I’ve struggled internally with my thoughts on food presentation.  The girls are *just* old enough to be trusted not to break things.  Well, they break some things, but heck, I break things.  What I’m looking for is an acceptable batting average with my fine china.  I hate, and I say this without reservation, HATE plastic dishes.  They fly in the face of all I believe about presentation: dishes should be WHITE.  My every day dishes are WHITE.  My fine china is WHITE.  Save for my hodge-podge collections from my travels and my great grandparents wedding china, most everything I buy is either clear glass or WHITE.  No one wants to eat red spaghetti set against a purple plate.  It’s simply not appetizing.  And bright orange and green and pink plastic bowls and plates are the epitome of YUCK serving ware.  Yesterday the girls and I started weeding it out of our cabinets.  How I have waited for this day!

Unfortunately, my white bowls are simply too big for kid-sized portions.  Give a kid too much food and the quantity alone will make their lips curl in disgust.  I tried using my clear portion bowls with the girls, but I don’t have more than 2 of anything.  Then it hit me: CUPS.  Serve them food in CUPS.  I’ve struggled to get Avery to try “real” yogurt, no matter what I’ve thrown on top of it.  But when I gave it to her in her great-great grandparents snowflake wedding china tea cups?  She ate almost all of it.  My experiment worked.

I started digging through my cabinets, desperate to take stock of every odd-sized, aesthetically-pleasing container I could find.  I knew I’d need them, as this is, “vegetables can be prepared in ways other than steamed” week.  Today the girls made their own Tomato Soup, and it was DIVINE.  We used this recipe, but excluded the Serrano cream.  They quartered the Romas, although I held my breath the entire time I taught them to use sharp, serrated knives, They did it!  Not one drop of blood was spilled! After roasting the tomatoes with garlic, they put them in the pot with the herbs, chicken broth, and shallots.  They took turns processing, and hooped and hollered when I used the “sweet” cream.  We only strained about half of the soup because I like mine a little chunky.  I served our soup in darling little mugs I bought on some side street in Paris BC (before children…obviously…like I have the free time or money to wander the streets of European cities since producing these little people), topped with oyster crackers.  They made their own grilled cheese (with my help at the griddle), after tasting everyone’s favorite cheeses, and then creating their personal stacks.  I added plates of sliced plouts and apricots, and lunch was done.  The whole ordeal took so long, I think I could have given them liver today, and they would have licked their plates. All in all, today was a win.  I find if they are cooking or eating, they aren’t bickering.  SO, it might be time to add breakfast and dinner so they are cooking and eating around the clock!