Can cook, won't eat

The other day I was chatting with someone who said My mum is a terrible cook. Before my politeness brain filter could kick in I found myself saying Perhaps it wasn't her. Maybe she was a great cook before you were born. Maybe she loved cooking. And once you were born you refused to eat anything she liked or knew how to cook. And all she was left with was throwing together some ingredients you hadn't turned up your nose to lately and hoping for the best, which just left everyone with a general sense of disappointment.

So that conversation ended with a terse maybe and a quick change of topic. But it did get me thinking about how my daughter is going to look back at dinners when she's older. For most of her life so far, she won't eat anything I like or know how to cook. The things she consistently likes is pretty much limited to chocolate, nuts, chips and pasta. Plus her new discovery: cheddar (aka, the thing she couldn't stand 6 months ago). I can't eat the first two and won't cook chips, and since she won't eat pasta sauce all I can cook that I know she'll eat is pasta with some kind of cheese – I'm now spending too much of my time manually putting tuna or peas inside the gaps in conchiglie just in hopes she gets some greens and protein

At this point I'm making dinner once or twice a week. Which is a radical change from the days of getting antsy when I skipped cooking for a night or two. I keep experimenting without any luck.

It always goes like this: You like x, I've made a tasty dish with x. Give it a try

…

Oh well. I guess that's the last time I cook x.

Repeat until all foods are gone.

About a decade ago I developed a number of food allergies which decimated what I can eat. After removing foods L doesn't like or want to eat I'm left with a restricted set, but something I can make nice things out of. Once I drop the girl's preferences out of it, I'm pretty much left with sautéed nothing with salt to taste.

I'm not going to make two dinners a night – one of her and one for us, because, damnit we're a family and we are going to eat dinner together. So that's what I'm not going to do. I have no idea what I am going to do.

No idea how to solve this one beyond wait and hope. I know her tastes will change, but waiting solves nothing.

TV time

We stayed in a cottage on holiday recently. The girl got bored so we put on the TV to give her something to do while we settled in the place.

Now we don't own a TV. We don't bother. Between DVDs and streaming services we've more than enough to keep us all occupied. So, in 2002, when L and I did the bit move to London we decided to just not bother getting a TV. We'd just see how long we could get by without one. Turns out, it's been 14 years and, judging from this trip, that's not going to change anytime soon.

The TV at the cottage had Freeview (I think it's called). When I last had a TV there were 5 channels, so I can't really tell the difference between cable and satellite and whatever the other options are. It's like sexing a pigeon – I'm sure I could figure it out if I really had to, but there's not much to gain by doing so.
Anyway, There were a few dozen channels with the 3 or 4 free kids stations. So searching for something to watch was essentially switching between these stations.

We finally found something the girl likes, Nina and the Neurons, a short little educational science show where a scientist (well, really an actress dressed in a white lab coat, because having a conventionally dressed woman and calling it "Katrina and the Neurons" would just raise unnecessary comparisons) answers a question involving the five senses. Plus there's kids to read scripted questions and be dragged around to prove points¹.

The show is 10 or 15 min long. When it came to an end, and the girl exclaimed Another!

We needed to have The Talk. The talk about how TV works. I was expecting to have to do this at some point, but I'd not realised it be so soon.

We can't. It's over. There's no more.

But I want to watch another. I don't like this. (she didn't like the show that was on next)

It's not like I don't want you to see another. It's just there is no more. It's just not on now.

Why can't I see another?

It's not us. It's the TV. This is called television. It looks a lot like watching a video, but it's not. There are people out there who schedule a show. That means they decide when a show is going to be on. And when that show is over. They don't let you see another. It's not us. We're happy for you to see another. It's the people at the TV station who do the scheduling.
After a show is over, if you're lucky they don't let you see another only for a whole day. In most cases they don't let you see another one for a whole week. Or longer. That one Nina and the Neurones is all you get. That is it. No more.
That's why we don't have a TV. It's just madness.

She tried watching another show for a few minutes. And after that we turned off the TV and she never showed any interest in it again.