by Tenisha Mercer

Juggling a demanding career with putting dinner on the table each night is a tough act for most parents – but what if cooking is what you do for a living? Chefs often can’t escape their “day job” because they’re expected to whip up the same delicious dishes at home; after all, they are the culinary experts. These Atlanta chefs demonstrate that cooking nutritious and tasty meals for your family – even for finicky 3-year-olds who swear off everything except peanut butter and jelly sandwiches – doesn’t have to be that difficult. Here they share some valuable tips for coaxing stubborn children to eat and offer a few kid-pleasing recipes to try.

RON EYESTER
Food 101, Sandy Springs, Atlanta

Chefs Ron and Pamela Eyester know they have it easy: Their 20-month-old son Mydland’s eating habits are healthier than most adults. One of Mydland’s favorite foods is eggplant parmigiana, and so far he hasn’t tasted anything he doesn’t like.

Mydland’s even been known to choose freshly sliced tomatoes over French fries.

"I don’t give him fast food, so he really doesn’t even know what french fries are," says Pamela Eyester, a former pastry chef who is now a stay-at-home mom. "But he knows what a tomato is."

Mydland’s healthy eating habits have rubbed off on his parents, with the family now eating healthier, well-balanced meals instead of the late night fast food and restaurant kitchen leftovers Mom and Dad used to eat.

"You never knew what you’d have for dinner – drive through at McDonald’s or eating restaurant food," says Pamela. "Now I can’t say, ‘I don’t feel like cooking, so let’s eat at McDonald’s.’"

Mydland has even changed how Ron Eyester, a chef and part owner of Food 101 in Sandy Springs and Morningside, thinks about food.

"Having a child gives you a bit more clarity. It makes you understand why cooking good food is important," he says.

The Eyesters swear off the "adult" vs. "kid-friendly" approach to dining, instead serving everyone the same meal at dinnertime. "We don’t cook anything special; he eats what we eat," says Ron Eyester. "Try to treat your child like an adult [eater] from the beginning."

ELISA GAMBINO
Via Elisa Fresh Pasta, Atlanta

Enlisting the help of her two daughters in meal preparation is one way Elisa Gambino, owner of Via Elisa Fresh Pasta in Atlanta, gets daughters, Sofia, 9, and Audrey, 8, to try new dishes. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s not a challenge to feed her kids. The girls have different tastes – Sofia hates cheese – but Gambino won’t structure every meal around their likes and dislikes.

"Children are not going to starve," she says. "They are going to eat if they’re hungry."

Like other chefs, Gambino draws the line at custom-made meals at dinnertime. "My favorite saying is, ‘This is not a restaurant. You don’t get a menu, and you don’t get to pick and choose.’"

Still, not all of Gambino’s dishes have won her daughters’ praises. They hate her turkey burgers – "they complain they’re too dry." And she once tried to convince her children carrot soup was pumpkin soup (it didn’t work.). That hasn’t kept her from reintroducing foods.

"If it’s a real dislike for a certain food, I can respect that," she says. "But I can’t respect it when they don’t try a dish they’ve never tried before."

She admits that mealtimes aren’t always conflict-free – a struggle with which most parents can relate.

"You try to get them to eat different things, and sometimes it requires a little white lie here and there," she says. "Just because I’m a chef doesn’t mean that I always have a peaceful time [at the dinner table]."

HUGH ACHESON
Five & Ten, Athens

Making dinnertime a fun, learning experience is how Chef Hugh Acheson gets his two daughters, 4-year-old Beatrice and 2-year-old Clementine, to eat their meals.

"I always share how I’m cooking things and why to make it fun," says Acheson, chef of Five & Ten in Athens. "I try to make them realize that food doesn’t just appear on a plate. And they respect it and want to eat it because they understand the trip that it’s made."

Telling his children where a food comes from, how it’s grown and who grew it sometimes helps Acheson’s daughters get over their fear of trying something new.

"They’ll be a little more apt to try it if you take them out to an organic farmer and show them what’s going on so that they can relate," he says.

"I always share how I’m cooking things and why to make it fun. I try to make them realize that food doesn’t just appear on a plate."
CHEF HUGH ACHESON

The kids occasionally indulge in Chick-fil-A, but Acheson says the girls favor simple fare, especially pastas tossed with olive oil and fresh parsley, roasted cauliflower and rib-eye steaks.

Acheson agrees with Gambino: Sometimes you just have to wait for grumbling stomachs to overcome reluctance.

"Eventually, they’ll eat something if they’re hungry," says Acheson, who most mornings cooks the girls breakfasts such as grits, bacon, bagels and cream cheese, and homemade biscuits with butter while his wife handles other meal duties. "The last thing I want to do after a week of having clients who want things a certain way is to go home and have demanding children."

Linton Hopkins
Restaurant Eugene, Atlanta

Chef Linton Hopkins is accustomed to working for demanding clients. After all, he’s cooked meals for some of the world’s most powerful people: former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Sen. Joe Lieberman, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, to name a few.

"If we’re eating, we’re eating together and we’re eating the same thing. It’s not like a restaurant where you can order off the menu."
CHEF LINTON HOPKINS

When it comes to making dinner for his children, Linton, 7, and Avery, 5, however, Hopkins draws the line at letting the young diners dictate the menu.

“I’m not a short-order cook for the kids,” says Hopkins, a chef at Restaurant Eugene in Atlanta. “If we’re eating, we’re eating together and we’re eating the same thing. It’s not like a restaurant where you can order off the menu.”

Hopkins likes to keep it simple. On a recent night, dinner was grilled skirt steak, roasted new potatoes and sautéed squash. Another night it was a store-bought roasted chicken, homemade chicken stock and fried eggs.

Still, it doesn’t hurt when children have eclectic palates. Hopkins’ children both love vegetables – red bell peppers, broccoli, cauliflower and even brussels sprouts with the leaves peeled off, blanched in salt water and sautéed in butter.

So how do you get your kid to gobble up those veggies? Hopkins advises letting children pick out fresh vegetables, then devise a simple cooking plan.

“Kids love pure, simple flavors,” he says. “We buy as fresh as we can, dress it up a bit with a little salt and lemon, grate cheese over it, and keep it nice and fresh. You don’t have to worry about elaborate recipes.”

That’s not to say he doesn’t pull some tricks out of his chef’s toque every now and then to convince his kids to try a dish. Hopkins relies on a tried-and-true restaurant gimmick: mouth-watering descriptions. And a little exaggerating helps.

“We’ll say, here’s Dad’s famous this or famous that and it will be the only time I’ve ever made it,” Hopkins says. “Like, this is Dad’s famous sautéed pork tenderloin that has won awards. Kids like something out of the ordinary, and it’s often in the language of how you do it.”

He insists his children at least try a new dish. “They can be picky eaters, depending on their moods,” he says. “But if we cook something new, we ask them to try it. Before you say, ‘I don’t like it,’ at least try it.”