No taste

If there is one hard and fast rule at the Armstrong household it's: Check the Expiration Date. I hate to sell my parents out on this - they are brilliant, hard working people dominated by their Type A personalities in most dominions of life. But that leaves little time to grocery shop, no less sift through the cupboards and the refrigerator looking for products whose date has passed. Spend enough time at the Casa de Armstrong and you eventually learn your lesson the hard way. The first time I brought my husband home to meet my parents, it was the unopened bottle of Bailey's that was so congealed it wouldn't pour. Then there was the blue cheese dressing, two years past it's expiration date, that he innocently poured on his salad. Last weekend, it was the organic saltine crackers I fed my son. My parents are deeply fascinated by Sawyer's recently-acquired self-feeding skills. At the 100 Day Birthday Party for our goddaughter Olivia, Sawyer sampled almost the entire Korean menu. He clawed at my arm (note to self: cut fingernails) trying to pull the hand that was cutting his next bite closer to his mouth. Faster. Among the things he devoured were Japchae, a clear noodle dish, Bindaetteok, a green onion pancake, Dotorimuk, an acorn jelly and Nokdumuk, a similar mould made of mung beans. I barely ate myself, trying to keep him stocked with bite sized chunks. If I turned away, he'd just grab the food off my plate. Everyone at the table chuckled at the vigor with which he inhaled this newfound cuisine, and I was so pleased with myself for raising a son with such diverse taste in food. Back at home the next morning, my mom, who had missed the Korean fete, was interested in an encore performance. We filled Sawyer's tray with bite sized pieces of mango, papaya and watermelon. It was like feeding an animal in a zoo. It's entertaining to watch his primordial attempts at using thumb and forefinger to move food into his mouth. And then to see his reaction as new flavors hit his palate. My parents started digging through the cupboard and fridge looking for more things to feed him. Can we give him a cracker? My mom asked. Sure. I said. A saltine would be good. She found some round organic saltines. I checked out the box. No expiration date listed. Must be safe. They had a slightly strange odor, but they are ORGANIC, I thought. He bit into the first one and immediately opened his mouth and let the crumbs fall back out unchewed. I should have taken this as a sign, but, he persisted and ate the first cracker. Then my dad suggested adding some cheese to it. We found one of those garlic herb spreads in the fridge, spread it on cracker number two and handed it over. Sawyer licked all the cheese off and then ate the cracker. By the time he started working on cracker number three, I was beginning to think that this looked like a pretty good snack. I spread some cheese on a cracker for myself and took a big bite. I chewed a few times before a wave a nausea washed over me. It tasted like rancid oil. This is awful, I told my dad. I spit what I could back into a napkin. What? he asked. It can't be. This is good cheese. He too fixed himself a cracker and took a bite. There is simply no way to capture my dad's reaction for you unless you know him. Suffice it to say I almost wet myself from laughing. He made a beeline for the water dispenser on the fridge. Several subsequent Ohs and Yucks and it finally crossed my mind that I should take away the cracker that Sawyer was happily mowing. (I woke my mother from a nap to make her taste the cracker, barely able to control my hysterics as she bit into it. Again - priceless reaction.) Three hours later I was still burping rancid oil and unable to shake the taste after only one bite. Sawyer, on the other hand, flew into hysterics when I snatched away his THIRD. The whole experience made me second guess my aforementioned pride in Sawyer's sense of taste.