Amanda Miller
Columnist
Lettuce Eat Local
Research suggests that kids are more likely to try and enjoy new, healthy foods when they are involved in the process, whether that be the planning, shopping, or cooking. I say “suggests,” because we all know kids have a mind of their own and might be the exception to the rule every day. But involvement can’t hurt, even if it doesn’t “work” all the time — because I would suggest that even if your kids don’t end up appreciating a wide range of foods, it’s still totally a success if they have the memories and experience of helping in and around the kitchen.
This is of course what I remind myself when Benson is perpetually right beside me in the kitchen, constantly mixing and spilling and sampling and driving me crazy, and then wants to subsist on cereal (or cerealrealreal, as he currently calls it) and ice cream.
But in reality I absolutely love how much he likes to “help” me and how interested he is in all the ingredients and ways we cook together, and right now I’m seriously loving the seasonal aspect of starting our supper journey all the way out in the garden. Things did not go as smoothly as I had hoped earlier this year: Benson was not nearly as distracted by the playthings I strategically placed around the garden, and he made weeding even less appealing than it already is. This baby belly of mine is so big and the weeds so advanced that apparently I now just mow the parts of the garden that we have finished harvesting. It’s special.
Anyway, now that we have spent months visiting the garden and talking about the plants, we finally reached the stage that is fun for a two-year-old, and my goodness is it fun. Immature vegetables were very hard for him to keep his hands off of, and hearing that they need to grow and grow and get bigger and bigger wasn’t nearly as much fun as picking them immediately. Yet when they actually did just that, I think it started to make sense — and the glee of his delayed gratification is one of my current favorite moments of daily grace.
I thought I enjoyed harvesting…but in comparison to Benson, my joy is very mild. The cherry tomatoes are his favorite, as his shrieks of elation prove. I like to plant at least three different varieties every year: red, gold, and a purplish one. He likes to reach through the leaves and pick them, to drop them in the bucket, to pop them in his mouth. He liked them last year, too, but he understands so much more about the process this time. And he’s paying attention — he even notices the different sounds different sizes of tomatoes make as he drops them in the bucket in different ways.
As with most things in life with a toddler, the process of picking tomatoes takes so much longer with him than it would if I did it alone. But also as with most things, it’s so much richer, fuller, and funnier with him along. Each juicy sweet pop of cherry tomato is even sweeter because of his help.
Chilled Golden Tomato Soup
This soup has the interesting identity of being a pinnacle combination of three of Brian’s least favorite food qualities ever — which, incidentally, are three of my most favorite. Soup, that is pureed, and cold: either the perfect food or the opposite, depending which of us you ask. Benson was fairly noncommittal, eating some but not much, so you’ll have to break the tie by trying it yourself. Although I will say, I took this recipe to a cook book club at the library, and I think more people were on my side than his. Usually I feel sad blending cherry tomatoes because they’re so lovely in their own right, but we have enough that I didn’t lament their use in this way — and they make the soup extra thick and rich.
Prep tips: This soup is so simple yet so tasty with good ingredients, and it was almost as good hot right after making it as it is cold. It’s slightly adapted from a recipe in Vivian Howard’s Deep Run Roots.
2 yellow onions, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 cups cherry tomatoes, preferably yellow but a mixture of colors/sizes is fine
3 bay leaves
a dash of chili flakes
about 4 cups water
1 cup dairy: buttermilk, cream, milk, or a combo
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
Saute onions in oil with ½ teaspoon salt in a heavy saucepan until tender and browned a bit. Add tomatoes, bay leaves, chili flakes, and just enough water to cover; bring to a boil and simmer for 30ish minutes, until tomatoes have burst/are very soft and liquid has reduced.
Remove bay leaves, and carefully blend soup until smooth. Blend in the dairy, vinegar, and another teaspoon salt. Pour through a fine-mesh sieve into a serving container. Chill completely and taste for seasoning before serving.
