Friday, July 22, 2011

Playing With Our Food

I am such a creature of habit. I'm the person who has the same bowl of Cheerios every morning, and the same turkey sandwich for lunch every afternoon. For 15 years. Jonathan is not like this at all. He likes to have a variety of cereals to choose from, and a new kind of lunch meat each week. (Navigating the deli counter has become his special chore at the grocery store.) Hannah, being two years old, tends toward the known and routine, which makes our lunches a pretty boring affair.

Hannah's typical lunch looks a lot like mine, but without the bread. She loves hard salami (a.k.a. spicy meat), and likes cheese in sliced or stringed variety. We always have a few carrots for crunch and to up our daily veggie intake. And we pile on lots of fruit - whatever's in season. One of the advantages of such a predictable lunch is that Hannah can make it herself...if someone will open the refrigerator door for her, that is.

But something possessed me this week to mix things up a little bit. Maybe it's all those back-to-school "make your lunch awesome" articles I've been seeing in women's magazines. I don't know. In any case, I decided to make Hannah's lunch into a butterfly. I didn't add any new or special ingredients. I didn't spend very much time cutting or slicing or chopping (although I did spend a few seconds doing this).

And then, after a few days of butterflies, I decided to see what else I could come up with. Introducing Mr. Salami Mouse!




And the next day, Hannah asked if she could have a rabbit lunch. In retrospect, I realize that she thought the mouse was a rabbit, but this is what I came up with.




So lunchtime has had a little shakeup around here, and we're all a little happier and more interesting for it. Hannah has even mastered the art of making her own butterfly lunch, and taught the art to Daddy. I can't wait to see what we come up with next!

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