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Friday, March 29, 2013

"Egg"

When my brothers were little, I’d cut a hole in a piece of bread with a biscuit cutter and drop an egg in the middle.  I fried the bread and eggs in butter and I had happy brothers.  When they were a little older, I took them to Denny’s every Saturday morning for an egg breakfast that was arranged in a happy face with bacon as the smile.  Now really, who doesn’t smile at bacon?

I hear people saying that their kids “won’t” eat all sorts of things.  I tend to think they must not be going about it right.  For instance, lots of kids wouldn’t choose carrots and parsnips, but if you cook them in butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon, what kid wouldn’t eat parsnips?  They’re better than candy.  I started adding apples and raisins, and carrots and parsnips became one of my brothers’ favorites.  Anything else you want to try in the pot?

Broccoli?  No problem.  Cheese sauce.  Kids will eat almost anything with cheese sauce.  Sometimes I skipped the cheese sauce and gave them a lemon wedge with the broccoli instead.  I don’t know why kids like lemons, but they do.  They screw up their faces and act like they’ve bitten into a hot pepper, but they keep going back to it like a deer at a salt lick.

I don’t think I harmed my brothers by feeding them too much broccoli.  They’re tall and healthy, and I’ve seen them eat vegetables without sugar.  Sometimes you’ve got to show kids that good food tastes better than junk food.

When my niece was little, she had a very limited diet.  She had a lot of rules about what she would and wouldn’t eat.  I said that she didn’t need to like everything, but she ought to try everything so she could decide for herself whether or not she liked it.  She initially acted like I was trying to poison her, but after a while she started catching on that trying food was fun and that she liked a lot of things.

I fed a friend pickled beets once, and she acted like a 2-yr-old being force-fed pureed Brussels sprouts.  I told her the same as I told my niece, “You don’t have to like it, but you do have to try it”.  Wouldn’t you know it, once my friend actually tried pickled beets she liked them as I shook my head in wonderment about how some people can be so afraid of a vegetable.

Sometimes I wonder about things like this.  Maybe it’s just my nature to explore, and food is just one more unknown to discover?  Sometimes I think that I was taught to explore in the same ways I taught my niece.  My mom liked to try new things in the produce aisle at the grocery store, and Dad was forever reading Euell Gibbons books about what to eat in the woods.  How do you know what you like without trying it?

I had a rare day off today and spent it playing in PhotoShop.  I probably wouldn’t have thought to do this piece of art from the beginning, but by being willing to experiment, I ended up with something for “egg”.  Maybe someone else might say that I wasted my day, but that’s like saying none of us should eat carrots because you don’t like carrots.

Creativity is an exploration.  Let loose, have fun, add cheese sauce!

15 comments:

  1. Linda, we used to call your egg recipe "Eggs In A Hole" and they were our preferred method of eating eggs when young. Ketchup used to make otherwise yucky food go down better as well. :o) Nice egg and chick illust'n, lady. You don't watch out you could make some money doin' that! Happy Easter!

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  2. We ate our eggs that way too, when I was a child. My mother was neither a creative nor skilled cook, but the smell of cinnamon toast still brings back my favorite memories of her. It's got to be done from scratch, with butter, sugar, and cinnamon scattered UNevenly on the bread, so that you bite into hard chunks of sugar and bitter, burnt pools of cinnamon. :)

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  3. What an eggcelent post for Easter Linda ;0). My Mum used to make us egg nests...whisked egg whites on toast, a hole for the yolk and then baked in oven.....mmmm great memories. Happy Easter, Jane x

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  4. Wow, I haven't been by in a while. I really love the jelly fish illustration. It's beautiful. My grandson eats pretty much anything if it has tomato jam on it. ;) He used to love all veggies but now he's on a I don't like anything kick. I tell him he has to try and eat it anyway and usually halfway through he says he guesses he does like it after all. If not, a little tomato jam get's him through it ;) I guess it's kind of like another version of ketchup.

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  5. I love the fried egg in a toast hole - we call it "egg in a nest". My neice actually taught me that one!
    Nice egg! It's very "Eastery".

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  6. Happy Easter, Linda. Love the picture and a day spent on creativity is NEVER wasted! A day spend vacuuming, yes :-)
    So glad you've kept this going after all your travails...My sister never learned to like peas - my parents called them little green baseballs, threatened, left her at the table - to no avail. BUT she ate avocados, lobster (when she could get it which was rarely), and liver and onions was her favorite dinner. Go figure.

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  7. Cheese sauce, YUM...even on fried eggplant! What a good Auntie and Big Sister you were, Linda. I like this idea of putting cheese sauce on things we'd rather not eat or that seem weird...maybe I'll try some virtual cheese sauce on housecleaning and in-law visits too! Happy Spring to you, my dear.

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  8. Your Easter piece is so sunny and fun. My Grandma loved pickled beets. My favorite way to eat veggies is in a spicy Thai entre. Yum. But a little cheese never hurts. And bacon makes everything better!

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  9. Your illustration is beautiful and your story of food is very cool.

    I, however, do not smile at bacon.

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  10. Isn't it funny how so many people ate eggs that way? I'm not sure if tomato jam is related to catsup, but catsup works on most kid things too. And yeah, a day spent in PhotoShop beats vacuuming every time!

    Sorry you don't smile at bacon Josh. It reminds me of the time I made rumaki for my vegetarian uncle and thoughtfully left out the chicken livers for him without considering the bacon :D

    Thanks for the comments everybody!

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  11. Bacon...still makes my mouth water, but I haven't eaten it since the day I came home for the weekend from college dorms, and thought to make a nice waffle, eggs and bacon breakfast for my family. They'd bought *slab* bacon, and up until the moment I saw the nipples on the underside of that side of bacon, I'd never considered exactly WHERE it came from! Just couldn't eat it after that... :-( Maybe Josh had a similar experience...?

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  12. Aw now! Did I need to know that about bacon?! Somebody else was telling me about nitrates in bacon being bad for us too. Next thing somebody will tell me I should quit eating ice cream and chocolate.

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  13. Hey Linda, glad you had a free day to explore and experiment- that's always good! Hope you found some chocolate goodies along with those Easter eggs!

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  14. Nice Post Linda, totally agree about experimentation in art and food nom nom nom :)

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  15. There's always chocolate somewhere Michele! I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday. Thanks for the comments!

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