Raising a Foodie

We used to have a saying when Bridget was a baby:

Keep your fingers and toes away from the baby's mouth!

From Day 1, that kid loved her food. Was joyous at mealtimes, has been adventurous about new tastes.

Bridget discovers ranch dip:

Bridget has perhaps one of the most refined palates of any 9 year old I know. She's completely open-minded when it comes to food and can taste and articulate the differences between various types of tuna sashimi.


Once exposed to honest-to-goodness real mozarella cheese, she now says that "string cheese tastes like soap!"

The fault is entirely mine and Ray's.


I taught her how to make macaroni and cheese from scratch and now she refuses to eat it from the box. "I want the kind where you make a roux, then a bechamel sauce, Mommy!" she insists.


She sometimes has a hard-boiled egg in her lunch. Rather than our everyday kosher salt, she prefers to season it with pink salt crystals from the Murray River in Australia. And a pinch of smoked paprika that Ray brings back from Budapest.


The thing is this; she knows the difference. I hope she doesn't turn up her nose at regular mac 'n cheese at somebody's house one of these days. Or request that the fish sticks be breaded with panko.

Once, when she was four, we gave her a sip of a very nice sauvignon blanc. "What do you think it tastes like?" Ray asked. "Um..... THAT!" she said, pointing to a picture of an apple, plum and pear. Is she the next Andrea Immer ?

She and Ray were discussing the latest delicacy he'd packed in her lunch which involved bleu cheese. She said her classmates had turned up their noses at the smell and she just mutters, "They don't know what's GOOD!"
Have I raised a monster? Or the next Food Network Star?


She fantasizes about having her own cooking show. She's gotten into the habit of setting up the video camera in the kitchen when she cooks, and tells the audience about every step she is doing. If I pass through, she hollers "get out of my shot, Mom!" Unless she is actively recruiting me as sous chef. She plays her little radio in the background (Disney AM), and calls her show "Bridie's Rock 'n Roll Kitchen." One day, I'll let her record for real and upload the show to the blog.