Month: October 2006

Food – Tablefood

We are back from California! A lot of things changed while we were there, I’ll write a separate post about the rest, but the biggest change was food.

Leilani was a great eater when we first introduced solids, but recently her enthusiasm had faded. She never liked food that came out of the baby jars, but in the last 6 weeks or so she refused them most the time. She was not so big on fruit anymore either, she mainly wanted avocado, fresh veggies (not frozen), flax-oatmeal cereal, and soybeans.

Unfortunately when we went to California we were busy the evening before and the day of the flight, and at the end of the flight Leilani had eaten (or I should say not eaten…) from baby food glasses for the last 36 hours. We arrived at 10pm – and she was hungrier than we were. Of course most restaurants were closed, but we found a little Mexican place – I figured they’d have rice and avocado. They did – just the Mexican rice is spiced with garlic, onions, tomatoes… and salted. Leilani just loved it. The waiter, the cleaning lady and a couple eating at the table next to us all commented on Leilani’s appetite. I felt a little guilty, about the salt, but there was no easy way out.

Sri Restaurant Crew    
Restaurant Crew at Sri (source: MetroActive.com, Stephen Laufer)

The next 2 meals were fresh steamed veggies, and rice cereal with flax, she ate so-so, but for dinner we went to a Sri Lankan restaurant – “Sri”. Leilani screamed in protest when I tried to feed her baby food, and I was so embarrassed… I let her taste the cauliflower from my curry, and she ate it all. She also ate 1/2 of Andy’s salmon and a lot of rice. The waitresses were really happy with her, and even the cook came out to play with her. She made a huge mess with the rice though.

Sri became our favorite restaurant. we went there 5 times, and Leilani tried all their veggies, fish, chickpeas and rice dishes. She loved every one of them. We let her eat Chinese food at the potluck and at a Dim Sum place in San Francisco, and American food (Salmon, rice and greasy but very tasty veggies) at Carrows. We had more Mexican food. All we tried was to get rice centered meals, it made the trip so much easier…

Leilanis apple I once picked several apples from a tree, started to eat one and stashed the rest in the sling which I used to carry Leilani. She took one out and seriously started to eat it. She had gnawed on apples before, but usually given up after a few tiny bites, not on this one! See the result in this photo.

Now of course there is no going back. I steamed her some peas the other day – and she took one bite… I made pea sauce with them, spiced it with garlic, and she ate 1/2 of what I cooked (intended for all 3 of us!!!) Same with broccoli carrots and okra, which we ate with peanut sauce (she can not have peanuts yet) while she was sleeping. Maybe 4 bites. Andy fried it up in olive oil with soy sauce, and she ate it all. We introduced wheat, and she had pasta with pesto and vegetables, home baked bread (whole wheat and spelt with flax and basil) with guacamole.

Next week I’ll introduce corn, and then peanuts I guess, I’ll just space the known allergens a little, but I am so happy that she eats adult food. We’ll prepare food a little more consciously, especially go easy on the salt, but I’m not even feeling guilty anymore, just relieved. I would not want Dr Ancharski to read the post though… I guess I should say only a little guilty…

And an anthropological observation as a sideline: People living on Kauai usually ask “How long do you plan to nurse?”. Europeans ask “Are you still nursing?” (Often surprised) and in San Jose I got several “How long did you nurse” and “Did you nurse her?”