Question: Is there anything more thankless than cooking for children?

Really, is there?

No matter what is placed in front of children (“presented”, as a wise friend used to say), it probably won’t get eaten. It will, however, get picked at, complained over, and shoved around the plate. Then it will get mashed beyond recognition and someone will be ready for dessert.

I’ve never liked cooking because I never learned how to do it, so probably I’d enjoy it more if I knew more about it. But feeding small children is not inspiring me to take cooking classes.

My kids would balk at a béchamel sauce; (yes, I know what it is, I just don’t know how to make it) they would cry at a cassoulet (again, awareness but no skill), sob at a soufflé.

So why bother making it?

I’m not condoning chicken nuggets. Alert readers will recall that we try to stay away from those (not always successfully. But I have trained my kids to hate McDonalds food because it’s so crappy. Only my daughter calls it “Old MacDonalds” which is too hilarious to correct.)

We have generally fresh food, cooked so simply it’s pathetic.

What I really need is a spice seminar.

But even with a vast knowledge of spices, my kids would probably reject it all out of hand with a “Eww, too spicy!”

Finally, there’s one more reason I don’t feel inspired to cook due to a little something I call the Bite Me Betty Crocker Law: The amount of time spent eating is inversely proportional to the time spent making the meal.

So really, I should just throw random food on a plate and we’ll all devour it like dogs. Right?

Right?