Results of the Alphabet Eating Challenge
February 16, 2007 by Kerri Aldrich
Filed under General Play Library Goodies
A couple of weeks ago, Kate at Babylune issued an “Eating the Alphabet” challenge, and my family and I took her up on it, kinda. I’m not known for my excellent follow-through, but it was fun to attempt this challenge with the kids.
We started out by writing the alphabet, and then drawing pictures of all of the fruits and veggies we could think of with those letters. We never did come up with anything for Q or X, but I was impressed by how good the pictures of the watermelon and kiwi turned out. I won’t bore you with all of the common foods we ate (a=apple, b=banana, etc.), but we did try a few things that we wouldn’t have normally. For “d” and “f” we hit the dried fruit section. The kids actually made it through the figs, remarking on how it was kinda like the cookies. I think they still would have preferred the Fig Newtons to the dried figs. The dates were not appreciated, but I think that’s because we had the whole dates and the texture was weird. May have to chop those up and bake them into 
something. Anyone have a good recipe for those?
We cheated for “m” and “j.” There were no mangoes at our grocery, and though the jicamas were listed on the produce board, I had no idea which vegetable they actually were (should have looked at the photo before we left the house!), so we went with Jumex brand mango juice. The kids would only take a sip until I mixed it with orange juice, then they thought it rocked. Our favorite new food, by far, was the pickled okra that a friend introduced us to. She didn’t even know that we were doing the challenge, but brought them over to share a bit of her family tradition with us, and they were so good! Even the kids ate them. Is there a better endorsement than that?
What about you? Did any of you take the challenge? What new foods did you discover?
Okay I’ve always meant to try okra but it just doens’t come up that often and the bottled stuff isn’t too appealing. I’ve seen it frozen but have heard you have to cook it carefully or it gets mushy.
Michelle: I’ve never cooked it. I’ve had it fried (yummy, though I like fried mushrooms and all that, too), but it was pretty good as pickles. A different texture than your cucumber dill and such, but yummy.
Hi there, we are finding this challenge alot of fun. Any suggestions for at all X!!!