Summer Supper Stalemate

She looked across the dinner table at me through juicy crocodile teardrops, moaning her new catchphrase without ever breaking eye contact: “I don’t like the spice, mommy, I don’t like the spice!”

“The Spice” referred to the flecks of pepper and salt on the grilled edge of the pork tenderloin I cooked for dinner – for all of us, one meal, not the two or even three variations on dinner I usually serve to feed two adults and two kids under 5. Though it wasn’t a hot dog, or “grandpa ham” (what she calls brown sugar ham from Wegmans because she once ate deli ham with her grandfather) or a bagel with butter, pork tenderloin is something Lucy has eaten before, with as much gusto as she can muster for something that isn’t one of the other three menu items I just listed. But on this night, a girl was putting her foot down regarding the tyranny and injustice of one meal for all.

It wasn’t as if I didn't give her some other more kid-friendly options to help the porcine medicine go down – neighboring the offending bite-sized morsels of tenderloin were half a banana (consumed) and a granola bar (uneaten on principal). And the other pint-sized food critic in the house downed at least three bites of the pork in return for three high fives from his high chair, proving the meat’s edibility.

I don’t normally go for dinnertime showdowns. I decided months ago that food fights were battles I couldn’t win and therefore wouldn’t actively engage in. Yet something made me take a quiet stand on this recent pork night. I didn’t holler or harangue. I didn’t try to negotiate (much) with my future juris doctorate holder. But it didn’t get me anywhere. In the end, the Pretty Prince of Puppytown received Lucy’s table scraps, making the family dog the only one who benefits from our food skirmishes. Lucy didn’t get an alternate dinner and went to bed with only a half-banana and some swigs of chocolate milk in her belly; I quietly but firmly denied her plea for snacks as she watched me prepare the next day’s lunches. I put on a strong show on the outside but on the inside, I wilted.

In the grand scheme of all things child-related, these encounters aren’t such a big deal, I know. The sun rose the next day, the usual breakfast of two slices of cinnamon toast and a strawberry Fruit Roll-Up were consumed, and on we went. But the showdowns feel pretty intense in the moment. Needless to say, I have several packs of Hebrew National hot dogs in the freezer on standby. I refuse to spend all of my summer suppers in a stalemate.