Home cookin'

My parents are neither cooks nor foodies whatsoever. I recently learned from my science teacher that the "foodie" gene is recessive and commonly skips a generation, which justifies me loving food. My Nana grew up making agnlotti and gnocchi, and my grandmom on the other side would go to Le-Bec Fin whenever the chance came around.

My parents not loving food doesn't mean they've discouraged me from loving food, its actually quite the opposite, however this absence of love for food really shows up at the dinner table. Tyson chicken fingers, already mashed potatoes, fish sticks, the list goes on. I will give them credit however. They are quite busy people, but I just want some real food.

There are 2 big obstacles standing in my path on my quest for real food; my two younger sisters.

By looking at them you would never guess the terror they can create at dinner time. However closer inspection reveals that they are not to be messed around with. Don't try serving them broccoli. You will lose much more than you gain.

Recently, the older of the two has joined the brigade and begun to object to such processed foods. After watching Ghandi in history, I began to pick up a few of his principles (nonviolent resistance, fasting) in an attempt to teach the opponent of their wrongdoing. Our campaign has steadily won over my mom, who is finding more time to cook dinner. My smallest sister, on the other hand, will not budge.

We recently bought Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious which is all about sneaking healthy food in your kid's diet.

My mom and I tried one of the recipes which is sneaking some cauliflower puree in mashed potatoes. We were quite excited to try this one out and eagerly awaited my sister's reaction.

One bite, nothing. Two bites, nothing. My mom and I thought we were in the clear and we silently rejoiced to ourselves. We were too quick to do so. The next words that came out of her mouth were "Eww, mom why does this taste so weird." She was too good. As expected, our plan had failed, however I was not ready to give up on real food.

We have recently instituted a policy that's called "My way or the highway." This is good for everyone, besides my sister, but we are quite flexible and have made accomadations, as any good restaurant will do. Everybody's happy.

Tonight my mom made chicken tika masala with some rice and vegetables, samosas, and nan (pictured).

Most of it was from Trader Joe's but I'm content with such an improvement.