The Fine Dining for Toddlers

It hasn’t always been like that around here – I mean, frozen pizzas, the 3-minute Ramen Noodles and 11-minutes assembly-line chicken nuggets in the shape of little dinosaurs. We never meant for our house to become the fine dining for toddlers!

Our chickens used to have legs and breasts, gizzards, back and neck.  

We didn’t hire hit-men from Publix for $8.99 to execute the dirty work for us, to bail us out of the mess and the gore that eating fried chicken represents.

The mess and the gore were an integral part of each meal, not sanitized out of it..  

When we got married, our kitchen became one-of-a-kind, steamy, sticky, bustling melding pot of two very, very different worlds and styles, taste buds, culinary experiences and philosophies. We had almost as much fun there as in our bedroom. 

At first we fought a lot because we didn’t understand how our different personalities could possibly work together. Eventually we were able to relax and enjoy some of the best home-made foods from around the world and share it with few gutsy friends and neighbors willing to join us at our dining room table.

Stuffed Peppers. Paprikas. Sarma. Curry. Musaka. Chilli. Sopska salata. Masala. 

You could never predict what might be cooking in our household. Until you could actually smell it.

And it smelled gooood... at least most of the time.

I brought the Europes and the Balkans and my husband contributed the rest of the world spawned out of his international travels, which we later were fortunate enough to combine.

Chinese.

Indian.

Nepalese.

Indonesian.

Thai.

Mexican.

Ethiopian.

We had the best of both… no – the best of all worlds under our roof. 

And then… I don’t know what happened...

I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able. I Corinthians 3:2