Whole Food

We have a new favorite apple: Cameos, available at our Whole Foods and grown organically in Washington. We ate three yesterday and went back to WF this morning for more, 14 more. That's just one apple a day per child for a week, none for the adults, which looks like a lot but is only 1/5 of the produce they need for a week, if you think about it that way. Which is why we also bought strawberries and grapefruit, another new favorite of Bud's.

Yep, we're trying to eat our colors, to encourage fruits and vegetables (though, I haven't successfully explained that brown is not exactly what I'm aiming for. Maybe it should be "eat a rainbow."). And to try to eat whole food. But how do you explain that concept to a preschooler? We play a game: guess where it came from. If they can name where a food came from, picture it in their heads, then it's probably a whole, natural food. If they can't, it's not "bad"--there are no bad foods in our house (and we don't talk about diets or losing weight or negative body images; I go to my "food class" but they only know it's about learning more about healthy eating, which essentially it is, even if it's called Weight Watchers)--just something we don't want to eat a lot of. And it really works. They can picture apple trees and strawberry bushes but not a cupcake tree. Though, this backfires sometimes because they know how to bake and can tell me what goes into a cupcake, i.e. flour, from wheat, which is a plant! Same with ice cream . . . from milk from cows!! And Sis completely understands that chocolate starts out as a bean. So, we're working on "treat treats as treats." Which doesn't go over nearly as well. Especially, when, well . . . . see below.

Anyway, we went to WF today and bought those apples and other fruits, some yellow split peas to make soup (after an incredible soup I had at Bloodroot for their anniversary dinner on Wednesday; more on that later), and then they wanted to find the samples lady who gave them juice last week. This time, however, the freebie was pie: lemon almond pie. This was incredible. It was like a traditional lemon bar (but thicker and not translucent like lemon meringue pie) in a pie crust with this almond-topped not exactly crust layer similar to how my buttermilk pie bakes up. And it was amazing. We all thought so. But no way it will keep until next week for Easter. And they aren't sure how many they'll have in stock. And weren't sure if it'd freeze. But, well, I splurged--lemons grow on trees, right? and crust is made from wheat, which is a plant!--and bought a pie anyway. I figure I'll send some to Ma and Gong via Mama tomorrow when she goes to the memorial service of her college friend and joins them for a meal (you'll love this pie) and then keep some for us and for sharing at church on Sunday. That should give me just enough exposure to it to figure out how to make it myself! Which is another Pollan rule (right up there with the colors and "where does it come from" and treats): if you want fast food (as the rule goes, I'm expanding it to treats), make it yourself. Because you won't as often.

Or at least that's what the rule implies . . . .