The Mystery of the White Yam and Other Stories

I have been keeping a rather good pace with this blog, no? I have posted every day but one and as long as I have the energy and the ideas to write about, I intend to keep up with it.

Well today I wasn't sure what direction to go in. I have written that we weren't feeling well this week. We have all been phoning in the housework and the cooking. I of course made a HUGE statement about making my own cheese--which I fully intend to do, I am just not sure when--so where do I go from here?

Then it all revealed itself to me. I bought a brand new food this week and I had no idea.

When we were walking through the isles at Whole Foods last weekend I looked for a sweet potato for Thing 2. He likes them and I am working on getting better at making him finger foods. I also realize now that I totally lost steam with Thing 1 around 15 months when he went from eating everything to eating only a small group of annoying foods, like hot dogs and American cheese. I blame myself, it all happened right around the time I got pregnant. I must have been too tired to cook. So back to what I was saying, I was in Whole Foods looking for a sweet potato. They had like 10 different kinds, and I really wanted one that was organic. So I chose something kind of exotic, a yam. I chose a yam that had a really dark skin because I have bought these ruby yams before that have a really deep red skin and beautiful dark orange flesh. They are yummy.

I have been meaning to boil it for the baby in little cubes all week. Tonight I finally got the energy. But much to my surprise as I peeled the dark skin. It was white underneath!!

What had I bought?

What was this foreign tuber?

I licked it, it tasted sweet. At least it was in the ballpark of what I expected.

That old rumor went through my mind "yams and sweet potatoes are really different and most things sold as yams in the US are really just sweet potatoes in disguise". Oh My Goodness, had I actually gotten a yam?

So I cubed it and boiled it. It was alot starchier than a sweet potato. It reminded me of taro root or yucca. But it was sweet. I still am not sure whether it was a real true yam, or yet another variety of sweet potato in disguise, but it would fit the bill tonight.

Now Thing 2 has had alot of newish foods in the last few days. I switched his oatmeal up to something of a completely different texture. I started giving him lentils, which I am not wholly convinced that he likes, and now this weird starchy thing? He looked at me like I was crazy. But after I put a couple bites in his mouth, he shoveled the rest of them in there. He did really really well with it. Thing 1 even took 2 bites, but true to his nature, those bites were fed to him by DH. *Sigh*. Does anyone else see the irony of spoon-feeding the 2 year old while the 9 month old is picking up his own food and feeding himself? This too shall pass.