My son used to love gnocchi; just recently, he decided he did not love it anymore. Out of the blue, no more "minhoque" for him. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that he started to call it "minhoque", which sounds more like "minhoca", which is Portuguese for worm. Oh, the joys of raising bilingual kids. I hope it does not create a long standing trauma that hinders his ability to enjoy Italian food up to his forties. But with a little help from Mr. Topman Hat, the Thomas controller, this trauma might not even happen.
Last night, when I was almost giving up on making him eat his dinner, I saw Mr. Topman Hat forgotten under the table. The gnocchi becomes a pillow, and, voilà, Tetti is the monster who is going to eat his pillow. Of course I would follow up by giving a brand new pillow to the poor, tired controller, but the monster was resolute, and kept eating pillow after pillow. After a good laugh and a lot of fun, I had a son with a full belly. Mission accomplished.
Here you can see Mr. Topman Hat cringing in pain, maybe afraid the monster might eat him alongside with the pillow:
Another thing that might help making kids eat just about anything is some grated Parmigiano-Reggiano. The most common use is on pasta dishes, but you can throw it in soups, casseroles, mashed potatoes (I even cover rice and beans with the stuff). The smell seems irresistible; so much that, even as I hide my precious Parmigiano very deep in the fridge, I always find it dwindling and with little-teeth-bite-prints. I might have to lock it in a cage, as I used to do with a former roommate of mine. If you want to try it, make sure you buy the real stuff; these days, there are a lot of wanna billies in U.S. supermarkets. The one time I tried to buy cheaper Parmigiano, Tetti just ignored it.