Vegetables

and vampires

Jacob will not eat vegetables. He is four, soon-to-be-five, and very skilled at detecting the tiniest bit of broccoli in a bowl of rice, or hint of orange carrot mixed in with his pasta.

Serve it raw with ranch dressing, you say? He’ll have none of it. Steam it and smother it in cheese sauce, you say? I’ve tried, and he won’t even taste it. Prepare a beautiful, highly desirable dessert as a reward with which to tempt him, you say? He has opted to go to bed without dinner more than once, no matter what the inducement. It’s not true that they’ll eat when they are hungry; if it were, we wouldn’t have this problem.

After four years of this vegetable struggle, I finally figured it out. The answer is: a blender, a candle, and some willing cohorts.

First, the blender: There are a couple of popular cookbooks out right now about hiding pureed veggies in foods that kids typically like: “The Sneaky Chef” and “Deceptively Delicious.”

These books have me pureeing cauliflower, carrots, spinach and sweet potatoes. I mix cauliflower in with homemade macaroni and cheese (or a jar of Alfredo sauce), and Jacob eats it! (Believe me, if he was reading yet, I wouldn’t dare to share this.) I’ve slipped pureed veggies under pizza sauce, and I’ve mashed it into meatloaf. I’ve rolled it with cheese into a tortilla, and secretly concealed it in spaghetti.

I have fooled the expert veggie detector, and silently rejoiced when he asked for more.

The second part of the answer, the candle: Sometimes the veggies are still detectable. Sometimes I’ve been so bold as to finely chop the spinach or grate the carrots instead of pureeing. With adequate lighting, Jacob spots them. On these nights, we eat in the dark. Or, rather, we eat by the light of a tiny tea light, just enough so we can find our forks, but not so much that we can detect colors on our plates. We say this is an adventure, something we do for fun, like when the power is out. Jacob buys it every time.

Third, willing cohorts: It doesn’t do any good to hide the veggies if Jacob’s sisters are not willing to keep quiet about it. Comments like, “I don’t know why we have to eat in the dark just so Jacob won’t see the vegetables!” will completely undo your efforts. Sometimes a quiet threat – I mean, word – before dinner can help things go smoothly, and will maintain a covert vegetable-hiding operation.

Of course, the goal is still go get Jacob to voluntarily eat vegetables. We still serve him up helpings of veggies, we still try to tempt him with yummy desserts. We still have hope, but for now, I’m slippin’ ‘em in.

Now, for what will seem like a 180 degree turn:

We spent part of our spring break in Forks searching for vampires. That’s right, Forks, the tiny town way out there on the coast; the one without a McDonalds, sitting quietly like a mud puddle between the Olympic Mountains and Pacific Ocean; a town significant because it’s the only obvious bathroom break between Port Angeles and Hoquiam. (The Forks Chamber of Commerce would gladly give you more details.)

Why search for vampires in Forks, you say? (Hopefully the real question you’re asking is why look for vampires anywhere, since they aren’t real.) Well, the answer is in another book: “Twilight,” by Stephenie Meyer. If you have teenage girls, you likely already know “Twilight,” a story about teenagers in love in Forks, some of whom are vampires. The author lives in Arizona, but chose Forks for her setting because the plot required a town that was the wettest in the lower 48 states, and that would be Forks.

While in Forks, we did what we could to revisit scenes from the book. Of course we drove Highway 101, and talked about when the characters made that same drive.

We visited Forks High School, whose real-life students, I imagine, went from feeling like they lived on the edge of nowhere to living in one of the coolest high schools in the country. (Did I mention “Twilight” and its sequels are bestsellers? I have twice had customer service reps from out of state ask me if I live near Forks.)

We stopped at the only grocery store in town – mentioned in the book – and there we believe we spotted Jacob Black, one of the main characters. (Truly, he seemed to be following us, and we wondered if maybe Forks had hired a character look-alike to give tourists a thrill. We thought it was fun!)

We hiked down to one of the beaches, and possibly spotted James and Victoria, the villain vampires. They quickly left when they saw we were on to them. Plus, some of us had been eating garlic, so that may have been a deterrent.

On the whole, a good time was had by all during our vampire hunt. What, if anything, did this trip have to do with hiding vegetables in Jacob’s food? Nothing at all! Not a thing.

However, if you ask our teenagers about our trip, don’t call it a family vacation. They hate family vacations. Nope, we were on a vampire hunt.

Denise Roundy lives in Kingston, where she spends hours trying to convince her dogs that the yard is surrounded by an invisible electronic fence.