My work schedule has been eccentric over the years, but I still manage to gather the troops most nights for a sit-down dinner.

The downside is we end up eating closer to 9 p.m. than anything else. I used to tell the babes that we subscribed to the European model and let them graze until I got home and could make dinner. Ah, the stories we tell our children!

Recently, we’ve been stretching dinner out even later. My youngest, unlike her siblings, actually has some major after-school activities and she doesn’t get back from them until 9 or 9:30 p.m. Thankfully, her sporting season is over now, but she’s substituted driver’s education and we still see her closer to 9 p.m. when we all sit down for food before going off to our usual night-time activities.

So it was with a sense of unreality that we all sat down to dinner at 6:30 p.m. one day earlier this week.

First there were the vampire jokes (The Light! It Burns!!!). Then there was the quietness — no phone calls from people who refuse to remember we eat late and call us at 9 p.m. Then there was the sense of eating lunch instead of dinner. And there was the unexpected free time when the food was gone and it was hours before everybody’s usual bedtime.

With the days getting longer, we’ll probably be seeing more of each other in the daylight even with our usual dinner time, and the traditional daylight jokes will be trotted out and tried one more time. For us, it’s one of the rituals of summertime. Other families may change their winter plastic tablecloths for summer ones or use brightly colored plastic plates. We hone our vampire jokes.

One of the few things my youngest will eat in any form is chicken nuggets.

Or so I thought.

For years, her default meal at fast-food restaurants and our local fish place was chicken nuggets; when I do my weekly grocery shopping, I usually pick up a package of frozen nuggets to have in the house for after-school or those days my husband and I have things to do at dinner time and the kids are on their own.

This past Sunday, the usual nuggets I buy, which have a gluten-free coating, weren’t where I could find them, so I picked up a box of the old-fashioned nuggets we used when our youngest was still in single digits. That night, I had my usual baked/fried chicken meal, so the nuggets weren’t out of their box until lunch on Monday.

I made 6 of the old-fashioned nuggets. My youngest ate three of them, then stopped.

“These taste like fast-food nuggets,” she said.

“And?”

“Well, we had real chicken for dinner last night .. and we don’t usually get this kind any more … and I don’t like them.”

I believe she’s developing a palate.

Supercalafragilistic spinach. Mysterious mushrooms. Zany zucchini. This is how some scientists think kids will eat their vegetables, by renaming them.

A study recently published in Live Science showed that when veggies were given “cool” names, like X-Ray Vision Carrots kids preferred them to say, plain old carrots. Other studies found that adults were also easily swayed by the food name game.

I found this thinking similar to putting a bar of soap in a pretty package. It’s all in the presentation.

Check out the article here.

My daughter has this affinity for hominy. For those of you who don’t know what hominy is, it’s dried maize. You boil it and it pretty much tastes like a giant flavorless corn kernel.

My mother turned my daughter on to it. As my mother gets older, it seems to be her one comfort food. I think it reminds her of the corn she ate when she was younger in Peru. Peruvian corn is a lot different than the cobbed variety we’re used to here. It’s white, not sweet at all and the teeth are three times the size.

Personally, I think plain hominy is inedible. It could be good in a sauce but that’s not how my mom and daughter eat it. They share it as a snack, like popcorn, with a hunk of cheese almost every afternoon.

It’s funny when I think about this little tradition grandmother and granddaughter have. I know that I may think it’s disgusting now, but one day, hopefully way, way down the road, when my mother is no longer with us, I will cherish the memory.

Who knows maybe I’ll pass it along and eat hominy with my granddaughter some day—if I’m lucky.

I got a phone picture the other day from my oldest, who sent me a shot of two water classes with painted pheasants on them.

“These are to match the dishes,” she had messaged with the photo.

Shortly before she moved to her own place, she and I visited a consignment store looking for a couch, and found a set of hunt dishes in a cabinet with a price tag that I can’t remember, but with a pattern I can: half the plates had pictures of pheasants on them, the other half had, I believe, grouse.

We then discussed the use of special dishes for special occasions, with reference to the bone china set she inherited from her grandmother and which were too good for myself and my siblings to use when we lived at home, or when we came to visit after we grew up and had families of our own.

My oldest planned to use the china for her everyday dishes, but kept getting flack from everybody she mentioned it to: coworkers, friends and acquaintances. I was all for using the dishes. What good are dishes that nobody uses? She was waffling, but still planned to use them for important guests.

Probably the single reason why they’re still sitting in the hutch in her living room is because she, like other people in her state of life, doesn’t actually make food and sit down at a table and eat it.

I had suggested she get in the habit of making dinner a sit-down affair, even in her singlehood, as a sign of respect for herself. And by all means, she should use her fancy dishes.

We plan to visit on Sunday, after her new couch is delivered. I’m curious whether she’ll invite us for dinner, and whether her dad and I are important enough to bring out the good dishes.

My daughter recently came down with a pretty nasty cough. It’s been going on for about a week and my wise old aunt told me to give her a mixture of 1 tbsp. honey and 1 tbsp. lemon, heated together.

Being almost 2, it was her first taste of honey and she liked it. But what’s even better is that I think the concoction might be working, sorta.

Her cough is kept at bay completely during the day, but at night—and only when she lays down to bed—is a whole different story. She hacks for a good half-hour in  her sleep. It’s painful just too watch. I rub this special Baby Vapo Rub on her that appears to give her some relief. But the rest of the night she’s restless and whimpers.

Anyone have any other natural cough remedies?

Although she’s now in her own place, my oldest dropped by the homestead this weekend for a visit and a trip to our local massive food warehouse.

One of our favorite aisles is the book aisle, and we like to cruise through the cookbook offerings, of which there are many.

I asked her if she needed any new books — she’s a fan of the Barefoot Contessa — which she declined. She has a half-dozen books, most purchased for her by her grandmothers, which are heavy on Rachel Ray. I don’t think she’s opened even one since she got them, but she likes to look at the pictures. Don’t we all.

She’s much more practical than I am. She only wants to have a half-dozen cookbooks on her shelf, one of which is Betty Crocker’s, the one she learned much of her cooking technique from.

I, on the other hand, probably have 45 cookbooks, most of which collect dust. I probably use one or two routinely, and am thinking of thinning the herd.

Any thoughts on which two or three cookbooks ought to be in every kitchen?

Maybe it’s just the male equivalent of the full-but-boring-closet, but my son will open the refrigerator door, take a look at all the stuff in there, and say there’s nothing to eat.

The refrigerator has juice, cider and milk; there’s leftover pasta from dinner three nights ago, leftover chicken from last night and something from a while back that has turned various colors and is unrecognizable but still hanging around in the back regardless. There are packages of wraps, rolls and hotdogs, too. Not to mention peanut butter and jam.

There is some leftover Chinese food, a leftover half sandwich from my dinner last night and there is bread in the bread bin along with a half loaf of wheat ciabatta in the microwave. There’s frozen pizza, frozen crab cakes, frozen buffalo chicken nuggets, frozen meat and poultry and ice cream in the freezer.

Apparently this isn’t food.

I believe what he wants are cold cuts. I’m not a big fan. I am a realist, though, when it comes to kids and food. I wonder if he’ll consider low-sodium turkey acceptable?

For brunch last Saturday, I put together an old favorite—  grilled sandwiches with a spicy potato spread. It turned out to be a huge hit with my kids, and left me wondering how I had forgotten all about this childhood staple for so long?

Here’s the recipe:

INGREDIENTS for the spread

3 tablespoons Canola or other vegetable oil.
1/2 cup chopped onions
3 cloves of garlic (minced)
1 teaspoon red chilly powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
2 green chilies (minced)
4 large potatoes (boiled, peeled and mashed)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
Salt to taste

PREPARATION

Heat oil in a frying pan, and saute onions, garlic and chilies, stirring till it turns golden brown. Add chilly powder, coriander powder, and salt to taste.
Now add the mashed potatoes and mix well. Let cook for 5 minutes, turning the mixture over constantly.
Remove from heat and transfer the mixture into a bowl.
Add lemon juice and garnish with cilantro.
Make a sandwich with a generously thick layer of the mixture.
Place a cast iron grill pan over high heat, and melt 1/2 tablespoon butter. Reduce heat to low and add sandwich. Cook until browned and crisp on both sides, about 2 minutes a side. Transfer to a platter and cut in half and serve.

Most parents know about the recommendation to switch kids to 2 percent milk after the age of 2, the idea being that they get the same amount of nutrition with less fat and cholesterol. Many pediatricians further recommend going to 1 percent or fat-free milk after the age of 5. 

Given the country’s obesity epidemic it makes perfect sense.

We never made the switch with our skinny and picky firstborn, simply because getting lots of fat into his rapidly lengthening frame seemed like a great idea.

Then as our family grew and his two sisters went from baby to toddler, it seemed easier to just buy the same gallon for everyone.

Now the youngest is 2 and not terribly picky, (I should say, wasn’t before the terrible twos hit!) it’s probably time to revisit the milk question.

It’s certainly easy enough to buy a gallon of this and a gallon of that, but I’ve also read some arguments that absent obesity concerns, full-fat might actually be best beyond the age of 2.

Parents, what did you do?

(Journal News file photo)