What was your first cooking experience?

Oh, golly. I remember sugar cookies pretty vividly. My mom collects cookie cutters, so that was always big at major holidays. I remember cutting out cookies at 3 or 4, I think.

There’s a photo in my baby book of me with apples and a pan of flour in our garage. I must have been almost a year old. There’s a black cat in the picture, too. He was my sous chef! Unfortunately, I can’t get the picture to budge from my baby book, but I did locate this later photo of me “cooking” at age two. I’m not sure if the basketball was an ingredient, a utensil or just for decoration

What is your greatest challenge in cooking for your son?

Keeping it interesting. When he was a baby–and before I started working again, every day seemed open to culinary adventure. Now I feel like I’m lucky if I can keep a running tally of his week’s worth of veggies, using colors as my guide. Have we had enough orange? Enough green? What about blue?

What is your son’s favorite dish?

For breakfast, it’s eggs with a bit of garden-fresh swiss chard. For dinner, he likes broccoli steamed with a bit of lemon juice and garlic–though I’ve neglected making that of late. Unfortunately, he inherited my sweet tooth. Ack! He loves organic raisins mixed with a few semi-sweet chocolate morsels–not too awful, I guess.

Is there any food your son just will not eat?

Mushrooms.

What is your family’s favorite holiday treat?

Classic middle-class, all-American holiday goodies: sausage balls, cheese balls, Chex Mix, sugar cookies…stuff like that. I have a secret family recipe for pound cake that my mother made me swear we’d keep in the family! I like to make mini-cakes and give them to friends.

When we lived in Louisiana, I used to make steamed shrimp (from Tony’s Seafood in Baton Rouge) for New Year’s Eve. I miss those shrimp (and Tony’s!).

Pamela also shares with us her blog’s official muffin recipe, which I look forward to trying with some of my freezer stash of blueberries (my son’s favorite food) and zucchini.

Red, White & GREW-berry Muffins
By Pamela Price, redwhiteandgrewblog.com (reprinted by permission)

Ingredients:

• 1 C. sugar
• 3/4 C. unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 C. canola oil
• 2 eggs
• 3 tsp. vanilla
• 2 C. grated zucchini
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1 & 1/2 C. oat bran (or substitute with oatmeal pulsed in food processor)
• 1 & 1/2 C. whole wheat pastry flour
• 3 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 C. blueberries (fresh or frozen)