Even if you don’t have kids, surely you can see, objectively, how interesting it is to study a human being’s eating preferences and patterns from early days. Imagine how weird it must be to go from breast milk or formula to solid foods like squash and avocado and then on to even bigger flavors—pickles, roasted broccoli with garlic, tiramisu! When you think about it that way, it’s easy to understand why some kids take longer than others to pick up on and appreciate all the delicious foods the world has to offer.
We’ve had a number of conversations, both on the podcast and on the site—and, for me personally, in our family—about kids and food. My dad wrote a piece in the New York Times magazine in 2014 called “Getting Your Kids to Eat (or at Least Try) Everything“; everyone loved it. Two years later, his first grandson, my son, Holden, was born, and frustrates and fascinates my dad with what he will and will not eat. I just don’t know that there’s always a rhyme or a reason behind any of it. We all have our opinions. Some kids will sit down and chow down on dim sum, and some refuse to even try it. I’m glad my kid will eat fruits and vegetables and is, most of the time, sated. I just don’t want to make it more complicated than it needs to be anymore.
David Nayfeld is best known as the chef/owner of Che Fico, in San Francisco, which was named one of the best new restaurants in America by Bon Appetit and Esquire. He also has a young daughter. In his words: “I am a professional chef. I’ve spent twenty-seven of my forty years in some of the best kitchens in the world. And still, when my daughter, Helena, asks, ‘Dad, what’s for dinner?’ it gets me every time.” This is from his book, Dad, What’s for Dinner, which came out this year, a book that aims to answer that very question.
Since this is a question, and a topic, that I continue to love to talk about, I immediately wanted to have David on, and I invited our mutual friend, Aliza Sokolow, to join us. Aliza was on the podcast a couple years ago to talk about kids and eating; she got her start working with Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and is the author of This is What I Eat—a playful book about eating, for kids. So, please enjoy this conversation between three clueless, well-meaning adults.
Get David’s recipes for Chicken (Or Anything) Milanese and for Tuscan Sausage, Bean, and Kale Soup, here and here.
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