E: 926, M: 1.

I get huge amounts of personal satisfaction from cooking. But here's the caveat - that satisfaction is completely offset by feelings of inadequacy and disappointment when a) something doesn't turn out or b) my offering is not devoured with enthusiasm by anyone other than myself.

Last night I made an absolutely delicious chicken pot pie that my daughter decided to ignore on her plate in favour of raw (read: requiring no preparation) sugar snap peas and a simply irresistible glass of milk. Fortunately for my mental health, my husband had seconds and even scrounged the leftovers out of the fridge for lunch today all by himself. (Is anyone else's husband completely incapable of feeding himself anything that doesn't come from a bag or box in the snack cupboard?)

The night before I threw together a lovely dinner of spinach and cheese ravioli with vodka sauce, only to have my daughter declare that she was not hungry.

Homemade sausage, bean and spinach soup? "Where's the bread? It don't want it unless I can dip bread in it."

Pork tenderloin? "Too spicy."

Sweet potato, corn and bean hash? "I don't like it."

Can I remind you guys that my daughter is not a picky eater? And that sausage, anything that can loosely be described as "ham" and corn are on her top 10 list of favourite foods?

Oh, did I forget to mention that she's 3 and is currently pushing any and all of the buttons on mom's rage-o-meter as though training for the Piss-Me-Off Olympics?

My mistake.

So this morning I made yogurt and granola, with no one else but myself in mind. I'm going to eat them every morning, enthusiastically, making outrageous yummy noises and, more importantly, making sure not to offer any to my daughter. Which, of course, will have her begging for it. Which, of course, is kind of the point.