The Costco Conundrum

My kids have not eaten in years. Seriously. I stopped cooking for them a few years back because neither one really eats anything. Instead, they nosh. My daughter is a vegetarian--at least that's what she claims--who doesn't really go out of her way to eat vegetables. I think she's really a "Pastafarian". She would eat nothing but angel hair with butter and parmesan reggiano if she could. I should suggest dread locks one of these days come to think of it.

My son is eating not much besides Honey Nut Cheerios these days. And Ritz Crackers. Both my kids are essentially Carbohydrate Addicts. I don't think there's a twelve step program for that yet but I predict it will come to pass when all these kids hit 40.

I went to Costco with a fat wallet the other day, determined to find things that my kids might eat besides Cheerios, pita chips, edamame beans etc. My goal was to spend wisely but to perhaps branch out and get some things that we hadn't tried before. I failed. I wimped out actually. I stood before the frozen pizza section debating whether to go with our standby box of four cheese pizzas or to experiment and buy instead a box of four "pizza margaritas" with ultra thin crust. After too many minutes spent sacrificing way too many brain cells, I thought "what the heck, we'll try this new kind". I pushed my cart away and then reconsidered. My kids don't like change. They like to eat whatever it is they happen to like at that particular moment. For a four month period, they will both crave Honeynut Cheerios and then never eat them again. Let's see--over the past year or so we've been through four stages of cereal: Honey Bunches of Oats (nicknamed 'Hobos'), Frosted Mini Wheats, Rice Krispies and Cocoa Puffs. Once a stage is through, that's it. Neither kid will ever eat whatever it is ever again. Period.

This of course does not fit with the Costco Paradigm. The rules according to Costco are to buy in bulk the same things you buy on each shopping excursion. I got past the "buy in bulk" mantra a century or so ago. I have thin children who may never eat in bulk their whole lives. I see other Costco members and I covet their carts. Their carts are filled with  huge packages of pork chops, hamburger patties, drums of chips, cakes and all sorts of treats. Jars of mayo, sacks of rice, two or three of those awful remaindered hardbacks stacked by the stretch pants for men--you name it and they're buying it. My cart usually holds baby carrots, a bag of avocados, a gallon of milk, some challah style rolls and maybe a two-loaf pack of white pretend-whole wheat bread.

The weird thing is that my kids loved all kinds of food when they were small, although maybe that's because we usually ate in restaurants. Dim Sum on Sundays, tofu, cheese, snails, calamari, etc. I remember once pushing Kid 1 in her stroller through Central Park. I was staggering zombie-like and I think we were probably both green in the face--we both had food poisoning probably from the escargot we'd had for dinner the night before. I suspect both of my kids would still  eat escargot as long as it was in a suitable restaurant and in no way affiliated with  Costco. I know that neither one would ever consider eating Swedish meat balls in an Ikea, that's for sure.