Modern Healthy: The Crisco Kid

When I first started dating my fiance, his 9-year old daughter and I bonded through cooking. Whether we made big kitchen-sink cookies or chicken under a brick, our friendship started in the kitchen. We cooked and we ate, she made a mess and I cleaned; it was what we did.

I moved in six weeks ago, and we're all taking our time feeling each other out during the transition. The dishes that we enjoyed making together no longer receiving love at the dinner table, and I don't want to get in the habit of making multiple meals.

As a cooking teacher, I'm used to making food, having people enjoy it (politely or sincerely; I'll take either), and having help with the dishes. But it's one thing to hypothesize cooking for a family; it's quite another to do it. I'm not used to putting a meal on the table and have my patrons opt for a slice of bread instead. And though I know I can make her pasta and butter or mac and cheese every night and have her fed and happy; that kind of cooking and eating is not going to make me happy in the long term.

What to do? These days I'm making the food I like to make, except I'll always leave a piece (of chicken, tofu, meat) "plain" so that she can try it.  I want her fed and happy, though the last thing I want to do is make food an issue for us. So I continue to cook. Because I like it And the understanding is that if she doesn't care for it, she can have bread or a banana or cereal.  And I've got to be OK with that too.

Last week, after deciding against a quinoa salad and herb-roasted pork tenderloin, she took a mini-bagel out of the fridge and slathered it with cream cheese. She was so proud of doing her own cooking and food prep and clean up and I was proud of her.

The next day, she asked for the same thing for lunch. I looked to the fridge: no cream cheese. Hmm. She kept pointing to the door, "It's right there!".

It wasn't, but there was a silver-foil wrapped brick of Crisco left over from my Thanksgiving pie crusts. "This isn't cream cheese, sweetie, it's Crisco," I said.
 
And I made the face that you are probably making right now, and asked, "Is this what you put on your bagel last night?"

A nod.

"And you liked it?"

A more enthusiastic nod and then a soft question, "Can I please have it again?"

Here she was, making a culinary request of me: Can I please have a bagel, slathered with Crisco, for my school lunch. I couldn't possibly...and yet, she was so proud, so excited about her invention, and once-again showing some enthusiasm for (I cringe to say it) semi-homemade food.

So yes, I made that Crisco bagel. I spread a thin layer on each side of the bagel, and packed it up with an apple and a note.

Because in this particular situation, given my hopes for healthy home cooking, it seemed like a Crisco bagel was the better choice.

She ate it, and never asked for it again.