Miss Delia

[pegkerr]

Delia has been very very very very very high maintenance today.

Unfortunately, I have not had the patience or strength necessary to give her the oceans of nurturing she has required.

They all made various fusses over what I made for dinner (leftover french bread made in to hoagie sandwiches, topped with a mixture of hamburger, spaghetti sauce, and brie cheese. Delia didn't like the texture (the french bread was too chewy), and Rob and Fiona objected to the selection of brie. Then they got tomato sauce all over the tablecloth. I have had even less patience for that.

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

High maintenance ... yeah, I have some experience with that. Sympathy!

[sternel.livejournal.com]

::drools::

I'm sorry your family does not appreciate your outstanding taste. Rest assured I am imagining such a meal and in my mind it's tasting marvelous.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Imagine me flying into your house, administering dope slaps all around, handing you a strawberry daiquiri, and flying out.

[nickel234.livejournal.com]

*Sends you strength*

I wish you were my mom....or at least could come cook in my house! You have some creative ideas and they sound yummy!

[http://users.livejournal.com/anam_cara_/]

I just had a conversation with a coworker tonight- I remarked at her daughter growing up so fast (11 yrs old), and she said that she really was a great kid, but adolescence seemed to bring on some kind of psychosis that she wasn't quite prepared for as a parent.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

Tch! You must come to Philadelphia, my dear, so that I can show you what a REAL hoagie is. What you made for dinner is sort of like a meatball grinder, not a hoagie, although here a grinder it would be made with provolone, not brie, and the roll would be grilled to make it a little crispy at the edges on purpose. Both a hoagie and a grinder would be made with soft Italian rolls, though, not crunchy French bread.

I must see if Amoroso's Bakery will ship a small package to Minneapolis; they send their hoagie rolls to places all over the country so that people can make Philly cheesesteaks and hoagies on the right sort of bread. No one else makes the rolls quite right. ;)

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Ah, I've been set straight by a real Philadelphian!

The point of the dinner, really, was to use up the French bread, you see--we had a whole loaf of it, and it was really a day past freshness.

[psychic-serpent.livejournal.com]

Hee! I thought that might actually be the case. When I'm confronted with that I toast the bread and give the family the option of either turning it into garlic bread to have with pasta (just rubbing the toasted bread with a clove or two of garlic, then drizzling it with olive oil and sprinkling dried basil and/or oregano on it) or, after toasting, asking them what each wants on their French bread pizzas. Either way, the hamburger could be mashed up into the red sauce to make a meat sauce, but it's usually a good idea to get shredded mozzarella for pizza, it you go that route. And when people request certain things on their homemade pizzas, I know I'm not going to get gripes about dinner: they got exactly what they asked for and it's really not labor-intensive to put different toppings on different portions, at least not any more so than making the pizzas in the first place.

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

This is the point my parents said: "Then you'll just have to go hungry tonight."

Perhaps you could temper this statement to Rob by saying he is welcome to improvise for himself?

Hang in there --

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I did actually say, in answer to the question, "Do I have to eat the cheese?" "No, of course not. You can just go to bed hungry."

Cheers!

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Good. You're trying hard to prepare for the worst, which we hope is only for a short time -- at least they can pull in harness with you. They are great kids, but like any kids with great parents, they don't know how the other half lives. Time for them to realize that THIS is reality, and until Rob finds another job, no one can change the station.

Brie options!

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Another thing occurs to me -- Brie is sometimes not appealing to kids' taste buds. I was 40 before I liked it. But I STILL don't like the skin (others like that best.) Maybe try making brie melted over roasted garlic buds, with slivered almonds on top, or a sweet version with something like a Fischer cooking sauce on it (like their Raspberry Chipolte) or even a sweet/tart jam (like the baked brie rounds with puff pastry around them, only don't bother with the puff pastry) and no skin would introduce them to the idea.

Wonderful on french rounds (especially toasted) or your favorite neutral cracker.

But that's another day!

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

With the understanding that some of this may be Dashwoodish territory-- do you have some ideas as to what's making Delia be quite so high maintenance of late?

[airemay.livejournal.com]

Brie?! That sounds fabulous!! Brie cheese is sooooo good. It smells funny, mostly if you aren't used to any cheese besides american and cheddar, but it is smooth and tasty!

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it was years before I figured out that many cheeses which "smelled funny" tasted wonderful. I still don't like blue cheeses, but I like Brie, Gouda, white Stilton, Wensleydale, and can sometimes appreciate parmesan and Swiss and Cambozola by not smelling them.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

*sympathies*

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

"Cooking for Ingrates." Maybe that can be your next book. ;-)

I have to admit, I would probably balk at the brie with spaghetti sauce, but I also know there are days when ya just don't want to HEAR it. If you prop the 10 of Swords on the knife block and make sure everyone sees it, do you think they'll get the point?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I have always joked that I am going to write that book someday.

[pazlazuli.livejournal.com]

oh this is funny!!! and I love your icon...

I tell my kids: "You don't have to like it, you just have to eat it."

and then I point out that Australian aboriginals eat witchetty grubs with great relish, so that they (my children) should be able to eat my cooking without too much fussing. ...hmmm, I have to admit, I get more laughter out of that than they do!

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Once you've been reading my journal for awhile, you'll see that one of my frequent topics is my periodic moan about how hard it is to get my family to eat my cooking. I'm an adventurous cook and I like a wide variety of foods, but Rob is aggravatingly picky, and the girls are supertasters (meaning they have more taste buds per square inch than most people, and so they prefer bland foods). Delia has also flirted with idea of vegetarianism, so she will sporadically refuse meat, but on the other hand, she also avoids most cooked vegetables. Which makes being a vegetarian problematic, to say the least.

I love the icon, too--it was made for me by someone on my friends list who was amused by my continual posts about my cooking misadventures.

[eal.livejournal.com]

I'm not 100% sure you could have convinced me to eat the brie either, and I'm usually a pretty good eater. However, having spent years and years watching my sister pick every onion out of her food, could you have encouraged them to eat around the objectionable parts?

Given the explosion of mom books, lately, I think you should write the book.

Also, check this out: The Sneaky Chef

Currently, B won't eat vegetables or fruit, so we're really excited about being able to sneak them past him in the stuff he will eat.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Excellent book suggestion! I have added it to my Amazon wish list.

The author of the Vegan Lunchbox also talks about being a Sneaky Chef, particularly in using a blender to sneak food past fussy kids. I was planning to make tonight her recipe for tomato sauce that has (blended) kale hidden within.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Onions is a frequent battleground in my household, too. When I make meatloaf, for example, I make a portion just for me chockful of onions; everyone else gets it without.

[eal.livejournal.com]

What's funny about it is that I'd never noticed, until my husband pointed it out, that when my Dad cooks the only onions in the food are green onions.

Turns out my dad doesn't like yellow or white onions, only green ones.

He's taken a lot of guff over the last ten years for giving me a hard time about not liking water chestnuts.

My sister, though, every single itty, bitty onion gets picked out. Though, apparently, she is not as picky about it when she's at her theoretical, possible future mother-in-law.

Meal ideas

[dustybinx.livejournal.com]

I found a place in my town that has an interesting concept. You pick a certain number of meals for a set price and place your order a few days before an appointed time. At your scheduled time and day, you go in and make the meals using their supplies and recipes. Take home the meals and freeze them. In my case, I picked 6 meals for $109.00. I took my 14 yo daughter to help in the food prep. Now, I have dinner for very little prep and since Mary helped choose and fix, not much room for complaining. We've tried 2 so far. My husband and I are quite pleased, kids, not so much but they are tolerating ok! I checked your area and came up with this place: http://www.socialegourmet.com/ I think these places are franchises. Maybe if your girls could check the menu, pick the meals and help prepare...???? There is even some room to change some of the ingrediants (i.e. no mushrooms, or onions, etc.)

Re: Meal ideas

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I actually received a gift certificate to Social Gourmet last year, and yeah, it was great! It's not something I can afford to do often, but it's a terrific idea.

[trogon.livejournal.com]

It seems that no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you bend over backwards, your family is never satisfied with your meal choices. In your situation, I'd stop trying, and start cooking what *I* wanted to eat, picky whining be damned. It's not as though any of the rest of them are volunteering to take on some of the cooking duties.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

And then I'd end up throwing gallons of food away. And endless moaning about how hungry they are.

There's absolutely no way for me to win. [/bitter]