How do chefs feed their own kids?

Posted in food
by Lorain County Moms

By Colleen Diskin, The Record (Hackensack N.J.)

It’s spaghetti-and-meatball night. But not every plate on the table contains this hearty fare, nor is there a side dish of steamed broccoli at every place setting.

One plate has only pasta mixed with butter and Parmesan cheese. No red sauce, because red sauce has those little green things in it.

It’s OK to put marinara sauce, and even a meatball, on another plate — but only on the side. The bottoms of the broccoli stalks will need to be trimmed, of course, because only the tops will be tolerated and, hopefully, consumed.

On a third plate, you are gratefully allowed to spoon sauce on the pasta, as well as add some intact broccoli florets. But you must not lightly sprinkle on the cheese — you must shovel it on, saturating everything in it until you can barely stomach the thought of eating it. That’s the way the 5-year-old likes it.

By meal’s end, you are comparing yourself to a short-order cook, at the mercy of your kids’ finicky eating habits. If only you knew some cooking secrets, some tricks to getting your kids to eat a bigger range of things — or at least to get all of them to eat the same things so you wouldn’t have to prepare two or three versions of the same meal every night.

But what if you did have such expertise? What if you were a chef at one of North Jersey’s finest restaurants and spent your days experimenting with new combinations of flavors and fussing over the presentation of every plate? Would you still be bested by the stubborn 4-year-old who tells you he won’t eat meat because he’s a vegetarian, but doesn’t happen to eat any vegetables either?

We talked to chefs who are also parents and asked them how well they are able to broaden the “kids’ menu” in their own homes and what armor they use in their kid food battles.

Some have some ideas and tips, but several also ruefully admitted that while it’s mussels marinara and seared tuna at the restaurant, it’s often mac-and-cheese and chicken fingers at home.

George Georgiades, executive chef at Varka Estiatorio, Ramsey

Star charts are a parent’s best friend. Georgiades used this positive reward system to get his picky daughter to try — and even like! — salmon sushi.

Most parents would consider that a monumental victory. But to a chef who once boasted to a cousin that he would never be the parent who resorted to chicken fingers and buttered noodles for most every meal, it was a hollow one. “Really that’s what she eats most of the time,” he admits.

Star or no star, the 4-year-old won’t eat a potato that doesn’t look like a french fry and is suspicious of anything green.

When her father decided to try out a different soup featuring pureed broccoli, instead of her standard chicken and rice, the little girl would not be fooled — and certainly not tempted. “She said, ‘Baba, that’s green. That doesn’t look like the soup I eat.’ ”

Georgiades thinks he knows now where he and his wife went down the wrong culinary path. When she was a baby, they were so careful about introducing new foods slowly. Too careful, he thinks. Now the couple is putting everything they eat in front of their 1-year-old son and finding that his palate is far less discriminating. “That’s what you have to do, start them off with everything you eat from the very beginning,” he said.

Chris D’Eletto, chef and owner of Jack’s Cafe, Westwood

D’Eletto can still recite his five kids’ favorite foods when they were young children:

The oldest, John, now 23: grilled cheese and chicken fingers, and little else.

The younger two sons, Christopher, 22, and Joey, 19: mussels, clams, jambalaya.

Daughter Amanda, 18: same as her oldest brother.

Youngest, Sara, 16: Absolutely anything, even oysters.

So what did D’Eletto do differently with the three who were willing to eat more things? “Not a thing. That’s just how they were,” he said.

D’Eletto was fortunate that his kids would eat vegetables, although he had a little foolproof trick of browning some melted butter, and even adding some sugar sometimes, and then pouring it over green beans or carrots to sweeten the taste. “Cheese is also the magic word,” D’Eletto said.

But for the most part, the main lesson that this veteran parent and veteran chef learned through his years of catering to five different sets of taste buds is that “if you have a lot of kids and you’re going to try to please everybody, you’d better have a restaurant.”

David Burke, a nationally known chef from Fort Lee who owns seven restaurants across the country

Burke’s oldest son, now 22, wouldn’t even eat hamburgers and hot dogs when he was a kid, growing up almost entirely on a diet of pasta and cheese. His second son, now 20 and majoring in hotel and restaurant management at a culinary school, was far more adventurous as a kid. He would eat clams and sushi and try anything once he realized that was a good way to steal attention from his older sibling.

“Of course, it’s a power trip with kids and food,” Burke said. “I used to try to trick my oldest, which I think most parents do, and which is never that successful.”

Burke found he had better luck when he got his kids involved in the cooking process.

“Make it fun and make it a game in which kids can experiment,” said Burke, who has a 13-year-old daughter who will eat anything.

“If they want to put salsa on carrots or even if they want to put Bosco — chocolate syrup — on carrots, if it gets them to eat the carrots, let them do it.”

His best advice on vegetables? Size matters. The smaller the better.

“If they don’t like them, chop them up as small as you can get them,” he said. “They’re more likely to try something if it’s a small piece than if it’s a big piece.”

Giuseppe Staiano, chef and owner of Giuseppe Ristorante Italiano, North Haledon

Staiano’s two daughters, Jacqueline, 14, and Kayla, 10, are the exception to the pickiness norm. The two girls often eat lunch or dinner at the restaurant and enjoy dishes that contain lobster and octopus. But they shy away “from anything really weird, like liver.”

The oldest isn’t a fan of broccoli and, here and there, they each have their individual preferences. But for the most part, they’ll eat right off the menu. Staiano thinks that may be because he and his wife were never timid about starting their kids off on a wide variety of foods and flavors.

“Since they were very, very little, we have always given them the same foods that we eat — pasta with lentils, rustic Italian soups, fish and meat,” he said.

Staiano and his wife have also probably had better luck in developing their kids’ palates because they have always done what so many parents in this era are unwilling to do: They serve one meal at mealtime — no substitutions.

“It’s what we put on the table, and that’s it,” Staiano said. “If you don’t like the food that’s served, that’s all you are going to get.”

Peter Angelakos, chef at Bacari Grill, Washington Township

Like most parents, Angelakos never assumed he was in for as many food battles as he’s already fought with his 7-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter.

“Being that I am a chef, I was hoping that their palates would be more developed,” Angelakos said. Instead he has resorted to “all sorts of song-and-dance routines” to get them to try new things.

He knows that his own mother would not have catered to individual taste preferences the way he often does, since his two kids don’t usually like the same things.

“But I try to avoid the battles,” Angelakos said. “You always want the kids to eat well and to eat enough, but I know eventually it will improve as they get older.”

Angelakos recalls being a pretty fussy eater when he was a kid.

The irony, Angelakos points out, is that most people learn to enjoy a bigger variety of foods as they get older. “But the older you get, the less you’re allowed to eat. Then, after all those years of your parents trying to get you to eat more, now you’ve got to get yourself to eat less.”

Shall we all take comfort, then, in the thought that our finicky children might one day get their just desserts?

Cultivating taste

Don’t be too cautious about exposing babies and toddlers to a variety of different foods and flavors.

Think of ways to sweeten foods you want them to try, such as by browning some butter and perhaps adding some sugar, and then pouring it over carrots or green beans.

Chop vegetables smaller. Kids are more likely to sample bite-size pieces.

Get kids involved in the shopping and cooking process and let them experiment with flavors and combinations they like.

Make dinnertime fun, and not a battleground. Think of fun word games or conversation starters. Kids are more likely to want to eat in a more social setting.