A night of "cooking"

MomsMiami.com had an event at Mr. Food No-Fuss Meals last night. Free wine and snacks were promised, along with a fantastic Mr. Food meal, so of course I was there.

The first stop was a place to put away my bag in a cute locker and grab an apron.



I know I should have ditched the baby/mom bag for a chic clutch! But it miraculously fit anyway.

My friend Guinevere came, and she is such a Rachael Ray wannabe pro that she assembled her quiche in like three minutes flat!



I was making the Chicken Picasso, which has several key ingredients, namely:



The directions at the Chicken Picasso station called for adding a half-cup of white wine to the recipe. And we can all assume I followed the directions down to the nth measurement, just for the sake of this post, OK?

Sometimes the directions were a bit anal:



But the Mr. Food people probably knew they would be dealing with people like me who are often too airhead-y to realize the label includes cooking instructions, which is key when you take your goody bag home. Everything was prepared and planned and clean and in that regard, waaay better than my own kitchen at home. Also, it didn't feel like cooking.

It wasn't all work, though. Everyone who came to the event got to munch on delicious snacks and meet new people. Here's little Guinny with Sherry North, author of Because You Are My Baby and other books.



After everyone prepared their meals (the Hula Hula Pork people got a lei, but the Chicken Picasso people didn't get a painting), it was time for karaoke! Chic MomsMiami.com editor Charlene Pacenti gave a moving rendition of I Will Survive and didn't even need to look at the words.



Naw, I'm just kidding. But maybe there will be karaoke next time.

Then we posed for a group picture, and I nearly knocked over Caryl Fantel, Mr. Food's own daughter! Oh, the shame! I'm probably on the Mr. Food black list and the MomsMiami.com un-invite list for the next event.



I'm the one in front who looks like a chipmunk. And I swear I don't have Mr. Food goodies stuffed in my cheeks. That blue apron is very slimming, but the face? It can't help.

There will be a next time, right?

Bite this

I went into Whole Foods for one thing (even though I know I can't do that). It might have been non-chlorine diapers or some lotion from Burt's Bees. It doesn't matter. I ended up getting some all-natural Italian soda, soy milk, dinner for the husband, some chips and other items -- including an apple that the Man-cub grabbed off the display and started eating. (The cashier gingerly took the pock-marked apple from me to weigh and price it, then gave it back with a forced pleasant face.)

I ended up with four bags of stuff -- and it cost more than $92!

Soon to come: a self-published cookbook on a week's worth of meals you can make with Saltine crackers....

Fast-food summer?

Yesterday, I took my son to a park where he could run down the boardwalk among the cypress trees and play on the playground. When your child's face is covered in sweat, though, that's a good sign it's too hot outside to play. When the temperature soars above 90 and the U/V index is 11, what's a mama to do with an antsy child?

So we moved our operations indoors and went to a library we hadn't been to before. The library didn't really have anything for little people, though. My son did pick up a book by Pearl S. Buck, so I know he enjoys classics. And he tried to read it, he really did. But when he discovered the women's restroom -- which had an open type of entry, not a door -- had excellent acoustic properties perfect for squealing, I knew it was time to leave.

Up the street, I found -- ta da! -- an indoor playground. It was connected to a McDonald's, though.

Let me mention right here that I made my own homemade baby food from organic fruits and vegetables. Three times a day, I try to make sure my son gets a meal with all of the four food groups. I give him new foods to try all the time. We don't eat a lot of fast food.

So it was inexplicable why my car pulled into the McDonald's parking lot. Amazing that I picked up my child, opened the door and went inside. Strangely curious that I ordered -- gasp! -- a Happy Meal.

But you know what? My son was indeed happy. He ate all four pieces of chicken and all of the apple slices. (You can get these instead of french fries.) He only played with the cookies. He got to watch every car ("Car! Car!") leave the drive-through. Afterward, he was happy to play in air-conditioned comfort with a boy close to his age.

The boy's mother told me about another McDonald's with an even better indoor playground. And you know what? We went there today. This time, we shared a yogurt parfait. And my son had a grand time. Until I caught him stealing french fries from other kids while they were playing.

So am I turning into one of those mothers who takes her kid for fast food every day? Those terrible mothers who supposedly don't care about nutrition -- who don't have time to make their children a healthy meal? Am I going to end up on page five of the local section and get booed by my neighbors for exposing my child to a fried sandwich?

Well, it sure beats sweating or getting skin cancer.

Wherein an electrocuted iguana ruins my lunch

The scene: yesterday, in the kitchen. I have just returned home with my son from a fun outing. It's lunch time. No sooner do I set down the diaper bag than the power goes out.

No power means no cooking.

No cooking means a cold lunch.

And you don't want to open the refrigerator too much, because you don't want the warm air to move in. You don't know how long the power will be out.

So I scrounge around and come up with slices of deli turkey and ... um ... I think that was it.

By the time my son declared he was done eating by threatening to fling the remains of his turkey (at least he only threatened this time), the power came back on.

I didn't think anything more about it until I saw this headline today:

Iguana causes power outage for 20,000

So 19,998 other people had a cold lunch too? I'm thinking.

Seems an iguana wandered into a substation and got jolted to death, causing the power outage.

This is one of those times when you shake your head and say, "Only in South Florida."

"Free" ice cream

Today is Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's, so I forced persuaded some friends to go with me today. Because a good friend is there when you eat ice cream, but a great friend is there when you have to drive for miles and use lots of gas to get to the closest place where the free ice cream is.

We chose the Ben & Jerry's at Sawgrass Mills Mall, a kiosk near the Colonnade area. That's the White Seahorse Entrance for old-timers, aka the Rainforest Cafe entrance. We were so eager to get our free ice cream that we arrived before the kiosk was open, so we decided to let the kids play in the Rainforest Cafe play area. Except that was closed too. We watched Rainforest Cafe employees clean the alligator pit (fun job!) until someone came and opened the play area.

Before we knew it, lunch time rolled around, and the kids were hungry. I have always wanted to try the casual French cafe in the Colonnade (Paul's?), but we thought the kids would have more fun at the Rainforest Cafe.

My friends and I all agreed we made the wrong call.

We were the first people seated, yet it took about 40 minutes to get our food. We ordered a hamburger, house salad and a cheese pizza. What's so hard about that? The server -- who was unfailingly cheerful, despite my son's food-flinging habits -- came back after ordering to ask me if I wanted the 10-inch or the 6-inch pizza. The 6-inch was fine -- but it turned out to be from the kid's menu, not the nice four-cheese pizza on the regular menu. The server didn't explain that. So basically, I paid $6.35 for the Chef Boyardee special.

Eating out with toddlers, time is everything. They don't like to be strapped into high chairs or booster seats in the first place, and you can distract them with toys for only so long. If you don't feed them when they're hungry, they make everyone in the restaurant pay by shrieking and wailing! Sitting and waiting for 40 minutes for food to come, and then eating (er, throwing food on the floor), and then waiting for the bill to come .... That's a lot of sitting for a perpetual-motion creature with a short attention span. And even the Rainforest Cafe thunderstorms, fish aquariums and animatronic gorillas can't help you then.

Eventually, we did get our free Ben & Jerry's cones. And made a donation for a good cause.

But next time, ah, next time, I'm going to Paul's.

Maybe without children.

You can lead a toddler to food, but you can't make him eat

My son is a good eater.

Except when he's not.

Some days, he will chow down everything on his plate, and I gladly give him seconds, plus dessert (usually a graham cracker or a little whipped cream).

Other days, he'll eat something the size of a button and declare the end of his meal by pushing away his dish -- or, most likely, dumping it on the floor.

Like today for breakfast. I gave my son some fresh, delicious blackberries and a mix of his favorite cereals.

He flung his plate like a Frisbee. (GRRRR!)

At lunch, I served up dainty pieces of turkey, some home-cooked pasta and peas. Surely by now he'd be hungry because he hadn't had a decent meal since dinner last night. Right?

My son tucked a few handfuls of lunch into his mouth and waved away the rest.

After his nap, I cut up a sweet organic apple for a snack.

And do you know where I found him?

Hoovering up a few little pieces of cereal I missed cleaning up (from breakfast), which had by now stuck to the table.

I can't win.

And some day, maybe I will find out why he turns away from actual, real food (his favorites, no less!), but find a stick on the ground and start gnawing on it.