Welcome to food. I'm Kate Bitman, and we are so glad that you're here with us. If you want more, remember to check us out online at bitmanproject.com. We've got more than 1,500 recipes with new ones added daily, plus some really wonderful food writing from some really wonderful food writers and recommendations for products

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food at markbitman.com. Even if you don't have kids, surely you don't have kids, surely you can see objectively how interesting it is to study a human being's eating preferences and patterns from early days.

Imagine how weird it must be to go from breast milk or formula to solid foods like squash and avocado,

and then on to even bigger flavors. Pickles, roasted broccoli with garlic, tiramisu, whatever. When you think about it that way,

it's easy to understand why some kids take longer than others to pick up on and appreciate all the

delicious foods the world has to offer. We've had a number of conversations both here on the

podcast and in the newsletter, and for me personally, in our family, about kids and food.

My dad wrote a piece in the New York Times magazine in 2014 called Getting Your Kids to Eat,

or at least try everything. Everyone loved it. Two years later, his first grandson, my son,

Holden, was born, and frustrates and fascinates my dad with what he will

and will not eat. I just don't know that there's always a rhyme or a reason behind any of it.

We all have our opinions. Some kids will sit down and chow down on dim sum, and some refuse to even try it.

I'm glad my kid will eat fruits and vegetables and is most of the time sated.

I just don't want to make it more complicated than it needs to be anymore.

David Nefeld is best known as the chef owner of Kefico in San Francisco,

which was named one of the best new restaurants in America by Bon Appetit and Esquire.

He also has a young daughter.

In his words, I am a professional chef. I've spent 27 of my 40 years in some of the best kitchens in the world. And still, when my daughter, Helena, asks, Dad, What's for Dinner?

It gets me every time. This is from his book, Dad, What's for

Dinner, which came out this year, a book that aims to answer that very question. Since this is a

question and a topic that I continue to love to talk about, I immediately wanted to have David on the

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