Nips

Somewhere in the nooks and crannies of my Brooklyn apartment is a post-it I can remember writing Hakurei turnips on because I read an article claiming they are as sweet and crunchy as apples. Turnips sounded like just the kind of vegetable I want Hayes to get used to finding in his school lunch box every now and then. So I thought to grab a few on my next grocery store visit.

But I recently found myself at the store without my post-it. I carefully read each sign hoping one of the vegetable names would jog my failing memory. And I nearly left with a bunch of Brussels sprouts because I remembered the same article mentioned those are good glazed with maple syrup. I decided to take on one wild and crazy experiment at a time and grabbed a bag of pre-packaged parsnips because something about the name sounded familiar.

So today, when I reached into my vegetable bin, I happened to glance at the word PARSNIPS printed in big, red capital letters across the bag. Suddenly, the post-it came to mind. I recalled the words as clearly as I had written them. And they read turnips. Not parsnips. Aha! It was the second syllable that sounded so familiar.

I immediately googled parsnips because, until then, the bag of pale root vegetables waiting to be opened was a source of salvation that would keep my fastidious toddler from turning into a macaroni noodle, since pasta is the only meal Hayes eats without a fuss. I thought the parsnips were vegetables that would taste like sweet, crisp apples. No, because they're parsnips. And, truth be told, I didn’t even know what a parsnip was.

Well, I found out parsnips are like carrots—which is not helpful considering Hayes has a love/hate relationship with carrots; he loves them and wants them when his friends are enjoying them but hates them and will have nothing to do with them the rest of the time. However, I tossed them into a stir-fry tonight and they surprisingly made their way to Hayes’s belly without too much of a struggle.

So maybe there’s hope for the occasional root vegetable around here afterall. And as for my memory,... Well, that's another story.