The Dish That Got My Toddler to Eat More Than Chicken Nuggets

One month after Calvin opened his Cantonese American restaurant, Bonnie’s, in Brooklyn, we found out I was pregnant. We couldn’t wait to tickle our baby boy’s tiny toes and kiss his chubby cheeks, to read and sing to him, to be a family. Most of all, we couldn’t wait to cook for him.

So naturally, we were ecstatic when Levi’s first teeth popped through. He became astonishingly ravenous and ate whatever we ate: pasta tossed in a fermented bean curd butter, fatty pieces of cha siu, big slices of watermelon and orange. And his appetite only grew. When he turned one, he fell in love with a steamed silken tofu coated in a beefy black bean garlic sauce—one of the many dishes Calvin developed for our Cantonese American cookbook, Salt Sugar MSG. We never had to make a different meal just for our toddler. It was easy. Too easy.

Then, at the 15-month mark, Levi’s preferences shifted. He refused to eat anything other than chicken nuggets, ditalini pasta (only ditalini—no other shapes allowed), fresh strawberries, and his ultimate security blanket, steamed jasmine rice. Calvin and I went down Reddit holes and scoured mommy blogs, eager to find any trick to restore our son’s adventurous palate. Eventually we gave in. While he ate his nuggets and rice, we served ourselves steamed fish or chicken parm family-style, hopeful something might pique Levi’s interest.

A few months into this new routine, Calvin made that tofu with black bean garlic sauce again—the homey dish Levi once adored. As he watched us serve ourselves, he asked for a piece of tofu. We gave it to him sans sauce, atop his favorite food: a massive pile of rice. The next time we ate that dinner, we added a drop of the beefy sauce onto his plate. We worked our way up, spoonful by spoonful over the next several weeks, until Levi’s dinner looked like ours.

At two years old, he still consumes an alarming number of chicken nuggets, and some days he’s more daring than others. But creating an environment where our son can feel safe to experiment has made a huge difference. He can lean on what’s familiar to become a little braver each day. We are so proud whenever he ventures beyond his comfort zone—even if he spits out the new food and tells us it’s very yucky.