You eat with your eyes first. But adult eyes and child eyes often see things a little differently. Who cares? Does it really make that much difference if the priority is an appealing balance of colors or enough "white space" on the plate or just making sure the food is not touching more than necessary?
Tonight's dinner: Jasmine rice with peas/carrots, free-range pork chops and a medley of roasted yellow squash, pattypan squash, garlic chunks and kohlrabi. A little freshly-baked wheat bread rounds out the meal. For some reason, many children, including mine, seem to prefer their food as segregated as possible. Should we call it "deconstructed" instead? It's not terribly hard to manage generally, so I try to honor that preference without being ruled by it, as evidenced by my rather brazen addition of peas/carrots to the rice.
The biggest differences between kid/adult plates are onions and veggie portioning. I topped my rice with sauteed onions and orange-pineapple jus from the pork pan. The kids got one piece each of yellow squash, pattypan squash and kohlrabi, while my plate is piled high with all those plus some garlic chunks. The bright green, orange and yellow of the veggies are offset brilliantly by the white rice and white plates, so this was a colorful and appealing early summer meal.
Not counting the bread, this could easily be a 40-minute dinner. The bread baking takes about an hour (counting time necessary to preheat the oven), so technically it's an hour prep. Swapping fresh bread for heat-and-serve rolls or skipping bread altogether makes pork chops one of my favorite "go to" meals after a hectic day on the go. I'll include a rundown after the break.
Dinner doesn't need to be fancy. Heck, it doesn't even need to be homemade. Really, it doesn't even have to be dinner -- it could be breakfast. It just needs to be time together to share and nourish body and soul.
For the record, the children ate rice, peas, carrots, bread/butter and pork. It was not surprising that they didn't touch the squash, but they did ask what each one was called and (amazingly) no one disparaged this vegetable that still holds a strong "yuck factor" for them both.
