children

Be a Food Adventurer

Posted on February 22, 2014 by Lia Huber — No Comments ↓

If I were being really specific, I’d call this dish “Sauteed Sweet Potato with Shallots, Chile Cobanero and Lime.” Because there’s a story there.

In Guatemala last week, as with our previous trip with Common Hope in 2012, Christopher and I went in curious about the stumbling blocks to better nutrition. One would think in a third world country the answer would end abruptly with “lack of money.” But it doesn’t. It turns out two other boulders loom just as large: 1) not knowing how to cook unfamiliar foods and 2) fear no one will like said foods.

Sound familiar?

I am so intrigued that the same roadblocks exist in developing countries as here in the land of more-than-plenty. And I have a story (yes, it has to do with chile Cobanero) that shows it’s possible to leapfrog past those roadblocks once you know what it takes to do it.

One of the things I did last week was to teach a cooking class to a dozen kiddos in the Common Hope youth group. Several of them had told the organizer that they were considering cooking as a profession, so I thought I’d teach them about flavor building–first how to sear and saute, then how to add flavor to steamed foods with things like citrus zest, flavored oils and whatnot.

Oh … and did I mention the whole class was about vegetables?

More than a few shoulders drooped when the kids saw green beans instead of brownies, but they were attentive and respectful from the get go. I started out by sauteeing cubed quizquil (pronounced ‘whiskEEL’)–which tastes to me like a cross between a sweet potato and a zucchini–in hot oil with shallots until it got nice and caramelized. Then I tossed it with lime juice and cilantro and was about to shake on a bit of local chile powder (props to you if you guessed it was called chile Cobanero) when I caught a look of utter disgust on the kids’ faces. I halted mid-shake.

“Are you telling me you don’t like chile Cobanero?” I asked. A dozen little heads nodded sheepishly.

I put the jar down and thought for a second. “Alright,” I said, “then I’m just going to have to make you food adventurers.”

They perked up.

“Where do adventurers go?” I asked. “Do they go only to places they know?”

Heads shook and someone piped up, “No, they go new places they’ve never been before.”

“Aha. Exactly. And that’s what I’m going to ask you to do.”

So I divided the quizquil between two plates while I explained that I would only put chile powder on one of them. Then it was up to them, as food adventurers, to take a bite of each and decide which one they liked. I wasn’t asking them to like the chile Cobanero, I was only asking them to try the chile Cobanero … they were food adventurers, after all.

You’ve probably guessed by now that I wouldn’t be telling you this story if it didn’t have a (very) positive outcome. Not only did those kids polish off that plate with the chile powder, they then insisted I sprinkle it on the other plate … and on everything else they cooked themselves that afternoon.

As I hugged each kiddo farewell, I could smell the woodsmoke that infused hair and clothes and knew they were going home to a very different kitchen than the one we were standing in. Yet they were leaving with a new understanding of themselves and a wider view of what was possible; I’m not kidding when I say joy literally sparkled in their eyes.

The whole experience left me pondering how often we allow road blocks to remain in our lives–no matter what circumstances we’re living in–simply because we don’t give ourselves permission to be curious and humble … the two absolute essentials for “adventuring” into places yet unknown.

A Whole New Meaning to “Mother”

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Lia Huber — No Comments ↓

I’ll be honest. I’m still getting used to the title of Mother. I think I went so long believing that I wouldn’t ever be a mother–not just for physiological reasons, but by choice–that when I did become one it took me a while to feel comfortable and competent in that skin.

It’s been five years since we brought Noemi home now, and I feel like I’m starting to make progress. But there’s so much gray in parenting that I often wonder. I’ve never been an overprotective mom, but in the early days, that stemmed more from the fact that I just figured Noemi had to be as safe, if not safer, with her dear daycare provider or the mom of a friend (especially if said mom had multiple kids) than with me. I felt so woefully incompetent. I’ve been on a gradual ascent out of that place over the past few years, but this spring finally popped me out of the pit.

Christopher and I have watched Noemi suck up any kind of teaching–intended or unwitting–all her life. When we first visited her in Guatemala at age 3-1/2 months, you could see the frown lines on her forehead as she tried to copy her Daddy’s OK sign (which she succeeded in doing) and she’d practice her razz so ardently that her lips would go numb. Now, Noemi reads anything put in front of her (she literally cried yesterday when I said the book she was working her way through the first page of was for Gammy and not her … it was Ann Patchett’s new novel). She’s always thirsted to learn and tends to challenge herself. It’s who she is. And as Christopher and I observed that trajectory, we started to feel she’d be more suited to first grade than kindergarten next year, but we had no idea what to do about it.

I asked for help. I asked for opinions. And I got both.

At first my “well I’m sure you know better than I do” mind chatter kicked in. But I started to realize that just because someone had an opinion didn’t by default mean they knew what was best for my child. I learned to take what others were saying and rub it up against my own experience with my daughter. Experience, it dawned on me, that no one else had. Experience that only comes from being the mother of your child.

When we were presented with the option to move Noemi out of preschool and into Kindergarten for the last trimester, I literally wept with relief. I knew at my core it was the right thing to do, and we’ve seen that played out by Noemi stepping confidently into her new shoes.

A few people have pushed me–hard–on the decision, and in the beginning I would analyze everything to try and divine whether we’d royally screwed up Noemi’s life. She cried once when I left the playground and I thought … OMG, she must have a latent attachment disorder and we’ve RUINED her by throwing her into a new setting–she’ll never be able to have a healthy relationship. She threw a fit about picking up her room and I thought … we’re pushing her too hard, she’s going to grow up resenting us!

Enough already. Sure, we need to keep an eye out for red flags and, if need be, adjust. But second guessing everything just eats at you; none of us can predict the ultimate path of our child’s life.

Knowing what I do of my daughter–before and after this transition–I’m confident we’ve made the right choice. And as gut wrenching as this all was to go through, there’s something else I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt. I AM Noemi’s Mom.

Teach Our Children Well

Posted on July 17, 2009 by Lia Huber — 10 Comments ↓

When I say I’m a food writer, people often impose a gourmet status onto me that’s just not so. Sure, I can whip up a stellar chichi meal, but nowadays that happens about twice a year. The rest of the time I still enjoy cooking, but it’s a simple affair. I’ve spent a good deal of my career, in fact, trying to bridge the perceptual chasm between how America defines “gourmet” (people who love food) and “normal” (people who think people who love food are “gourmet”).

{My daughter, Noemi, triumphant with the one and only bunch of carrots we reaped from our garden this year}

Which is why I’ve been so delighted to see Michelle Obama digging in the kitchen garden with middle-schoolers and teenagers rather than with Eric Ripert and Thomas Keller. The strategy Obama is using, says Jane Black in her recent Washington Post article, is to link “the personal to the political by gardening, cooking and eating with students.” Note that Obama isn’t trying to impart to the children that they, too, can become Top Chefs if they learn to cook. Nor that arugula is only for the elite. Exactly the opposite, in fact. As Josh Viertel, president of Slow Food USA, puts it in the article, Obama and her team are “normalizing something that should be normal.”

It may sound simplistic, but it’s working for Obama. By getting kids to interact with their food—shucking corn, cleaning lettuce—the first lady is transforming something that was loathesome (vegetables, blech!) into something cool. I’ve seen this scenario play out firsthand with our daughter, Noemi. People balk when they hear she loves figs, for instance, thinking we’re raising her to be a food snob. But it really has little to do with us. When she peeks under our tree’s broad leaves every day to see if any figs have ripened, how can she not adore them? To her, they’re not some exotic fruit, but a playmate in an ongoing game of hide and seek.

The principal is simple: when you engage food in its raw state it changes the way you think about it, whether you’re 3 or 30 or a 103.

I agree with Obama and her team that the earlier we get children interested in their food—how it grows, what it tastes like, how it makes them feel, how good it is to sit down and share a meal—the more likely they are to remain engaged throughout their lifetime. I also agree that the first step to dealing with all the complex issues surrounding food policy (which we’ll be addressing little by little here on ) is simply to care about the food we’re eating, not from the perspective of a gourmet chef, but the perspective of a human being.

Don’t miss, though, that by her very actions Michelle Obama is also sending a secondary message that bears voicing. Sure, children are our future . . . but we’re their role models today.