Colombian night

On Friday, Kevin decided to cook us an authentic-as-possible Colombian meal. He had stopped off at a Latin shop after one of his interviews last week and picked all the necessary spices and side dishes.

The menu consisted of Lentil soup, buñuelos, and maracuyá to drink. Now let's stop and take a moment to think about that menu. Have any of your children tried anything like that? For that matter, have you?

Neither had our kids.

Something about the spices, while making it very tasty, turned the soup, and every ingredient in it, kind of a greenish-brown color. Karaia looked at it, took a bite in the true spirit of at least trying everything once, winced, and followed it by the slightly disgusted announcement, "It's so green..."

Beckham, on the other hand, usually likes everything he tastes, but it's getting him to actually take the first bite that's the challenge. Having already made up his mind that this "food" we had placed in front of him somehow contained poison he started grasping for straws. He started wailing "The potatoes are SOOO green."

"Beckham, you'll be fine."

"But they're sooooooooooooooooooo greeeeeeeeen!!!!!"

After taking one bite of the buñelos, (a type of really stinky cheese bread) Karaia looked very concerned and asked me to, "taste that really quick"

She was sure it had gone sour.

The juice came with no instruction resulting in an super sonic sour effect encouraging the unfortunate judgment of, "It tastes like pucker" from Beckham.

Sigh.

The night was not a total loss. We walked away with a few choice lessons obtained after striving to culturally educate our children. Despite the less then encouraging results:

::Always have lunch meat and cheese on hand to reward them for putting their lives at risk by tasting new foods.

::And what was good 9 years ago on your mission is not necessarily going to receive the same warm reception from an American 3 year old.