There is hardly anything I can make that everyone in my family will like. This began when Johnny was old enough to express dissatisfaction with food, so I don't think that it is just a big family problem. It seems that once you get five people together (even being born and raised on the same food) they cannot agree on what is good to eat. Johnny likes cream of broccoli soup as do Ruth and Adam, Dad, and I. But Kate does not. Kate likes hot dogs, but Ruth and Adam and Dad do not. Ruth likes her spaghetti plain with only parmesean cheese. Kate, Johnny, and Mom need sauce, and Dad and Adam would be happy without spaghetti altogether. Mom and Dad like tacos, but the children will not even try the different parts put together. As for pizza, Mom likes vegetable pizza; Dad likes meat pizza; Kate likes only pepperoni pizza; Ruth does not like pizza, and Johnny and Adam only like plain pizza. So we can't even order a half and half pizza. The girls like salad, but the boys do not. The kids will eat tomatoes soup, but Dad absolutely refuses to eat that. Everyone likes homemade macaroni and cheese except Mom. You would think that a meat and potatoes dinner would go well, but there is always some one who won't eat the meat or the potatoes or both. Now it would be nice if these were consistent tastes. But we have found that we all change our minds on what we like to eat, so just because Dad liked Mexican rice last year he may find it intolerable this year. Or just because Johnny likes steak today he will not be able to tolerate it again for another 5 months. That is the case for all of us. So we are stuck. There is no dinner that all of us Robertson's like to eat together. Oh and we must forget that every night at dinner Ruth asks how much of the vegetable does she have to eat. Adam throws the vegetable off his plate saying, "My hate this one!!" Johnny and Kate quietly sneak away before Mom has noticed that they have not eaten any vegetables, and Dad just never remembers to serve himself a vegetable.
There is one more note I have to mention that seems to go with children and food. If you make something only for yourself and tell the kids they will not like it so they cannot have it they will be sure to love it and it becomes their favorite food. One other good trick is to tell them that they are eating something disgusting. For example the kids will eat stuffed squash if we put faces on our squash and tell them that they are being served monkey brains they will eat it. But they will never eat stuffed squashed. They will octopus, though. That is unless you tell them it is calamari. Octopus is good, and calamari is disgusting!!!!
