The Zest Loves Beansoup

The following was generously posted by our friends at The Zest.

Those strings

I wonder if I’ve created a monster. Not only does Quinn (six years old, and counting) feel free to comment on my couscous plan (”Mom, we need to add lemon zest”), just because she’s wielding a wooden spoon, she’s become rather attached to a certain breakfast preparatory ritual.

Every morning, she must carefully and thoughtfully select a color for her yogurt. Some moms let their salmon-resistant tots slather their filets with ketchup; I allow my girls to custom color their plain yogurt. It’s a benign concession, I think, this way of bargaining with them to give up on coercion in the dairy aisle, to just say no to added sugar with their active, live cultures.

But the color selection has become quite the process, one that involves Quinn climbing up to stand on the counter, opening the upper cabinet where the food coloring is kept, and removing all four boxes of food coloring — even though each box contains the same four colors. (Let’s not even try to determine why I have four boxes of food coloring. Just another one of life’s little mysteries.)

“Just pick a box!” I want to scream. But I don’t scream. Never, ever, ever.

Better yet, just name your color, I want to tell her (not in an exasperated voice. No, never). But she has to do it herself. Has to pick. Has to drop, drip-drip-drops of food coloring into her creamy daily dairy.

So, enthusiastic as she is to have her way with food things, I’ve decided to just enable her. Like every good mommy does. By praising her good intentions with buying her stuff.

Because both of my girls are so gung-ho right now in the kitchen, I couldn’t resist picking up a couple of Beansoup’s Chefs Aprons. They’re reasonably priced and come in sizes — a concept I can appreciate. I’m a sucker for a darling print, anyway — put one on an apron and I’m a goner. Beansoup’s durable fabrics are both charmingly mod and irresistibly retro.

Which is kind of how I feel when I cook. Apron strings tied on my terms. And it’s never too early to let my girls in on that, is it?