Damn you, Curious George!

My office is pretty close to our home, so occasionally I can slip out at lunchtime [usually when I forget my lunch] and get home for a sandwich. Today I stumbled upon a veritable feast: Vicki had made gnocchi with an olive oil and garlic sauce with some herbs (basil and thyme) from our garden. Needless to say, I was glad I'd forgotten to pack tuna.

Unfortunately, Samson has, of late, become a little less adventurous about trying new foods. He's still a pretty good eater, and he's probably already tried more types of food at nearly 3 [yikes!] than I had by age 10. And the message of "Green Eggs and Ham" has not been lost on him, because he keeps offering me things to eat (like Play-Doh) and responding to my rebuffs with "try them, try them and you may I say..."

I digress. Curious George, the PBS kids show, has several characters that seem to come out of 1930s Central Casting. Among them is a large Italian chef who speaks in broken English and is very emotional. Chef Pisghetti, in addition to being like a cross between this guy and that one, has a cat named Gnocchi.

So you can imagine Samson's reaction when we served him up a nice steaming plate [OK, actually a cooled and neatly cut up plate] full of gnocchi.

On the plus side, if I can convince him to watch a little VH-1 Classic, we may never ever have to face meatloaf for dinner.