What Iain Ate

Ok, use your noodle and try to remember my goals for our California adventure: sushi, dim sum, in-n-out, sushi, shawarma, sushi, and fresh produce.

I got most of that covered. No shawarma or in-n-out, but nothing is perfect. I ate sushi 3 times and dim sum twice, which is more than one can really expect in ten days.

But Iain was the real rock star.

You already know that at the Dumpling House he ate spicy noodles and hot/sour soup. There's more.

On our last day in Irvine, we took Iain for sushi. He ate a bit of sweet omelet and almost an entire bowl of miso soup. "Sooop!" he kept demanding. Later in the week, eating sushi with Megan and me, he again devoured a bowl of miso soup. I tried to interest him in a tempura-battered green bean, but ... with his eyes he said, "That's a green bean, Mom. I wasn't born yesterday."

That night, he ate freshly fried puri, an Indian bread made by hand by Megan's mother-in-law. Iain loved it, I loved it, and Charles loved it so much he said "you have to learn to make this." The image below is from a website with a tutorial. Never let it be said that I am not a loving and devoted wife.

Image from Indianfoodsite.com. It is a hyperlink to a puri recipe.

That night, Iain also ate spicy roast chicken. For the adults, it was part of a rice biryani dish, but for Iain it was a bowl of pure, spicy protein. I thought he might not eat it ("not chicken nuggets!!"), but he dug right in.

After dinner, our hosts composed a plate of strawberries and other fruit. It was intended for 6 guests. Iain tried to eat it all.

The next morning, he joined Megan (AKA Dr. S.), Dr. G., Dr. C., and the acrobatic and generally amusing Christian for dim sum. He ate: glutinous rice dumplings filled with sweet bean paste, spicy fried noodles, barbequed pork buns, fried dumplings filled with lotus root paste, a custard tart, and jello. I love it when a dim sum place has jello. It's hard to say who had a bigger sweet tooth: Christian or Iain.

For breakfast, in the hotel, he ate a plate of fruit (strawberry, pineapple, and papaya), part of a piece of french toast, a mini-croissant with butter and jam, "Bacon!" and three scrambled eggs.

In short, Iain took over my quest to eat my way through California.

Charles and I had plans. We intended to make our son into a person who tries new things, who likes a variety of foods, who enjoys the cuisines of many cultures. We had theories about how to do this. What a waste. Iain's got it figured out - he needs no reverse-psychology from us ("Oh, honey. That's grown-up food. You probably wouldn't like it. Oh, you'd like to try it? Welllll...ok. But don't say I didn't warn you.")

I'm feeling pretty smug. Did you guess?