Raw beef chunks were flying. My boys, ages 9 and 5, were chanting, “Kill the pig, kill the pig!” Things had escalated quickly. I tried to interrupt — to say that, actually, it was a cow. But then I asked myself, was that really the problem here?
We were making cheeseburgers from the new cookbook by chef David Nayfeld of SF’s lauded Italian restaurant Che Fico. “Dad, What’s for Dinner?” is a guide to cooking for (and sometime’s with) kids, written from the point of view of a father — a father who has been up for a James Beard Award, admittedly, and who had Gwyneth Paltrow write the introduction. Nayfeld wrote the book after going through a difficult separation from his daughter’s mother. He connected with his child through food. He would bring homemade soup during their visits in the park, both to take care of her and to delight her. And to comfort himself.
The third step in the recipe says to “Throw each burger onto the cutting board with force. Repeat until the meat becomes tacky.” As my husband read that part aloud, the boys’ eyes lit up demonically. “Building a burger is both fun and an opportunity for your child to build their own sense of self (and discover the principles of structural engineering),” Nayfeld writes. My children went more “Lord of the Flies.”
I used to love to cook. Then I had kids. I adore them, obviously, except at meal time, when the main emotion they provoke in me is rage. They’re somehow both mercurial and stubborn in their tastes. But challenged by The Standard’s food editors to test Nayfeld’s cookbook on my kids, my husband and I were trying our best.
Cooking for children is maddening, which Nayfeld understands. The book is divided into helpful categories like “Meltdown Meals,” which can be made in less than 30 minutes, and “Project Cooking,” elaborate dishes he imagines (or maybe fantasizes) parents will make with their children on the weekends, like homemade spinach-and-cheese ravioli, which requires a pasta maker, a “rondeau” (a thing I’d never heard of but turns out I own), and a piping bag. In addition to timing, each recipe gets an estimated “mess” rating. (The burgers were accurately estimated to be 3 out of 4 on the mess scale.) It’s very useful.
Even though I once wept at the dinner table after both my kids refused to take a single bite of the mussels they had begged me to make for dinner (“No one should eat snot,” my oldest said), I wanted to believe in this cookbook. So we asked the picky boys to thumb through and choose some recipes we could make together. They picked the cheeseburgers (which they loved – A+ from both), lemon pasta, and pancakes. I added in tangy collard greens with lemon and chile flakes, creamy corn and green beans, and tomato and bread salad. Then I asked the kids for their honest opinions. Which made me glad small children do not have access to Amazon reviews or Yelp.
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