Cooking For Others: Picky Eaters

Side-by-Side Classic and Spicy Chipotle Hummus hanging out on my window sill.

EVENT: The Rents’ Belated Birthdays
VENUE: Phoebe’s Apartment, Flatiron
PARTY SIZE: 6
TYPE: Festive Celebratory Dinner; Side-by-Side Dishes
MENU: Spicy Chipotle Hummus; Classic Hummus; Spiced Lamb and Sweet Potato Kababs; Rosemary Monkfish Skewers; Yellow Rice Pilaf with Pinenuts and Parsley; Arugula Salad with 3-Herb Vinaigrette

When I was little, I mean really little, I was quite a picky eater. But my palate wasn’t refined to white foods like most children—I loved my veggies, perfectly prepared meat and fish, and all herbs. It was the usual kid stuff that I took issue with: pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs, and really anything that was conceptually hard to grasp. I couldn’t understand that soup was just a hot puree of the foods I normally ate. I didn’t like the idea of eating raw lettuce slathered in creamy dressing, and the concept of bread covered in tomato sauce and cheese was disturbing. Hamburgers and hotdogs didn’t come from any animal I knew, and therefore were out as well.

When my mother cooked, she cooked real food. The table was covered in bowls holding one item from each food group, and when I filled my plate with broccoli spears, roasted potatoes, and lamb chops, I did so without allowing the items to touch each other. I was kind of a purist in that sense. When I was 3, we moved to France, and they ate real food over there too. My favorite meal was sole meuniere with a side of haricot vert and French fries. When we moved back two years later, my mom packed peanut butter and nutella sandwiches in my lunchbox for school. And a year after that, I became a real American child and started trading them with my classmates in exchange for lunch money, so I could buy a hotdog.

Now, there are very few things I don’t eat, though I am still limited by almost the entire category of raw fruits (texturally disturbing). But the same cannot be said of my parents. My mother has always been the problem child. Her gluten and lactose intolerance, refusal to eat fish with high mercury content, and general dislike of most hot spices, including black pepper, means that sometimes when we go out to restaurants, there is not one item on the menu that she will eat. And when she chooses a basic chicken paillard or hanger steak, 9 out of 10 times, she will send it back at least once. It’s not her fault really. When you cook for yourself as much as she does, it’s hard not to be overly picky when others don’t prepare your dishes just so.

My dad, on the other hand, has always been easy. That is, until last winter when he decided to stop eating red meat and poultry. I now get email after frustrated email from my mom asking for vegetarian solutions, as she is so sick of making fish for the two of them she could scream.

Today, an ideal meal for my dad would be pasta (with cheese). For my mom, it would be steak. So when I offered to cook them both a belated birthday dinner (they were born ten days and 1 year apart), I was at a loss.

I decided to employ a strategy Cara and I often use for mixed veggie-carnivore crowds: the skewer. I made lamb and sweet potato kababs for my mom, enhanced by Moroccan spices, and for my father, monkfish skewers with toasted ciabatta (he loves his carbs). To start, chipotle hummus with pita (spicy/with carbs) and classic hummus with carrot sticks (mild/gluten-free). It sounded like the ideal solution to please both parents.