Chicken Noodle Soup

I’m a big believer in not feed­ing kids “kid food” — know what I mean? I never order from the kids’ menu in restau­rants. I think a par­ent is their own worst enemy if they never allow their kid’s palate to extend beyond noo­dles, cheese and ketchup (how my daughter’s tastes run if left to her own devices). Why not add dijon mus­tard to the sauce? Hey, why not chilis for that mat­ter? As I said, this is what I believe. Firmly.

Now, how I actu­ally behave.… yep, it’s another story. Like most peo­ple, I’m no fan of crit­i­cism. Par­tic­u­larly the cold and heart­less vari­ety doled out by chil­dren. “Yuck,” says my four-year old. That’s if she’s feel­ing benev­o­lent. “Gross, I hate… (insert goat cheese, spinach, sauce, may­on­naise here)” if she’s not. My tod­dler is an even more scathing critic. If he touches a piece of food to his lit­tle kissy lips and finds it unap­peal­ing in any­way, he tosses it to the floor.

Photos: Maya Visnyei

It’s hard on a per­son. Luck­ily in my life I have Rob, the amaz­ing cook at my daughter’s day­care. I don’t know what his secret is but he has them eat­ing curry, lentils, cur­ried lentils, you name it. What has always blown me away most is the soup. All them, right down to the tod­dlers, have one soup meal each week. Imag­ine the mess involved in feed­ing a group of one-year olds soup? But they do it — they learn how to man­age the spoon and they learn to love soup, one of my favourite foods.

I think the key to soup for small chil­dren is either going for some­thing smooth and creamy that will cling to the spoon, like black bean or mush­room, or if you’re mak­ing a broth-y soup, make the pieces of meat and veg­etable small enough to be picked up by a small spoon. I love chicken noo­dle soup — there’s just noth­ing more com­fort­ing and when you use alpha­bets for noo­dles, it’s pretty cute, too.