Every Wednesday, TriangleMom2Mom features local moms writing about what they're eating and what their kids are eating.

Today we hear from Nancy Pekar, mom of two, who is committed to buying groceries grown or raised in North Carolina. The News & Observer is following her family's efforts to eat local in a series of stories this year.

Have you ever noticed how you can never guess what a kid will eat? Well, I’ve been noticing it lately.

Take my 5-year-old daughter. About a year ago, she decided that she liked broccoli. I’m not sure precisely when or how she developed this interest, since she never ate it when I served it at home. I suspect that one of her classmates (probably a boy she was enamored with at the time) ate it when the daycare served it, and that made it okay for her to eat it.

So the next time I served broccoli, I was fully prepared to watch her (once again!) leave it on her plate. Instead, she informed me that she wouldn’t eat it because she only liked raw broccoli. Huh?!

Fortunately, I had a little bit left over that I hadn’t cooked, so I gave it to her along with some dunk-dunk (our family’s word for ranch dressing, balsamic vinaigrette, or other dipping sauces) and she happily ate the raw broccoli.

For weeks after, whenever I planned to serve broccoli, I’d ask her, “Did you want your broccoli raw or cooked.” Usually she’d say raw, so I’d set some aside before cooking and that’s what she’d eat.

Then she probably OD’d on it because now she doesn’t seem as thrilled with broccoli (although we’ve gone through a similar thing with spinach). But I keep serving it in the hopes that she’ll come back to it someday.

My son who is 3½ years old is a different story. One night in February, I served salmon from the grill, microwaved sweet potatoes, some kind of sautéed greens (kale, probably), and a turnip-and-apple recipe I found in a cookbook that I got from my CSA farmer. (More on that to come in future blog entries!)

I knew my son would have preferred pasta or rice for the starch, but I try to mix it up and keep hoping he’ll start enjoying sweet potatoes like when he was a toddler. But I was pretty sure he’d eat the salmon, since he usually likes fish. And I figured, failing all that, he’ll eat the bread, drink his milk, and have a banana for dessert—I had assumed there was no way he’d eat the veggies.

But as it happened, the turnips were pretty much the only thing he ate—he ate only a taste of the fish and only a little bit of bread (though monkey-boy still ate the banana :)) but he had not only seconds but thirds on the turnips. Go figure!

And why is it that my children, for no apparent reason, suddenly switch as to which of them puts spaghetti sauce on their noodles and which one doesn’t? We had started serving sauce in little bowls so the kids could decide how much, if any, they used. This was my solution when my daughter started saying that she didn’t want tomato sauce. I figured, “Well, I’ll put it in front of her and maybe she’ll start using it.” The one night she did, my son did not put his sauce on his noodles. What’s up with that?!

Maybe when kids say they don’t like something—something they used to love to eat—what they really mean is, “I don’t like it right now, today, this minute.” And it could be for any reason. It could be that they’re just not in the mood for it, in the same way adults choosing a place for takeout can easily identify what they’re not in the mood for. Or it could be because they want to see what mom and/or dad will do when they refuse to eat something. Who knows?

All I do know is that Ellyn Satter talks about a division of responsibility in feeding children: parents are responsible for the what, when, and where of feeding (or I’d call it serving), while the kids are responsible for the whether and how much of eating. And my experience has been that this is a great approach, and it has served us well (pardon the pun!). It keeps me from trying to guess what the kids will like eating. I’ve found that when you give up on the guessing game, dinners are a lot more relaxing!

Anyone else out there using Ellyn’s approach?

Oh, and here’s my version of that turnip recipe, which I adapted from the “Rolling Prairie Cookbook: Over 130 Recipes Celebrating Fresh Produce” by Nancy O’Connor (Spring Wheat Nutrition Education Services, 1998).

Simple Turnip-and-Apple Sauté
Note: For the turnips, buy small ones, less than 2 inches in diameter. The baby turnips available at farmers’ markets right now (such as the Japanese variety called Hakurie available from Elysian Fields Farm at the Carrboro market) are so sweet and don’t need peeling. If they come with the greens still attached, remove the tops right away or they’ll suck the moisture out of the root.

1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 medium Pink Lady or any other sweet (not tart) apple, peeled and chopped (about half a cup)
6 small turnips chopped into 1/2-inch cubes (about 2 cups) - see note above
1/4 cup apple cider or juice (although you can use water if you don't have juice on hand)
1 teaspoon cinnamon (more or less to taste)
Salt to taste

Saute onion in oil over medium heat for four minutes. Add apple and saute two more minutes. Add turnips, cider/juice/water, cinnamon, and salt, and cover, reducing heat to medium low. Stir occasionally, adding more liquid as needed to prevent sticking. Simmer until turnips are tender, about 10 minutes. Check frequently to make sure they don't get overcooked and mushy.

Yield: Four servings

Check out our other daily themes at TriangleMom2Mom:

MONDAY: Meet!
TUESDAY: Ask!
WEDNESDAY: Eat!
THURSDAY: Play!
FRIDAY: Out!
WEEKEND: Relax!