Slim Pickings and My Picky Eaters

My mouth is in a culinary heaven at the moment. I created a magnificent combination of compatible flavors. Curry chicken, guacamole with Greek yogurt and basmati rice.
It is also one of those ridiculously easy to assemble throw together kind of meals that I just came up with in my kitchen.

I want to talk about cooking and food for a minute.

I realize I have not always have cooking skills I could boast about, not at all, but they have dramatically improved.
In fact, I would even say that my cooking really doesn't suck anymore at all. Even today, although I burnt both the rice and the chicken to the pan, that didn't even ruin them. I've burned entire meals before and have had to throw them away. Not this time. Not very often ever either. (Today I was distracted and in the other room and not paying attention when the burning occurred, it was not due to my actual in-kitchen negligence, I just simply wasn't even in the kitchen at all).

Children are massive food wasters.

I actually wonder what my children eat because although I prepare them delicious meals, they pick at most. Pick pick pick pick. Mallory is a bit of a better eater than Marilyn, but even she doensn't fully finish her meals. She's actually worse at dinner time because at least Marilyn will eat some of it. Mallory usually won't even touch her food and just sits there for an extended amount of time. I can't force them to eat so I go with the other method, I let them starve and only offer healthy foods to eat at the designated times. Somehow they manage to get by and they are healthy and thriving children.

But I am really sick of always having to throw out bags of cereal or crackers or whatelsehaveyou because they are left open and everything goes stale.

I'm sick of everything in my house that they touch being sticky. Where does it even come from?

And never, EVER trust the food that they give to you unless you have watched them. I don't even share bags of anything that they are carrying around and eating.

You can never trust a child when it comes to food, they have entirely different standards.

So now they are in the other room finally picking at the meal that I made and have out and sitting there for quite awhile now and Marilyn is bombarding me with her host of complaints that I make the yuckiest food in the world and that she just wants to eat macaroni and cheese (which I made for them for dinner last night, however, she barely ate any of that).

I have bribed them with the cake that I made the other day and ice cream that I just bought.

I NEVER buy ice cream.

I think that was enough of a motivator that they might be poking at the rice at least. I don't really care. 
Indeed, they did eat the rice. And I've haven't seen them enthusiastic for food since I pulled out the ice cream.

Marilyn, is much more like her father than I really disclose within this blog. She really truly is. She's very sharp and perceptive with what she notices but she's also got a sharp tongue is is a complainer. I think it is something genetic that she inherited, because it's like living with a much smaller, more vocal, more feminine, child version of the critic within my ex.

Here are some examples of what she said to me within a 5 minute span as I was struggling to carve ice cream out of the container. All of these were said with the whiniest of tones and biggest of attitudes. She brings it to the party without it already being broughten.
"I wish you would just buy ice cream cones so I could eat my ice cream in one"
"There's cake!!! I only wanted ice cream..."
"Why are there raisins in there? I hate raisins!"

But alas, my homemade chocolate chip cake with the aftertastes of vanilla and cinnamon and some vanilla ice cream have saved the day.

But why do they have to be so picky about everything?