Being Georgia’s Mom is Awesome

Often I hear people saying they can hardly wait for school to start so they can be rid of their kids. Sometimes it is said in a joking way, but more often than not it is accompanied by an exasperated tone. People also like to say things like “oh just wait until the terrible twos!” or “yea, well, she isn’t a teen-ager.” Those comments are usually in response to their asking me how I like motherhood. When I say Georgia is awesome and I love every minute of it, they feel the need to chime in with some negative comment.

The negativity about kids really isn’t something to which I can relate. I have never for a second felt like taking care of Georgia is something I am trying to survive or wondered why I got a degree if all I am going to do is read the same book over and over again. If Georgia wants to read the same book 40 times in a row, I’m glad to oblige. If she wants to run around the house screaming at the top of her lungs for fun, I’m in.

My job is make life fun and interesting to Georgia, to set firm limits to keep her safe, but give her lots of room to learn and explore. As long as I am paying attention and making sure Georgia’s needs are met – usually in terms of food or sleep – she is happy, hilarious, sweet and delightful company.

Certainly there are the WTF?! moments, but  they stem more from my lack of understanding of how Georgia feels at that particular moment or a certain developmental milestone that comes with side effects. That is a shortcoming on my part, not hers, and once I realize what is happening and adjust accordingly, it is happy days again.

For example, usually Georgia does not like meat. Protein comes from milk, almond butter, beans and quinoa. Every once in a while, Georgia eats shocking amounts of meat, has a really cranky day and then wakes up taller. This week, I am pretty sure she is growing. She scampered into the kitchen shouting “meeeeeaaaaat!” and ate a ton of buffalo meat. The next day she had chicken fried rice and the day after that a spicy deer stew on saffron couscous.

I expect Georgia to be taller any day now. She will stop eating meat and I probably will be all confused about why she inhaled the deer stew yesterday but won't it eat today and will only eat fruit. If I get frustrated, that is my fault and I need to realize her need for protein is less and her body craves the fuel provided by fruit. Georgia is just listening to her body -- something us grown ups should probably do a bit more often.

On to the stew recipe: The deer stew was based on the Spicy Lamb Stew with Apricots and Cardamom from the “Bon Appetit Cookbook.” I had a deer roast in the freezer, opted for prunes instead of apricots and cut back on the cayenne.

The recipe suggested serving it with saffron-cardamom rice, but I made couscous instead, since it takes less time. I cooked the couscous with a pinch of saffron, but you could leave it out, and mixed the finished grain with dried cherries and sliced almonds. 

Spicy Deer Stew

½ tsp ground cardamom

¼ tsp ground cinnamon

sprinkle of cayenne

½ tsp ground coriander

½ tsp ground ginger (2 tsp of fresh ginger would have been better and added once the meat was browned, but I was out of fresh)

a few grinds of black pepper

2 lbs of deer roast cut into pieces (recipe says 3 ½ lbs lamb shoulder cut up)

2 tbsp oil

finely chopped shallot

1 ½ c stock – water, vegetable, beef, chicken – your choice

1 to 2 tbsp tomato paste

10 pitted prunes, quartered

drizzling of cherry vinegar (can substitute balsamic or red wine vinegar)

Mix spices in a large bowl, add lamb and toss to coat. Heat oil in a heavy pot, add shallot and sauté. Add lamb sprinkle with salt if you wish and sauté until brown. You may need to cook the meat in batches so it browns and does not steam. Add the water or stock starting with 1 cup and adding more to surrounding the meat without completely covering it. Add the tomato paste and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer until meat is tender. It takes about an hour.

Add prunes and drizzle with cherry vinegar and simmer uncovered until liquid is slightly thickened and reduced, about 10 minutes.

Serve on top of couscous.

Baking Is So Much More Fun!

Here is the thing: I don’t actually like to cook. Bake – sure. I LOVE to bake. What I hate about cooking is the day-to-day meal planning and find that I am just not the kind of girl who can whip something up in a flash.  One of my most profoundly held beliefs is almost all 30-minutes meals suck.

Don’t get me wrong. I love to plan elaborate meals that take hours or even days to make. Jacques Pepin’s Stuffed Salmon Wrapped in Flakey Crust and decorated to look like an actual fish – I’ve done that. It was gorgeous and delicious. Duck confit with wild mushroom risotto (confit homemade, of course!) – mmmmm. Heck, I've even carved a mellon into a swan and filled it with fruit salad. 

Also vegetables. I know I need to eat more of them, but really I like carbs. I could eat beans and tortillas in varying forms every single day (tacos, enchiladas, chilaquiles, tostadas, etc) and generally do and at almost every meal. I never get sick of beans – black, pinto, white, kidney, black-eyed peas. Sure, I mix in some vegetables. It isn’t that I dislike vegetables, but I just like other things SO MUCH MORE.

Now I have to come up with different dishes for most meals, so Georgia can try a variety of things. I kind of hate it and the entire premise of my feeding Georgia and this stinking blog is giving me heart palpitations. I fear I am passing on my carb obsession – if the kid doesn’t see me eat vegetables, why should she? They learn by example, no?

Plus, Georgia is in the midst of some sort of hunger strike/picky, picky, picky period. She will always eat almond butter and sardines, but every other past favorite is only consumed on a whim and with no rhyme or reason. Another thing she always will eat – baked goods, of course.

Luckily, I bake at least weekly and usually try to mix in a fruit or vegetable. I know. Sweet potatoes baked into a biscuit don’t really count as a vegetable serving. The homemade pear prune compote whizzed up and baked into cornmeal quick bread merely flirts with the healthy category. Yet I maintain that the fig puree I had in the freezer and baked into the middle of homemade whole grain dough is without a doubt a toddler-worthy snack full of vitamins, whole grains and fiber. Plus it was delicious.

The recipe is based on the Buttery Dried Fruit Bars from “Eat Well” by Williams-Sonoma and the figs in a Smitten Kitchen recipe. This is surprisingly easy and shockingly delicious. Georgia knew where the tin foil-wrapped leftovers were kept and would run into the kitchen, pointing and saying “More?! More?!”

Fig Bars Recipe

For the fig paste:

1 c dried figs

(You could also add some dates or dried cranberries or cherries, too)

Splash of Brandy

¼ c orange juice or water

bit of orange or lemon zest, optional

Bring the figs, brandy, water (or OJ) and zest to a boil in a small sauce pan, lower heat and simmer until figs are tender. Whiz up in a food processor when cool.

For the dough:
½ c butter, room temperature

scant ½ c brown sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 ¼ c all-purpose flour

½ c wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

In a mixer, beat sugar and butter together until smooth. Add egg and vanilla then beat until combined.

In a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, salt) and stir to mix together. Add to the butter/sugar mixture and mix until a dough forms. Divide dough into two, wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Butter an 8-inch square baking pan (I used a metal cake pan).

On a floured surface, roll out one portion of the dough to ¼-inch thick. Trim to an 8-inch square and fit into the bottom of the pan. Spread the fig paste evenly over the dough. Roll out and trim other half of dough and place over top of figs, pressing into place. If the dough tears, don’t worry. Just mash it into place and try to seal up the cracks by pressing the dough back together. This will be the bottom of your bars, so it is OK if it is a little ugly.

Bake until golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the pan and then let cool completely in the pan. Turn out onto a cutting board and slice into bars.

This keeps well for several days at room temperature.

Life Gets in the Way, Failure & Goats

I have fallen off the blog wagon, because in the last month:

•      My beloved dog has been diagnosed with an enlarged heart and is on his way to heart failure. The vet added a seventh medication to the mix of the pills he gets, doled out in varying combinations six times a day.
•       My elderly and magical cat has had an ear infection for months and months and months that could not be cured with every antibiotic you could throw at it. So the regular vet sent him to a specialist, who scanned his head, discovered both ears were filled with a freaky infection (a different one in each ear), so she punctured his ear drums and power-washed the inside of his skull. Yes, they actually do that. I saw the video.
•      My husband is back to his heavy travel schedule, so I am single-parenting it most of the time. I seriously don’t know how single parents do it – hats off to you guys, because having no help trying to raise a nice person, keep them fed and in clean(ish) laundry is a lot of freaking work.
•     Georgia turned one and that required some sort of merry making, as well as transitioning her away from formula to milk. Despite devouring every sort of dairy product in her path before one year, she suddenly developed a problem with dairy and it took some doing to figure out what was happening.

The point, when I started Cooking with Georgia, wasn’t just to document success, but also talk about things going awry. However, I was too busy trying to sort out what was up with Georgia (plus all the other stuff in the list above) to chronicle it in writing. This is my attempt to summarize the milk experience and our journey to the solution.

Georgia initially was horrified by straight milk. She would spit it out and stick her tongue out of her mouth as if she couldn’t possibly put it back in her head with that terrible taste on it. I can so relate to that feeling. So I started giving a combo of formula and milk, first more formula than milk and then the other way around.

We got to several ounces of plain old milk a couple of times a day and then the fun began. My happy, happy girl was grumpy. She cried. She had some gas. She got constipated. Her appetite was diminished. Her nose was snotty.

While it may seem obvious, milk wasn’t the clear-cut culprit. She has been on a milk-based formula since the beginning. She loves yogurt and cheese. She could eat an entire container of yogurt in one sitting and not have one bad side effect.

It is cold and flu season, so the runny nose could be a cold and we had just been at the baby vet, surrounded by sickly children.

One-year-olds usually have a reduced appetite, because the major growing they did in the first year drops off and toddlers will eat what they need to survive and thrive if you let them decide how much to consume.

Georgia got four teeth all at once, which would make the best of us cranky and go off our feed.

All the books and reputable web sites I consulted say that some gas and constipation is not unusual with any big dietary change.

So I kept an eye on her and things weren’t getting much better after about a week. The crankiness and gas got worse, so I spent a ton of time reading about lactose issues. All of the unpleasantries listed above are indicative of a milk issue, so I decided to find a substitute and see if lactose was our enemy.

I am not entirely sure if the milk problem was because I was using an organic pasteurized but non-homogenized milk and that was making it hard for Georgia to digest. Perhaps it is because she is biracial and African Americans often have lactose issues, because they lack the enzyme necessary to digest dairy.

Because Georgia has tolerated all sorts of milk and dairy products in the past, I am not convinced the problem is a hereditary/evolutionary one and at some point in the future will try to reintroduce other forms of dairy and a homogenized version of milk, but not any time soon.

I have done a ton of research on milk and my conclusion is all the criticism of it is a result of what we do to the milk in our far-from-the-farm/extreme fear of rancid dairy culture. In fact, I am a huge fan of raw milk and prefer it for myself, but not for Georgia. It doesn’t have a long shelf life and there is certainly a greater danger of it going awry, since it has to be transported and to sit about in the store. If we could get it straight from the cow, I’d feel better about it. Pittsburgh allows chickens in the city limits, but probably not cows. Hmmmm….

Soy milk is just bad news. Highly processed soy, which the milk is, in the quantities kids are supposed to consume milk can have estrogen effects on the body. There are links to cancer and processed soy consumption. It can affect the thyroid and there just isn’t a ton of nutritional value in soy milk.

Almond milk really is not an adequate nutritional substitute and unless you get the sugary kind, I think it tastes gross and so does Georgia.

The answer is goat’s milk. This version is ultra-pasteurized and is supposed to be easy to digest. Georgia LOVES it and we didn’t even have to mix it in with formula. She gobbles it up with every meal and we’re almost done with formula entirely. Her stomach is better, she is back to being the happy girl she always has been. A bit of probiotics thrown into one serving of milk once a day sorts out any sort of constipation issues associated with this dietary change.

Whew!

Kids Not Cows

One of the things that really resonated with me in “Bringing Up Bebe” is French children don’t snack all day. The grazing like cattle habit that is so prevalent in American child-raising simply does not happen. The children eat three meals a day plus an afternoon snack. The end.

I am diligent about not letting Georgia consume calories any where but at table. She generally eats a good bit of whatever is offered, downs an appropriate amount of formula and will often supplement that with some water. She doesn’t drink juice and she doesn’t drag a cup around with her, sipping all day long.

In fact, we don’t do sippy cups. The ones that make it hard to get liquid out (and the kind parents prefer, because they don’t make such a mess), just make Georgia frustrated. The kind that flows easily she also rejects, but she does like watching the liquid stream out onto the floor. Georgia loves doing big girl things and wants to drink water out of the same glasses we use. Her favorite is a fancy juice glass that makes her eyes light up when placed on her tray.

Since Georgia only drinks during meal times, not using sippy cups is not a problem. If she spills her water, we all get wet, especially the dog who eternally loiters under the highchair in hopes of dropped food.  No big deal – we’ll dry. She gets formula out of a bottle so I can monitor her nutritional intake. Everyone is happy and we aren’t in a power struggle over cups, especially since she will have to give up sippy cups sooner rather than later.

Georgia also does not eat between meals. She does eat five times a day and at some point, I hope to whittle that down to three main meals and an afternoon snack. There will be no grazing in the car and when we buy treats, whatever Georgia picks will be reserved for her snack time and not consumed right then and there. She will learn to wait.

While my method works perfectly when I am Georgia’s primary playmate, I live in anxious anticipation of what will happen to our lovely diet and schedule when she starts making friends and going to various kid activities I’d like her to join, because they all involve snack time. No matter what the activity or what time of day, snacks are involved.

The trend of replacing healthy meals with empty calories is well documented and as kids fill up on what are usually empty calories, they eat less at table where (in theory) healthier options are offered. This is all fairly recent.

As recently as the 1970s, kids used to get three square meals a day plus an after-school snack. The end. The French people still do that and guess what? Their obesity rate is lower and their overall health is better. Children in the US are eating nearly 600 calories a day in snacks and children aged two to six are consuming the most snacks and childhood obesity rates and chronic illness are all too common at younger and younger ages.

I am going to have to find a way to balance Georgia’s fun and time with friends with our philosophy of food and eating. I know I will have a short window where we can just leave without snacks, but eventually Georgia will want to stay. If an activity ends close to lunchtime, we will have an early lunch with food we bring.

As Georgia gets older, I rather live in horror of the challenges we will face in our snack-obsessed American society when I am trying to emphasize fresh, delicious, healthy foods and Georgia doesn’t suck down juice boxes, those weird plastic pouches of smoothies and gobble Cheerios at all hours of the day.

Would it be possible to teach her to use self control and politely decline?

She Eats What We Eat

This is my parenting philosophy in a nutshell:

Georgia will be a baby for a short time and that is the only time in one’s life where everything can and should be about you. So it is all about her. As Georgia gets older, she will be expected to do things she doesn’t want to do, participate in things she does not like and be around people who annoy her. My job is to expose her to everything pleasant now, so her association with the world is happy and good, which I hope will then imprint on her personality and she will view the world and the people in it as happy and good.

That is not to say that our house is covered in plastic toys or Georgia will never be given boundaries or discipline. Quite the opposite, actually, but right now day-to-day life revolves around her schedule and needs/preferences to the extent possible.

This idea and our resulting choices apparently are very controversial and I have been given quite a lot of guff about it from all sorts of people. Here is a little insight into our thinking and the process – not that I have to explain myself, because she’s my kid and it’s my choice.

Since this blog is more or less about food, I will focus on our choice not to take Georgia to restaurants until she is old enough to behave nicely and not make the experience unpleasant for us and other innocent diners who are out for a nice meal.

When she was three months old, we declined to drag Georgia along to a fancy restaurant, garnering a very huffy “Well! THAT CHILD is three months old! She should be able to go to a restaurant!” As anyone who knows me, them’s fightin’ words and I will not be bullied into doing anything – especially something that violates what I think is right.

First of all, she hated her infant car seat (you know the kind that pops out of the car base and you carry around like an Easter basket) and screamed like a banshee for as long as she was strapped in it. So we didn’t go on long outings. Second of all, she did not want to go to a fancy restaurant. She wanted to sleep in her bed, be held and hear stories and music. The end. Three-month-old babies don’t have a wide variety of interests.

When Georgia began eating food and expressed interest in what we ate – around eight months or so – we took her to a family-friendly, local restaurant during off hours. We wanted the place to be largely empty in case she pitched a fit . We ordered upon sitting down so the process would be quick and we were poised to get to-go boxes if things went awry. I am happy to report, Georgia had a marvelous time, ate fish and some vegetables and we had about 30 minutes before her attention span waned and she was ready to go. Given her age, 30 minutes was an eternity and we were able to finish our meals and head home for naptime without incident.

Another choice I made was to totally ignore American eating guidelines of introducing a new food every three days in case the kid gets a rash. Those rashes rarely harm the child or even feel uncomfortable. While it may take a little research and thought to try to pinpoint the offending food and eliminate it for a time, it isn’t that big of a deal. There is a small window to offer new foods before the kid gets persnickety – not the technical term, but definitely a developmental stage. I want Georgia to eat as many different things as possible and be exposed to many tastes and textures, so when she emerges from that persnickety stage, she will have a greater chance of eating a variety of foods. At least that is what the research says.

Georgia has been eating what we eat for months now. It is healthier for us, because I cut out salt and include lots of vegetables, something that wasn’t always the case when feeding just myself.

At 10-months old, we have ventured out more with Georgia. The offending car seat is too small and a thing of the past and Georgia can sit comfortably in those little restaurant high chairs.

Recently we went out of town for a little break and Georgia was so easy, because she was so happy. She approached everyone she encountered with a wave and a smile, making friends in a city that is not known for its friendliness. Because she eats what we eat, feeding her was a breeze.

We had scones and fresh fruit for breakfast. Georgia ate my Cornish hen and roasted root vegetables by the fistful for supper. We went to a French restaurant, where she ate salmon, vegetables and escargot. She shoveled in the little bits of garlicy snail, wiggled happily in her seat and said “mmmm! Mmmm!” She drank water out of a wine glass with my help. It was brilliant. At one point, our waiter came over and proclaimed us “the coolest parents I have ever met,” partly because our little daughter was so delightful and friendly to everyone and partly because we declined the kid menu and fed her off our plates. He said there are so many children who come in and eat the most atrocious things and he could not believe the variety of things that a child of Georgia’s age happily ate.

I don’t make these choices for anyone but Georgia, but it was gratifying to have someone appreciate and positively comment on Georgia’s disposition and her adventurous eating habits.

It is too soon to declare victory on my choices. It is impossible to tell whether this behavior is all Georgia or if it stems from our parenting choices, but I like to think that it is a partnership and we have helped her become this happy, adventurous little person with pizzazz.