Why is it so hard to feed kids!?!

Right?

I mean, obviously it's an age old battle.  There is no shortage of cook books out there with kid friendly recipes.  Half of which basically recreate chicken fingers in bold new ways, or hide vegetables so kids have no idea they are eating them.  There are also well known Canadian Magazines boasting family meals that everyone will love.  Um, ya... no.  I for one thought my kids would be more adventurous, since I was such an avid cook.  But I forgot what it was like to be a kid.  Food doesn't taste the same as it does now.  I didn't eat half of what I eat today, not just because it wasn't as fashionable or because my mom had a life and wasn't going to spend 6 hrs making gourmet dinners.  But because if she had, I would have turned my nose up too!.

But there ARE kids out there who eat!  They eat sushi, Pho, antipasto, calamari, beef tartar. I see proof on social media and I want to scream! What did those parents do right?  I guess, introducing my kids to my fave fast food restaurant (you know where I mean) and all of my go to canned and boxed food items, might have been a mistake.  But I have been trying to salvage their palates everyday since.

My husband and I went to Paris last year for an anniversary trip.  There were no kids in restaurants there.  Well not during the week.  But on the weekends, Sunday in particular, there were hoards!  All dressed up, and so well behaved.  Eating whatever their parents threw on their plates.  I didn't see any mothers fishing out onions, or green things, or making sure the different things on the plate didn't touch. I heard no crying, no yelling, no child got dragged out the door, parents faces flushed.

My kids would love to go to Paris.  I would love nothing less.  Ruining my fancy dinners out? No thanks.  We decided maybe a bit closer to home.  New York City!  I warned my spawn that there would be no golden arches in NYC.  No fast food period.  I made my first mistake by not researching restaurants in the areas we would be visiting.  I sort of thought there would be so many, and being NYC they would be busy, but have a high turn around.  I also wasn't sure where we would end up and when.  That was a mistake.  Our first night ended up to be OK, except the $23 hot dog part.  In hindsight, we could have ordered 1 and cut it into pieces and fed the kids with some left over.  But thankful to have found a place to sit, and kids being in good moods and promising to eat it all, we were idiots and ordered 2.  My middle daughter insisted she'd finish a whole hamburger ($25) but alas, she's 9.  Why do we listen to  her?

So the kids enjoyed $15 milkshakes, and we boxed up 2 hotdogs and a hamburger, which of course, we left on the table all night in the hotel, and threw out when we left.  So that was a waste.

I learned from that. I made a reservation for the next night at an Italian restaurant that had pizza.  I knew the kids would like this pizza because we have a place close to us in Toronto which serves the same wood oven style and they love it.   After getting lost, and showing up an hour late, we sat down ready to order. I looked at the menu and saw dishes that I thought MAYBE my girls would try.  I asked... offered money, begged.  Nope. Pizza.

It was great.  I got to eat beef carpaccio and short ribs.  They ate pizza.  It was fine.  But I was so disappointed that they didn't even try.  I won't even mention our last night.

At any rate.  I will continue to cook nice meals at home.  I refuse to do the "kid friendly" thing because I personally don't want some variation on chicken fingers.  Nor do I want to make two separate meals. But I admit, I do make two meals in one.  That is to say, I make stuff I like, but cook some parts of it it separately so that the kids are happy (not really, but they eat it) and so am I.  And maybe one day, they will go out and eat something in a restaurant and say "Hey! I've already had Coq au Vin! I remember my mom making this at home".  At these words, I will die happy.