smitten kitchen baby

A couple months before the baby turned one, I freaked out: Wait, I’m expected to keep a small child alive on human food? I am unprepared! How is this done? Why don’t they cover this in parenting classes? Because, realistically, that first year is easy food-wise: just gimme the milk and nobody gets hurt. But the doctor warned that by the end of the first year, milk alone is not enough to meet their nutritional needs and from that point on, boy, are you in the spotlight. “Oh, you feed your baby [insert food that most children want to eat exclusively -- chicken fingers, goldfish crackers, macaroni and cheese -- here]?” the neighborhood Mompetitor sniffs as you bust out all you could bribe your kid to eat that day at the park?

And so begins the next “phase” of this sporadically updated site: the one in which I try to feed a tiny human real food, with sustenance. After tossing and turning one night trying to figure out some sort of Food Management System that didn’t involve me buying a set number of freezer packages and jars each week, I had my eureka moment one night, and I declared it: SOUP! Soup will be the answer. Seasonal, delicious, chock-fulla-good-stuff soup! You can make soup out of just about anything, and by golly, I would. Pureed until he handled textures like a pro; chunky and stewy soon after that. Make a big batch over the weekend and you’re set for the week.

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I’m pretty sure it happened overnight. One day, the baby was happily slurping down every and anything I could run through a blender and the next day, all he wanted was That. What You’re Eating. Give It To Me Or I Will Make Terrible Yelping Noises Until You Figure Out That Babies Need Lattes Too.

[I'm sorry baby, but the last thing you we the neighbors need is something to keep you up at night.]

And we haven’t eaten them same since. From that day on, I literally could not walk into the room eating an apple unless I also carried a dish of apple chunks for the baby to… what? I mean, he had like two teeth at that point and not very effective ones at that, but he wanted that food in his mouth and once he got it in his mouth, even if he hadn’t figured out how to “process” it, good luck getting it back. Suddenly, those teeth were daggers. Occasionally, two hours later we’d find the half-eaten chunk of apple deep in his shag play rug. Babies, man. Good thing they are cute.

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Friends, I didn’t mean to abandon you. But since I suspect you are here because you also have a little rugrat underfoot, I probably don’t need to tell you that the only thing — seriously, only — thing I have done since we last spoke nearly two months is blink. Maybe twice. The baby, however, started crawling, then pulling himself up, then cruising, then climbing, then he started chewing on carpets and shoes and taking rooms apart and then he stopped sleeping because why would you sleep if you could be awake at 4 a.m. (for the day) and practicing your standing? And yelling? Oof. Like I said, I only just blinked.

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We’ve covered applesauce, we’ve covered pears, carrots, peaches and even spinach which means I’m overdue to get to an early fruit sauce, one so good I might be burying the lede to have made you wait this long.

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I was really eager to get into greens because, lordy, I love (well, most) greens when they’re done right — creamed spinach, heck even creamed chard, gratins and pasta dishes. Basically, “done right” in my book equals “coated with sauce and/or cheese but probably both”, which is exactly why I was pretty stumped as to how I was going to make spinach — straight pureed spinach, I mean doesn’t that sound terrible? — appealing, and not a drab, pesto-ish mush. Wow, I’m really whipping out all of the sexy food words today, aren’t I?

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