It is called Vegan Split Pea Soup I. (Hmm, maybe there’s a II and a III I ought to explore as well.) And it is outstanding.

First, the bad news: there is an insane amount of peeling and chopping involved. Three potatoes, eight small cloves or garlic, three carrots, one huge onion, three celery stalks, a handful of parsley (which in the end I even omitted, mostly because I let my parsley sit out on the cutting board for three hours until it was pale and flaccid, while I did other things like go to a neighbor’s party and play hide-and-seek with Small Man.)

Also, the recipe (from the venerable AllRecipes site) calls for a substantial chunk of simmer time: more than two hours, to help break down two cups of dried split peas into something less like a fourth-grader’s carefully curated pebble collection, more like velvet. You gotta plan accordingly. Unlike me; I kept turning it off to go out and turning it on again when I returned. Don’t do this. Not with this soup.

Now, the good news: you don’t miss the ham hock.

Plus, the barley adds a lovely toothiness. (Barley! How overlooked you are. I’m going to try to correct that in the months ahead.)

And, this: DH walked in the house, sniffed the air and said, “Can I try whatever it is you are cooking?” He asked for seconds. And that was just the dry run; tonight is the soup’s official dinnertime debut.

This soup is just lovely. It’s hearty and healthful. It forces me to examine my assumptions about what vegan food can be. It’s finished with some basil (I used the kind in a tube, shhhhh) and some dried thyme and a bunch of black pepper.

Warning: have extra stock or broth on hand for this stuff. I added nearly four more cups of vegetable broth to the 7.5 cups called for in the recipe. Without the additional liquid, your soup will have all the consistency of freshly poured concrete.

I predict Small will go for it. He’s embraced soup from the start, especially black bean and squash.

I still have a chunk of my mom’s homemade bread, so will slice up some of that to go with. Or maybe a quick Havarti quesadilla.

But then the whole vegan approach is derailed. So maybe I’ll put out a little olive oil/balsamic vinegar dipping pool to go with the bread after all.

I don’t know if I’ll be upping the ante to, say, Vegan Mondays anytime soon, but it’s a pleasant eye-opener to eat something with no meat, no dairy, no egg, no honey - and realize it can still be delicious.

My son’s class (and two others from his school) took a field trip today to the Florida Avenue Market, a no-frills purveyor of produce, meat, battered catfish filets, men’s tube socks and jumbo boxes of Rice Krispies, among many other things. The kids in his school’s early-childhood program have been learning about how seeds grow into vegetables, where milk comes from, stuff like that.

Which is why the cow tongue probably blew their young minds.

A friendly butcher saw our pack of chattering three- and four-year-olds approaching and began an impromptu show-and-tell. He held a chicken’s foot high up for the children to ogle, then a pig’s foot, then finally a piece of flesh as long as my forearm that tapered to a rounded point.

“Cow tongue!” he said happily. “It’s a cow’s tongue!”

I asked Small to show me his tongue for comparative purposes. We agreed that the cow’s tongue was much larger. I don’t think Small grasped the particulars, though, of how the cow’s tongue was separated from the cow’s head. (I think it’s all right to postpone Butchery 101 for another couple of years.)

As we wandered toward the produce stand to purchase grapes and bananas (each child had a couple of bucks to spend), I got to thinking about the cognitive leap a child must make from understanding animals as lovable furry friends to animals as potential dinner.

Small Man’s already begun to take those steps. When I told him we were going to eat chicken mole for dinner the other day, he said, “Bawk bawk.”

Hm. Yes. Bawk, bawk indeed. The trip from white-feathered friend to poultry tidily wrapped in plastic and stacked in the cold case at Safeway is not without pitfalls - moral, economic and others. I’ve made my peace with eating meat several times a week, but realize the time is coming for questions from Small that may force me to grapple anew with this decision.

You’ll recall I am married to a vegetarian. Not only that, I’m friends with many who eschew meat and fish, refuse to wear leather garments, that kind of thing. I admire their choices and their stick-to-it-iveness. Yet try as I might, I’ve been unable as yet to tamp down the primal drive I feel to consume beef, chicken or shrimp sometimes.

Thus I see to walk a Mark Bittman-esque fine line, in which small amounts of meat serve as a sort of condiment to the fruit, vegetables and starches on the plate. Much like top-shelf chocolate, a good filet mignon or a single organic chicken breast stuffed with olive tapenade and feta cheese can go a long way toward satisfying a powerful urge.

I’d like to note here that Small has already indicated more than once that he’d rather have the apple slice than the chicken nugget, that he’d prefer a bowl of rice to a cut-up hot dog. I may be raising a vegetarian without even really trying. Which would make his dad even prouder of him than he is already, something I did not think was possible.

It’s so very lame, I know. An instinctive cook I am not.

But lately, I’ve been getting a little more freewheeling about swapping this ingredient out, the other one in. Or about eyeballing the water or the chopped cilantro or the grated nutmeg called for in the recipe.

Tonight, I really tore it up. By my standards, anyway.

Several weeks ago, I clipped a stovetop macaroni and cheese recipe out of a Woman’s Day that was part of a stash my pal Stacey recycled my way. Through the addition of hot sauce, ground ginger, garlic powder, creme fraiche and broccoli florets, the recipe made an old standby quite a bit more compelling. It was no stretch, I predicted, that Small and Tall would both dig it. And heaven knows I cannot walk away from any starch entwined with or layered over or smothered beneath melted cheese, be it Velveeta or Gruyere or Monocacy Ash.

So while Tall nap-walked Small in the stroller, I prepped the broccoli and processed the vegetables needed for the accompanying salad (grape tomatoes, scallions, cucumbers, garbanzo beans - in other words, our typical, lettuce-free weeknight standby).

The accompanying soundtrack for this chop-a-thon was “Collapse Into Now,” the pretentiously named but awesomely catchy new REM CD. It was a lovely and restorative 20 minutes, and I was again reminded of how much free time I had at my disposal before I became a mom. But you know, one of the gifts of parenthood is how much you come to appreciate the pockets that remain. Even 20 minutes alone can be as therapeutic as an hour of Bikram yoga or an entire pint of Haagen-Dazs Five in Mint, to be hoarded then eaten alone on the back stoop.

Small and I had a 4pm playdate to make. Off we went after Tall fed and watered him with a post-nap pretzel/juice fix. We had a blast with our friends, but I was troubled by my lack of creme fraiche.

Light sour cream would have to do, I thought, as I pushed the stroller containing my exhausted child back home. Light sour cream and a dash of plain Greek yogurt, actually, because I lacked sufficient amounts of either.

(Herein lay my first mistake, by the way. But still, give me credit for making a semi-bold swap. Remember, I’m one who measures the corn water.)

The second mistake was in the cheese itself. I had half as much sharp cheddar as the recipe called for (two and a half cups), but I did have shredded mozzarella on hand, so I made up the diff that way.

(And yep, that was my second error. Foreshadowing: there’s a reason they call it ’string cheese.’)

As I whisked the sour cream and yogurt together with a few drops of Tall’s hot sauce over low heat, I was feeling pretty good about things. I added the Cheddar and the mozzarella, then the spices (which I am happy to say I estimated just by lookin’).

Then I watched the sauce kind of turn into a twine-like ball of dairy with a pretty peach tint and a gritty finish.

Hmm. This does not look like the picture in the magazine, I said to myself. *This* sauce will not trickle into the crevices of my al dente whole-wheat fusili. It will not drape over the broccoli in a golden sheet of deliciousness. It pulls back into itself like marshmallow cream heated with butter, just before the Rice Krispies are folded in. It could probably serve as a medium for taking fingerprints.

But the taste was sensational - warm and comforting, amped up with the hot sauce and the ginger.

Who cares if the sauce basically assumed the fetal position? So what if my fork dangled with cheesy threads? Texture isn’t everything!

So I plopped blobs of the cheese sauce on top of plates of the pasta/broccoli I had cooked separately, and thanked my lucky stars my husband believes I am a far better cook than I really am.

We all ate at least one serving, Small after an initial passionate refusal. (The kid devours boxed mac-and-cheese, so he was not getting off easily.)

I am happy to let others develop the recipes I will follow. I might get better at substitutions with practice, but there’s nothing wrong with counting on faithful adherence to the recipe to steer you right.

I am so making this again.

Check out the menu from this past Tuesday. And I quote: ”Toasted mozzarella on whole wheat with fresh tomato slice. Marinated Mediterranean chick pea salad. Seasoned locally grown broccoli. Cinnamon-spiced applesauce.”

Or hey, look at next Wednesday. The tots will be served sweet n’ sour chicken with carrots, orange rice pilaf, Asian slaw and something called a pineapple cup.

Mercy. Those are some healthful eats.

And then there’s this: Small’s teacher recently sent me a photo of him chowing down on what appears to be cod or some other firm white fish. With a side of corn. And a thingy of strawberry yogurt. The lad is grinning to beat the band.

What’s more, she tells me anytime there’s barbecue sauce involved, he basically licks clean his plate. (OK, so there’s nothing that says BBQ sauce is good for you, but I just think it’s cool that he’s so into that particular kind of tomato-y, spicy flavor profile at age 3. He *does* seek out the neon pig emblazoned with the letter “BBQ” in the window of the barbecue joint near our house. Some Southern blood is flowing through those adorable veins, evidently. But I totally digress.)

My kid, who never met a French fry he didn’t love, who clamors for vanilla “ice keem” on the drop of a dime, is eating balanced meals I had no hand in preparing. And I have photographic proof.

Say what you will about DC Public Schools, but this is hella cool.

Sometimes, when I am studying the monthly menu, I amuse myself by thinking back to what *I* was eating on a typical weekday back when I was a student in another public-school system, this one in Connecticut.

Cheeseburger on white bun with mustard. Bag of crunchy Cheetos. Toasted-almond ice cream bar.

Nary a green thing in sight. Nothing that grew on a tree or in the ground. Sheesh.

Oh, it gets worse. Sometimes my buddies and I with back-to-back lunch shifts (which were intended for studying but were often just spitball-and-gossip fests) would go back for more processed crap, from the infamous “chicken burger” to a big ol’ slab of pepperoni pizza. How is it we didn’t all weigh eleventy-hundred pounds? How much plaque coated our young arteries as we walked across the stage to receive that diploma lo these 24 years ago? How on earth is it that we are still alive?

Here’s what gives me pause, though.

While I am digging the healthy foods Small is being served, I’m also wondering how much of his and others’ meals winds up in the trash.

His teachers and others at school admit that the new meal plan - which kicked into high gear this year due to the tireless work of a bunch of parents and DCPS staffers - is taking “some getting used to” on some kids’ parts.

Well, sure! As a former picky kid myself, there is no way in heck I would have eaten hummus in kindergarten. Or spinach salad. (I probably would have happily rocked the pineapple cup, though.)

Would it be too much for me to insist that Teacher email me a photo of the child every day at midday so I can see what he’s really eating? (Technology is a beautiful thing, ain’t it.)

Which leads me to my next mild freakout: if what comes across Small’s plate one day does not suit him and he refuses it, then he’ll be hungry, tired, crabby, unable to learn A-is-for-apple and the like. So wouldn’t it be better then for him to eat a chicken burger and potato chips if it means a protein surge to the brain and a carb boost to the muscles?

What’s better: good-for-you food kids won’t eat, bad-for-you-food kids will?

I know the correct answer is somewhere in between. I guess I will just keep hoping that, like me, he eats well most of the time, and is able to resist the siren song of Cheetos most of the time. And that unlike me 20 or 30 years ago, he keeps an open mind to new tastes coming at him at school or at home. (Sorry I was so weird about Mexican food, Mom. And pizza. And anything with curry. My gosh, how did you stand it? I’d have left me in the I-95 median with a sign around my neck: “Please look after this impossibly finicky nitwit.”)

In the meantime, I am darned proud my boy is in a school system that is really walking the healthful-food walk as it supports my efforts to set him up for a lifetime of eating widely and well.

Now, if you’ll excuse me while I go make my reservation for lunch next week at Chez DCPS…

In the rogues’ gallery of food I can’t bear to think about eating again, there is one item in particular whose memory fills me with revulsion - even as it transports me back to 1979.

It’s a day or two after Christmas, and my cousins and I have stayed up late wallowing in new Barbie paraphernalia. Bleary-eyed, padding downstairs toward my grandmother’s kitchen, I know – from the distinctive odor that already pervades the first floor – what awaits me on the breakfast table.

The internal organs of brown-eyed, spotted quadrupeds named Bessie.

To be specific, the kidneys of cows, sliced thin, fried in butter and euphemistically named “stew meat” to help us children forget we are eating offal. They are served alongside scrambled eggs – always buttered – and a glass of orange juice.

I turn the corner to see my entire family devouring cow innards, with more awaiting in an enormous skillet on my grandmother’s stovetop. And my throat constricts right then and there. It’s doing so as I write this, some 30 years after I last had the displeasure of smelling stew meat fresh from the sauté pan.

Then I begin to cry.

My uncle turns to me and gently says, “Amy, it’s my birthday! Please don’t cry on my birthday.”

Yet from my point of view, the foul smell of the kidneys - tainting a beautiful winter morning in New York State, as snow drifted in webs across the window panes - demands no less than tears.

The smell of cooking stew meat – gamey, primal, throat-filling, wince-inducing – is what I think might waft out should I ever stand at the mouth of hell itself.

The smell of sizzling beef kidney? No less than an olfactory act of war.

“Could I please have Cheerios?” I blubber.

A bowl is procured, milk and cereal poured, and my tears dried by my aunt, who shakes her head over my loathing of stew meat. Really, there’s no better fuel for a day of sledding!

My cousins look up briefly, puzzled over my outburst, but I don’t care. No way is the dreadful stuff passing my lips ever again. I’d had it the Christmas before, and never forgotten the spongy texture and a color akin to blood-laced mud.

Never mind that Nana and her daughters – my aunt and my mom – were firm believers in the power of stew meat to promote good health. Loaded with iron and protein, it was also cheaper than other cuts of beef.

“It was wonderful on toast,” Mom recalled the other day, though even she allowed as how one whiff of stew meat on the range could fell an ox. “The first time I made it for [her future father-in-law], he said, ‘It smells like urine in here.’”

Well, that’s sure putting it mildly, Granddad. So why was stew meat treated with such reverence?

“The texture and the taste were wonderful,” she said. “You would get that from soaking it overnight and changing the water – a lot. It was kidney, after all. The fat would congeal, and then you would take the fat away, and you would wind up with this lean meat that would slice nicely into ear-shaped pieces.”

Oh, mercy. Feeling light-headed, I asked Mom if she liked say, liver, as much as she adored her fried kidney.

“Heavens, no,” she said. “My parents tried to get us to eat liver and I loathed it. I was repulsed by it in the way you are with kidneys.”

Mom went on to say that her folks plied her repeatedly with liver because she was anemic, and in fact missed most of the first grade due to general exhaustion caused by insufficient iron intake.

“Dad would get angry if I wouldn’t eat the liver, so I got really good at chewing it to a fine powder,” she said. “I would sit so long at the table that I found this ledge underneath it, and I would leave little piles of liver dust all along the ledge.”

Well. My tears that snowy morning couldn’t hold a candle to that kind of ingenuity. Mom, I’m impressed!

P.S. Thanks for never trying to persuade me to eat stew meat again.

Instead, I sliced up a ball of fresh mozzarella, opened a can of tomatoes (don’t dis, please; their flavor is often superior to fresh, ya know), and plucked a dozen-plus basil leaves from my parched little plant out back. Slapped it all on, sprinkled it with freshly ground black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil, and slid it into a 425-degree oven.

Nine minutes later, there it was in all its oozy, red-flecked glory. I goofed in putting the fresh basil leaves on top before baking it, as they crisped up into little grey-green wizened shards, so that wasn’t so hot, but the thing still tasted great. And looked pretty darn appetizing.

Crossing my fingers that I could capture the rustic little pie’s oddball beauty, I ran upstairs and grabbed the camera.

And here is what I managed to pull off with my Elph:

Not bad, eh?

Look at my metal baking sheet and its light dusting of flour. Isn’t that glorious in a humble, well used kind of way?

Now, I ask you this:

Why does food look so much better when it’s shot on the plate or pan or pot in which it’s cooked, when you can see a portion of the cooking apparatus you used? Look in any foodie rag, from Cooking Light to Saveur to Cook’s Illustrated, and there will invariably be a pot of mac-and-cheese with a spoonful taken out, or a nice lattice-crusted blackberry pie with a perfect triangle of yumminess already extracted, or a teak salad bowl piled high with well-dressed arugula.

The bowl or tray or pan matters as much as the food itself.

Is it because there is a nice visual contrast between the food itself its the metal or wooden or Calphalon backdrop?

Does it make you feel on some level that a portion’s been cut or scooped just for you?

Or is it just a visual cue, a reference point for scale, akin to putting a human figure in the foreground of that lovely shot you took of Mount Rushmore back in 1987?

Whatevs.

It seems to be one of the best ways to make food look yummy for this amateur photographer.

What tricks do others use? Shellacking the chocolate mousse with hairspray to prevent it from sagging? Using shaving cream in lieu of the real thing in order to render those perfect peaks? Do tell.

But, earlier today, struggling my way through a Greek salad - a pile of torn Romaine and red cabbage shards upon which teetered dolmades, Feta, cherry tomatoes the size of ping-pong balls and an obscene quantity of sliced gyro meat - I reflected on stuff I’ve eaten - or foregone - in the past to try to impress some dude on the other side of the table.

I dredged up my rules for the first time in a long while while nibbling on the last kalamata olive in my salad, which for the record was outstanding.

Out: spaghetti with any sauce, particularly a tomato-based one with heinous spatter potential. Fish that would require you to root around in your mouth for bones in an unattractive way (I guess Greek olives would have been similarly banned, come to think of it). Anything that might embed dark specks in your gums, from poppyseed bagels to devil’s food cake. Salad, period.

In: Chicken breasts or prime rib you could cut up into small, manageable bits. Rich things you could spoon up from a glass or a bowl, like cream of potato soup or a yogurt parfait. Plain bagels. Bland and boring food. Food often entirely lacking in color, devoid of zip.

Sad, huh? Lots of times I denied myself what I really wanted in favor of what I thought would not gross out the guy, or make him think I was trying to eat his entire paycheck.

Thinking back, ordering off a menu on a date only got more complicated when you factored in all the possible subtexts.

At the prom some, er, decades back, I thought I might impress my date with my brand of 18-year-old sophistication by ordering duck at a swish seafood place in my hometown. Oh the horror: I spent the evening carving meager bits of flesh off the bone, spattering my candy-pink J.C. Penney gown with duck fat at least three times. Puny side dishes - a timbale of this, a soupcon of that - accompanied the poor, hacked-up poultry. All I wanted two hours later was a jumbo-sized Oreo shake from Newport Creamery.

Or say you’re out eating Thai or Japanese. You wish to demonstrate the broadness of your palate to your companion, so you order the curry extra-spicy or the sushi still flipping on the plate, maybe even returning your gaze as it’s placed before you. It arrives, and you’re suddenly appalled and afraid to eat the thing you’ve selected, but to refuse now would make you look like an ass. So you soldier through the heat or the tentacles, and vow next time to suggest Burger King.

Or perhaps you wish to project a certain reticence to shake down your date, so you order something relatively inexpensive, like quiche, when what you really want is lobster.

Good grief. It’s a whole sub-realm of pitfalls within the realm of dating itself, a dicey endeavor even if only mini-golf or movie-viewing is on the agenda.

Among other very nice things, being married means you need only order what you feel like eating that night, ideally without compulsion to send any message to your dining companion other than, “I’m hungry.” Or, “Hey, try the duck..”

Aside from the mind-blowingness of my son wearing a uniform, learning math and colors or whatever kids his age learn, and being in a classroom for six hours a day, I am eager to seize the opportunity to cook more.

Because boy, have I fallen down on the job.

Since the arrival of Small Man, I have devolved from a maker of risotto to an opener of an envelope of powdered orange cheese. I have gone from mise-en-place to just-in-time. I don’t even wince when I suggest to Tall Man that we eat Cheerios for dinner. And I have numbers for the pizza and Thai places punched into my cell phone. Fortunately, Tall is really chill with all of this, and Small always gets a balanced dinner, even when his dad and I don’t.

I have friends with kids who always have something yummy simmering away on the stovetop, who whip up something crazy with mussels on the drop of a dime while quizzing their fifth-grader in long division, who expertly weave a lattice piecrust while the baby’s napping. How on earth do they do this?

When Small Man is down for a nap, I want to do nothing so much as stare out the window or Tweet. Or feed this here blog, sadly neglected all summer long. For me, there’s no better way to recharge the mental batteries. Call it frivolous if you must, but it’s what I crave. Almost as much as a cupcake.

I thought I was a pretty good juggler of family and work demands, but it turns out I am just so-so.

So, so -

The point is that Small Man will be off at school in a couple of days, and I will be challenged to see how I can best use the precious hours he is in the classroom. Part of ‘em will be doing kitchen-y things, sure. I’m finally gonna tackle that baguette recipe and thaw the turkey to make Madhur Jaffrey’s Indian-spiced poultry. But you can bet your bippy some of those hours will be in service of the muse. Who is threatening to stop coming over if I don’t act on the little crumbs she throws down before me.

I can’t afford to lose her now. Especially since one day Small Man will be entirely self-sufficient.

Maybe, just maybe, if he is not off with his mates playing Wii Kickball or whatever will be in vogue in eight or ten years, he will want to roll out dough or chop vegetables with me.

Today, pre-K; tomorrow, sous-chef!

As you enter, you cannot know whether the little person at your side will calmly swill his milk and nibble at the chicken fingers while you and your spouse chat over expensive cocktails, or whether a hellion will emerge unbidden, tossing bread slices, cutlery and candlesticks to the floor with abandon, jabbing at your food and ignoring his own.

Last night, Tall Man and I dined with the latter.

Small Man evidently was overtaken by a gremlin in our pre-dinner park romp, generating the kind of naughtiness that even fervent pleading and prayers to a higher being could not tamp down.

Perched in his high chair, Small Man smiled wickedly, then tossed to the floor his toy red VW bus, into which he had somehow stuffed a chunk of graham cracker. In a split second, he pulled the bread basket to him and inverted it onto the floor, scattering warm pita everywhere. He turned his head violently away when I offered him a bite of hummus, something he normally loves. And he ignored the other snacks, books, trinkets and stuffed animals I had carefully packed in a bid for five minutes of peace.

Wait, there was more!

He jammed his hand into my water glass, shouting, “Ice! Ice! Ice, Mama!” Cackling with glee, he flung a bread plate to the floor, perhaps to keep the bread company. His father’s knife was next. Clatter, clang, smash.

Other patrons glanced our way, their disapproving glares white hot. I recognized the look immediately, for I wore it from time to time before I had a child of my own.

It was a look that said, “Rein in that shrieking monkey, parents, for I have paid good money to sit here and enjoy a nice glass of Pinot with this guy I am really trying to impress, and your offspring is so messing up the vibe I am after.”

Our food arrived, and Tall Man kindly offered to walk the demon outside the restaurant so I could eat a few bites. A blessed quiet ensued, broken only by throbbing Turkish pop music. The sympathetic waiter brought me a fresh bread basket, and I apologized to him profusely for the mess and the noise.

“It’s ok,” he said. “He just isn’t hungry, I guess.”

Tall and Small came back in time for Tall to eat some of his own dinner. We then bundled up our anti-hummus hellion, gave props to the chef, and got the hell out.

Eating out is overrated anyway, right?

<sigh>

Chances are when he’s 18, he won’t be throwing quite so many things on the floor in public places. Unless he rushes a really down-and-dirty fraternity.

Suddenly, I want my adorable, maniacal bread-tosser to stay three - and stay with me - always.

You’re seeing my first now.

This is a chocolate cookie crust beneath a blanket of Breyer’s extra creamy vanilla under a cloud of Cool Whip/marshmallow creme/creme de cacao/green food coloring/milk, all whisked together. The pie, a 1950s dessert staple, comes together in a springform pan. It is insanely easy. And the people who eat it at my house seem to enjoy it rather a lot.

This photo strikes me as vaguely X-rated. What do you think, dear reader?