Deceptively Delicious Review

Being the parent of single handedly the most unbelievably crazy horribly picky eater to ever walk the earth - trust me, despite what all the well meaning and good intentioned upstarts who think that all a single mom really needs in the world is their particular brand of advice, there are children out there who will actually starve rather than eat. My lovely little man, my youngest, the joy (bane) of my existence is one of them. Of the many offerings of advice from the half a million or so people that I know (lol exaggerate much?) that were so conveniently forthcoming in telling me I am doing everything right down to how I sort my laundry wrong to the point of endangering my children's lives and putting them at risk of becoming the next Ted Bundy because I don't always sort the whites and darks on laundry day, someone had a somewhat enlightened idea. 'Deceptively Delicious" is the only part I actually remember. Most of the time I stop listening somewhere in between the time that a person glances at me as my child is screaming his head off in the store (usually wal-mart or safeway - must be the lighting.......) and the time that they take a breath in anticipation of telling me the five hundred things I am doing wrong and exactly what I should be doing to shut my little man with one hell of a set of pipes up. (Because if I just listened to everyone's advice he would be perfect.......) Anyways after mulling through all of the useless crap shovelled my way constantly (because mam if I could shut him up in the store do you not think I would) and out of a desperate attempt to figure out some way of feeding my beautiful and picky son, I did some research into this particular cook book. In other words I googled it...... There were quite a few comments - most particularly about spinach in everything and many much less than flattering towards Mrs. Seinfeld's book but the thought of hiding veggies much less spinach in anything intrigued me.

I believe that Mrs. Seinfeld's book is a good beginning to figuring out how to feed a picky eater. It offers a number of recipes that were a total hit in our house with some alterations to suit our own needs. The recipe in her book for pancakes - the one in the breakfast part not the dinner part ( I still can't go so far as to adding beets into pancakes) is in essence a good reference for ideas. However I find it unfortunate that it suggests simply adding the additional ingredients into a pre-made pancake mix. It would certainly be much healthier to have added to the list the rather few ingredients that would have been needed to make the pancakes from scratch.

I found the Mealtime section rather lacking in that it assumes that little Johnny will eat blended foods which as many mothers of extremely picky eaters now is about as likely to happen as herding one thousand feral cats the entire length of route 66. If my child were the sort to actually enjoy sauces and soups I probably would not have need of a recipe book devoted to hiding veggies in my recipes.

In saying the above I believe the dessert section is truly inspiring and this is the section in which Mrs. Seinfeld truly shines. I myself cannot believe how well the majority of these recipes go over well in my home. My houses favourite are the Chocolate Chip Cookies - who would ever have thought that chick peas (garbonzo beans) would be so darned good with chocolate chips!

In summary I believe that this book is a good guide for ideas for parent's of picky children but that where it ends. This cookbook seriously falls flat in a number of areas - most pointedly its complete lack of nutritional information in regards to the recipes and the books assumption that taming the picky eater is simply a matter of saying no. I would however recommend this book as a guide for ideas to those mom's creative enough to adapt the recipes to their family's own needs.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Why I hate People Part 1

People with money make me want to reach out and touch someone..... like maybe in the face..... with a fork...... Seriously, omg the ignorant arseholes of the world who love to talk to me like I am a total idiot because I am a single mother who happens to have a less than glamorous job out there just make me want to use them as speed bumps! Oh how sad for you, your kids didn't want to hang out with you on your trip to Hawaii, or oh my how much work renovating your cabin must be - did ya ever think that the fact that I am a single mom and am still struggling to put myself through school precludes my ability to give a shit about your dry rot in your million dollar house? STFU! Just saying :) Have a nice day people!