Zeno's Bar & Grill

Does your baby crave Vegetable Korma or Asparagus Risotto? Then the latest crop of designer baby foods might be right for you. Proving that it’s possible to buy just about anything these days, you can have selections Fed-Exed to your home (or even hotel if traveling with baby), according to an article in Wednesday’s NY Times. You can buy Evie’s Organic Edibles at your grocery store or order designer foods from Homemade Baby. Homemade Baby actually has a Le Cordon Bleu chef on staff.

One reason given for going to such lengths is that ordinary baby foods are too boring and will result in the development of callow palates that demand only the blandest of foods. Quelle Horreur!

Actually, I think there’s probably some truth to the callow palate theory, and my third daughter is the proof. By the time she came along, I was just too frazzled to spend the extra time and money buying a variety of baby foods. My older two had the fruits and veges at least (we stopped short at potted meats that looked like deviled ham.)

The third one, however, virtually never tasted a bite of the stuff. Call me a neglectful mother, but I just fed her what we were eating, mushed up if necessary. So, yeah, she had risotto and korma at a tender age. It just wasn’t labeled baby food with a corresponding price tag.

It’s possible this is why all my kids ended up liking a variety of weird foods, from raw fish to bizarre, stinky cheeses. That third kid loves salsa and pickles, although usually not together.

Another reason, of course, for these new fangled baby foods, is the organic factor. Sadly, I must confess that my risotto is not organic, and probably neither is the Taj Café’s Korma. Still, Kelly cooks organic for her family all the time, so if we could just coordinate on this somehow, we’d have the best of both worlds.

--Melanie