Think Like a Baby

Feeding a baby makes you look at food in a whole new way. Babies eat when they're hungry and understand how to listen to their instincts because there are no outside influences to distract them. It's hard to believe that once we were all purely instinctual because as we grow older we listen more and more to others and let a variety of different influences affect the way we look at the world. Imagine if we could recapture a bit of that original instinctiveness today. Today as I watched and listened to the baby try to communicate her needs I considered the fact that we often second guess our ideas and temper our natural inclinations to avoid censure. All she knows is how she feels and what she needs and her only goal in life is figuring out how to communicate those things to us. Communication is rarely easy under the best of circumstances. On the other hand, the rewards for putting in the effort are great. Our goal for the new year is to learn how to communicate better with her and with each other and to recapture some of that innocence in our approach to food and cooking.