I'll have what you're having

As I've gotten older and my tastes are more refined, I've gotten a little pickier about what I'll eat. I still have my standards that I'll always eat (lentils and barley, sweet potatoes, avocado, cottage cheese, applesauce) and the things that I'll never eat (I do NOT like meat sauce or anything -- other than Käsespätzle, see below -- cooked with cheese) but I'm choosier about other stuff. Sometimes I like peas, sometimes I don't. I like pasta cooked in some ways, not in others. I don't like bread crust, but I love crusty toasted English muffins. And to make it more fun, I never know how I'm going to feel about something so Mama has to just give it a go (and have a stash of lentils and barley on hand just in case).

Lately, Mama's been cooking more food that she likes, and I'm a big fan of this trend. She made homemade Käsespätzle the other night and then tried to convince me that I didn't like it. It didn't work. Now she has to make more, because I ate it all. And she also tries to give me stuff like macaroni and cheese (yuck!) while she eats spicy Taiwanese noodle soup. Hah! I end up eating at least half of her noodles. And just today, she tried to give me some pasta and sauce while she ate spinach lasagne! Granted, I don't like the cheese and sauce on top of the lasagne (Mama takes it off of hers too), but I LOVE the spinach and the lasagne pasta is pretty good.

Mama says she's going to make some Spätzle mit Jägersoße sometime this weekend, and I can't wait to try it! She'd better make a lot because I'm probably going to eat more than my fair share.

In other news, I taught Mama some sign language! Well, I guess she actually taught it to me first, but she forgot about it. A few weeks ago, she taught me the sign for "water". Then she forgot it and stopped using it. The past few days, I started using it during dinner to tell her that I want some water to drink. She didn't recognize it at first, but after talking to a friend who knows sign language, she realized that I was using the sign she'd shown me weeks ago. She thinks I'm pretty clever for remembering it.