kind of work, but tough work nonetheless. As to the "How much crazier can life get?" question, well, that's a little trickier to answer. Yes, we've been to the ER five times in eighteen months. We've moved three times since my husband died. My oldest went from homeschool to a Montessori preschool to a non-Montessori elementary school. My youngest had hernia surgery. Et cetera. Life has been crazy. Crazier, though? Who's to say. How do you quantify crazy?

I spent most of my adolescence and young adulthood either trying to avoid life's inherent craziness or trying to control it. It made for misery. Even after I'd learned to let go a little, after I'd married and become a mom, I still structured my days to ensure as much predictability as possible. I needed routine, probably even more so than my child did. If my husband wanted to sleep in--and not wake up early enough to watch our son so I could take a long walk before he left for work--I'd freak out. And usually for good reason: those days I did not start off with a walk often unfolded awfully, with me short-tempered and even more avoidant than normal. I had friends who'd watch one another's kids at the drop of a hat. I couldn't wrap my head around that. What? Suddenly agree to take care of two more children?!? In addition to your own?! But that would disrupt your entire day! I lived high on a hillside on a tiny island in the middle of the Caribbean, far away from my family and the hustle and bustle of the modern world. I lived in a self-made cocoon of schedules and routine. I felt safe, maybe even content. And then my husband died.

It was in my grief support group, about three months after Mike passed, that I heard the words that would finally, irrevocably change my perspective on life. It was my turn to speak and I was describing how I'd been feeling sad, yes, but also extremely edgy. I complained about how I couldn't find even a fleeting sense of peace, and how frustrating that was since my life before Mike died had been purposefully structured around cultivating calmness. My grief counselor looked at me for a moment, with nary the compassion and understanding I'd been righteously expecting. She took a breath and then responded, speaking slowly and carefully. She said that Life--capital L--isn't calm or peaceful. We have to find peace within ourselves, even in the midst of chaos, even in the midst of craziness. She held my gaze for an instant and then moved on. I sat there, befuddled. I didn't want to accept what she'd said but her words must have resonated somewhere inside me because I kept mulling them over for days afterward. Then I happened upon this quotation: "Peace is not the absence of chaos or conflict, but rather finding yourself in the midst of that chaos and remaining calm in your heart." I read those words simultaneously feeling a sense of illumination and a sense of resignation. OK, I get it. I get it. Time to stop standing around in the concession area; time to climb aboard the roller coaster called Life, sit back and experience the ride.

My life today is crazy. ER trips and moving house and new schools, yes, but also the less dramatic kind of crazy: trying to get breakfast made and laundry folded and teeth brushed; trying to nourish our bodies with healthful food, trying to cook food that will actually be eaten; trying to get us where we need be, looking at least somewhat presentable; trying to keep both boys entertained while encouraging sharing and peaceful conflict resolution; trying to respond to emails and phone calls; trying to keep the vegetables in my garden growing. My day-to-day life is probably a lot like any other mom's. Pretty much the only predictable parts of the day are naptime and bedtime, and even those sometimes feel like moving targets; no more long morning walks for me, no more carefully cultivated interludes of calm throughout the day. Life with two small boys is crazy, but it's not their fault. It's Life, and I'm grateful for it in all its complex, chaotic messiness.

The x-rays at the ER yesterday confirmed that my son's arm bones had broken again in the same spot. He burst into tears when the physician's assistant told him. "Not another cast!" I hugged and consoled him. Then a nurse brought in two big teddy bears, one for Parker and one for his brother. The tears quickly dried while the boys happily played with their new bears. Up and down and around the roller coaster we go.

A version of this blog post appeared on mothering.com at http://www.mothering.com/community/a/roll-with-it