Do chefs' sprouts eat their veggies?

You know the conventional wisdom: Give kids a wide variety of healthful foods, offer vegetables regularly, and they'll become "good eaters." As Parents Magazine put it, "Since 3- and 4-year-olds tend to mimic behavior, be a good role model yourself by eating vegetables regularly." Feed your kids right, and they won't crave dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.

For some parents, whipping up a wide variety of appealing foods isn't just a good habit — it's their career. So if the advice given in glossy parenting magazines holds up, the children of chefs must be the most adventurous eaters in town.

To check this hypothesis, I took my case to some top local chefs who happen to have kids of their own.

They were not impressed.

"I think they're full of it," said Kerry Sear, executive chef at Cascadia. Sear is known for the profusion of Northwest ingredients on his menu — an approach lost on his son, Sebastian, 5 ½. "White, white and white," groaned Sear, describing Sebastian's preferences. "Any bits on it, it hits the ceiling."

But the most interesting thing, said Sear, is his son's love of frozen food: "Trader Joe's [cheese] pizza, frozen. Not cooked, not heated, frozen. Tofu dogs, frozen. Not hot. He doesn't want anything hot."

Not every chef's kid eats straight from the freezer, but nearly all of the chefs I talked to described their kids as picky. As Sear put it, "Everybody I've spoken to is in the same battle."

"Selective" eaters

Almost every child begins eating more selectively (to put it charitably) between ages 2 and 3. Chefs' kids are no different.

John Sundstrom, chef-owner of Lark and Licorous, has a 3-year-old son, Owen. Until age 2, Owen would eat just about anything, including Lark's clams with guanciale (cured pork jowl). "But now we're into a stage where sometimes he'll eat clams and sometimes he won't," said Sundstrom.

Holly Smith is chef-owner of Cafe Juanita; her son Oliver turned 2 in September. He's the most adventurous eater of the bunch. "Oliver had quinoa and avocado and funky blue cheese," gloated Smith. (I'll be checking with her in a year.) "He eats what we eat. Whatever I'm making for him is dinner or lunch for me."

Philip Mihalski, chef-owner of Nell's, does the same with his daughter Alexandra, 8. "We've always definitely incorporated her into the meal and not cooked separate meals for her at all. But at the same time, we're somewhat aware of what her likes are and dislikes, so we try to come up with some things that aren't going to be a struggle."

About those green things

Which brings up the topic of vegetables. These chefs can't help if your kids reject the green stuff, but at least they'll commiserate with you.

"She's not particularly fond of vegetables," Mihalski said about Alexandra, "but she kind of eats green beans, and at Thanksgiving time she ate some Brussels sprouts so she could get her dessert."

My own daughter Iris, 3, would gobble Brussels sprouts at age 2 but now yells, "No thank you to that!" as they approach her plate. She's not the only toddler with that attitude. Owen Sundstrom would likely agree, said his dad. "Pretty much green things, he's like, 'Nah, no thanks.' I mean, once in a while we can get him to eat a little bit of broccoli, but it's pretty hit and miss right now."

Chefs do have the benefit of a wide variety of foods available to offer their kids. "I'm lucky," said Cafe Juanita's Smith. "I can go into the restaurant and say, 'Anyone got some peaches? English peas?'

"I've got a nice stacked deck."

And then, the favorites

Does your kid live on plain noodles? So do our chefs' kids. "Buttery cheesy noodles" and other pastas won almost unanimously when I asked about the kids' favorite foods.

But chefs' kids do have some unusual favorites.

"She likes sushi," said Mihalski of Alexandra. "She loves the tuna sushi, and she also likes the tobiko. She does like caviar, which she refers to as fish eggs. Whether that be osetra or tobiko, she's happy with fish eggs. For her birthday dinner I cooked duck, and she definitely likes duck."

Not all of the birthday meal went over as well, however. "She ended up eating the chocolate cake that I made her, but she wanted it without hazelnuts in it."

Expert advice?

Finally, I asked the chefs if they had any advice for other parents.

"What, advice as a chef?" echoed Sear. "There's probably a car mechanic who could do better than what I'm doing right now."

In fact, he admitted, he even had to scale back the kids' menu at Cascadia: "When we first started it was a lot more adventurous. But due to demands of the clientele, we have gone back to the chicken strips."

And Sear is circumspect about the core issue. "The vegetable battle, I don't really want to make a big deal out of it, so we've kind of accepted it. I mean, we talk to the doctor and he says, 'Well, he's healthy. He's gaining weight.' So do you make a big deal of it? I don't want to."

Mihalski advises offering children new foods without making a big deal out of it, and without prejudicing whether they're going to like the dish or not. The results will often surprise, he said.

And above all, unless your child is one of the few who has a genuine diagnosed feeding problem, chill out. "They do regulate themselves really well," said Smith, "but seemingly different than we do."

Sundstrom looked to the future. "My hope is by the time he's 8 or 10, maybe some of it will have absorbed and he'll be eating a little bit better than his peers. That's my best hope at this point."