Welcome to the nightly performance of The Great Broccoli Standoff. In one corner, we have a parent who just spent forty-five minutes preparing a nutritionally balanced masterpiece. In the other corner, we have a three-year-old who looks at a green bean with the same suspicion most people reserve for a suspicious package left on a bus.

Hello again, my fellow weary warriors of the dinner table! It’s Veronica here. I’m currently hiding in the pantry with a bag of dark chocolate—shh, don’t tell Dewey—because I just witnessed a three-year-old look at a piece of organic spinach as if it were a radioactive slug from the Andromeda Galaxy.