Violet, You're Turning Violet, Violet!

I recently remembered that our refrigerator contained a ziploc bag full of blueberries picked and frozen last summer.* As those of you who were readers in the summer may recall, Ada is a berry fiend, eating her weight in berries at any chance. One of the saddest things about winter is going to pick up vegetables at our CSA farm and Ada asking hopefully, "are there any strawberries today"?

In the summer the farm has a sizable strawberry patch, with berries free for the picking for children dragged along with their veggie-happy parents. Add that to the extreme joy Ada has found in hunting for Wilma, the black bantam hen, and trips to the farm can be as exciting as the zoo or an unexpected cupcake.

But back to the berries. I remembered this bag of frozen blues, and pulled some out the other day to top off the yogurt-granola-banana breakfast. Ada was smitten, and I saw an opportunity. Now Ada is so thrilled to get blueberries that we can get her to eat practically anything with the promise that blueberries will be forthcoming at the end of the meal. This is an especially useful little tool now, as meal-times have been especially subject to two of Ada's toddler quirks: (1) extreme pickyness about food (including foods she ate as recently as a few days prior) and (2) "I'm going to control things" episodes featuring those four little words every parent loves to hear: "I DON'T WANT TO". With the introduction of blueberries, most food tantrums can be quashed with the promise that blueberries are only moments away from defrosting, and eating that egg/vegetable/meat/thing-she-loved-yesterday-
but-now-can't-stand-to-have-on-her-plate will facilitate the defrosting process.


Several days into Project Blueberry Bribes, I have remembered one downside of giving Ada high doses of this magic food. The poop. For those of you without blueberry obsessed children, suffice it to say that, even more than before, I am wishing she was potty trained.


*Actually, our fridge contains numerous bags of frozen berries from this summer, but I have not gotten off my ass to make anything with them. Blueberries retain their shape pretty well when unfrozen, while other berries do not. This means that unfrozen rasp- or strawberries need to be cooked into something. Soon, I promise. The nadir of winter calls for berry desserts.