A gift of sorts (food love)...

The spaghetti squash pictured above has been on my mind for the past two days (I intended to write about it yesterday but needed time to get over the idea of doing an entry on squash.)  Two days ago my eleven year old son came into the kitchen (where I was in the process of making a big pot of vegetable beef soup) and said "Is that a spaghetti squash?"  I said yes to which he replied "Awesome!  Can we have it tonight?".   Now this may not seem like a really big deal but I've been thinking about how things got from point A (3 years ago when we first tried the squash) to Point B (two days ago when the squash became "awesome"). 

 If you've never tried this mild-flavored squash you should.  It gets it's name from the fact that after it cooks, the interior separates into a glorious golden tangle of long spaghetti-like strands.  There are two simple ways it can be prepared:  after piercing the skin 10-12 times with a knife tip (to prevent it exploding) you can roast it in a 350 degree oven for and hour and 15 minutes or cook it  in a microwave on high for 8 minutes, turn over and cook for an additional 8 minutes and then allow to sit for 5 minutes. Then you slice it in half, remove the seeds, and then shred the interior with a fork.  I toss the "spaghetti" with a bit of butter (or olive oil), parmigiano-reggiano, salt and pepper (of course the possibilities are endless but it's mild nutty flavor shines through with this simple mix). 

 So anyways, I first served this squash to the my children about 3 years ago and the response was "it's ok...not good but not terrible" (ok, that's a start..."not terrible" means the door is open).  So every two months or so I bring home a squash, make it, get the same reaction but tell the kids they have to eat the small portion they have been given while C and I eat up our larger portions.  It's not that I really care if they end up loving spaghetti squash (or anything else I introduce them to) but I think it's important that they are exposed to things and that they give foods second and third chances.  So two weeks ago I served this same recipe I had been serving for the past three years and during dinner Phoebe said "Mom, this is so good...I love it" and went on to have seconds as did Theo.  And then the other day I picked up another one and got the "awesome" comment.  So I guess the reason this has been floating around in my head is that I learned such a valuable parenting/life lesson about letting people come to things in their own time and what a gift that is.  There are so many other foods that this has happened with over the years but for some reason this one seems special because I realized that now this is in their catogory of "food likes" it will probably be there forever.  And so concludes my post on the humble yet delicious spaghetti squash.  

Thanks for reading...