There was a time (mercifully brief) when Charlie would only eat chocolate chip cookies. This was back in the spring of 1999: We had just taken him (permanently, though we did not yet know it) out of daycare, where he was known to “carbo load” on biscuits, pancakes, and the like. We were living in St. Paul, Minnesota, and, while Charlie had yet to receive his official diagnosis of autism, Jim and I felt quite certain that this was inevitable and had already begun to read too many books and looks at too many websites. We had soon discovered the …read more