What's The Deal?

It was a low-key night at our house. We had all been out doing the things that we do on a busy afternoon, and so we started making dinner just a little late. What this meant was that I got the beans out of the cupboard, and the franks out of the freezer. When my wife brought our son home from Aikido, she set about turning these ingredients into a sumptuous meal. My son prepared to start beginning his homework, and at what felt like dinner time, we all set down to eat. There were biscuits. There was a salad. The franks and beans had become a medley of two different kinds of beans, thanks to my clever choice of cans, as well as some fresh chopped peppers. Not bad for a low-key evening. And then I noticed that my son, as is his wont, had no extra vegetables in his franks and beans. Just franks and beans.
That was when I heard my father's voice: "Your mother is not a short-order cook." When I first heard these words, I didn't know what a short-order cook was, but I was quick to make the inference: no substitutions, no complaints. Since I became a parent myself, I have discovered that we are all short-order cooks. Our job is to get healthy, filling meals into our children without resorting to injections or forced-feeding. Parents need to find recipes and methods of fueling our children so they can get to the next food station. Sometimes it's a trick, like telling them that stalks of broccoli are really trees and you can be a dinosaur eating them. That one has created a taste for the cousin of cabbage in my son that continues to this day. Or you can get two-thirds of a healthy meal and find ways to sneak the rest of the nutrients in some other way. Like that salad. There were no peppers in my son's bowl, but the broccoli and carrot slaw that he ate with gusto got his greens into him.
There will be more negotiations. I remember eating around whole quadrants of my plate when I was a kid, hoping that I had eaten enough of everything else to qualify for the clean-plate club. Have I eaten enough that I can still work my way into line for dessert? When my son asks, he knows that the answer just might be yes, and that dessert is going to be some of nature's candy: a big bowl of grapes. Short-order cook and three card monte dealer.