Local mom celebrates slight increase in child's vegetable intake

This just in: a picky Ithaca child ate several slices of parsnip bread today.

The child normally subsists on yogurt and cream cheese sandwiches, according to the child's mom. "When I say it's meal time, he says 'no like my dinner,' before he even sees what it is!" she exclaims. "He even refuses local, organic squash swimming in maple syrup from a nearby sustainable sugarbush. How can I ensure that he's getting all his micronutrients?"

Desperate inspiration struck in the midst of a freezer cleaning frenzy (to prepare for an upcoming bulk beef delivery). She discovered a frozen block of creamy parsnip soup that had lurked in the back of the fridge for approximately two years.

"The soup wasn't so good the first time around. It was pretty gloppy," recalled the mother. "But I hate to throw things out." So on a whim she followed a Mark Bittman recipe for vegetable bread, substituting the parsnip-carrot-onion soup for vegetable puree. "And I threw in a freezer-burned cube of pureed spinach from my baby food-making days," she added.

The boy ate it. "It's a miracle," said the mom. "He's branched out from a virtually all-white diet to one that includes yellow. With green flecks."