(no subject)

So how many of you moms give your kids juice? Straight or diluted? I personally think juice is as bad as any other sugar-laden drink. Why not just eat the fruit? I've had so many arguments with moms about this. Seriously, though, what is the point of juice? Topaz gets juice on rare occasions, in small amounts, usually diluted (basically for a little flavor), but she seems to prefer water anyway. I feel like, if you have a kid who hasn't been conditioned to prefer the taste of sweet, why push them toward the sweet? Count your blessings and move on.

We discovered tonight that she likes kholarabi. We discovered last week that WE love it. The farmers market has been such an adventure so far. It's not like you can't get these veggies in the grocery store, but my whole life I just walked right by them. Our veggie repertoire was pretty much this:

spinach
broccoli
carrots
lettuce
mache
cucumbers
tomatoes (fruit, I know)
zucchini
summer squash
winter squash
pumpkin
beans
peas
celery
onions
potatoes
okra
radishes
bell peppers
asparagus
scallions

and probably more that I'm not thinking of right now.

This year we've tried and LOVED the following:

leeks (HOW did we live without them??)
kholrabi
kale (LOVE!)


Okay, so really it's not a lot, but we've been eating tons and tons of kale and leeks, and this is only the second week we've gotten kholrabi. Pretty much, anything I see at the farmers market that looks fresh, I buy. It's worked out really well.

Tonight for dinner we had kale sauteed with garlic in olive oil; local turkey; leftover quinoa with mushrooms; kholrabi cooked in butter; ice cream and blueberries; Finger Lakes sparkling hard cider.

Topaz ate a little of everything except the kale, which she decidedly does not like. I will keep trying though, and one day she'll come around. I love that she's going to grow up with far more variety than I did.