What Does Dad feed them? I'm sure it's not TOFU.

PICTURE came from HERE

***Liz is a Guest Contributor today. Read her post and make her feel welcome!

Driving home from play practice on Saturday, my daughter said she was hungry.


"You didn't give me enough to eat" she complained.


Just before we had left that house around 7:30 a.m., the DQ (that's my blogosphere nickname for her, and she's earned it) had thrown an entire box of wheat thins and a Clementine out of the bag as somehow unfit for consumption.


No wonder she was starving.


So perhaps it was predictable that she asked me whether she was spending the night at her dad's on Monday. When I said she was (she almost always does) she sighed hedonistically and said: "He makes great salads."


The truth is that, in almost every culinary category, my ex's cuisine apparently is superior to mine.


As my son, Mr. C. put's it: "You cook the healthy food, Mom. Dad cooks the food that tastes good."


Lest you think I'm one of those nutrition Nazi moms, let me reassure ya.

Though I insist on fresh vegetables and have been known to try to (unsuccessfully, by the way) sneak tofu into our dinners, I probably have enough chocolate to keep the entire neighborhood in dessert for a month.

But the truth is that their dad loves to cook, and I don't. He downloads recipes, has copies of "Cook's Illustrated" rarely eats out of a box. As for me, Trader Joes would go out of business if I stopped making my weekly trips.

I find cooking stressful, something that has to be done so that the children don't live on chips and pizza. He seems to find it relaxing -- and he actually follows a recipe. Imagine that!

I am well aware that the stereotypical gender roles are reversed in this case.
But I come from a family in which my mother, who was a fabulous chef, sweetly told her new husband that in her middle-class family, they paid someone else to do the housework.

So I don't mind paying the ACME, or the local pizza parlor, now and then.
While I don't feel jealous of my ex's prowess with the saucepan, I do suffer from occasional guilt about the amounts of salt and white flour my kids sometimes take in.

Last fall, dreaming of chilis and vegetarian stews and pastas, I bought a slow cooker.
My children were suitably impressed. In fact, my son said it's one of the first dishes, a vegetable-cornbread bake, was some of the best food I've ever made (which is really kind of pathetic when you think about it).

Then he left half of it on the plate.

I must find out what his dad feeds them when they stay with him.

I'm quite sure that it isn't tofu.

Guest Contributor LIZ, who also blogs HERE

P.S. I love to have Guest Contributors! Liz wanted me to add something to the end of her post. She needs help! Here is what she emailed me:

For a long time, I've wanted to begin a Friday column on my blog titled something like... "Ask Pastor Liz" (Title still not set in stone)

It's an advice column for folks who might never set foot in a congregation.

But I haven't had people to send me questions! I need questions from readers. If people have questions about personal, religious, sexual, political, or even financial etiquette, they are welcome to send them to me at Bellettreliz@hotmail.com. They can be assured of complete anonymity and can use a tag like:

Baffled in Buffalo

So if you would like to ask some questions send them LIZ's Way!!! :)