It’s a familiar story. One we’ve heard a lot and assume you as parents have heard it a lot too.

It’s the "I don’t like salad" story.

While this story goes way back, we can’t help but wonder where it came from. Our 8-year-old son Olliver is a self-proclaimed salad dis-liker. But he’s never even tried salad.

When our girls were in grade school, a wonderful time of get-togethers, dinner playdate drop-offs, were often accompanied with a disclaimer: “We just want you to know, Morgan (a made-up name) will eat the pizza, but she won’t eat the salad.”

Our girls love salad. At ages six and eight, they’d dig right in, pouring on chef dad Julian’s homemade dressing during those playdate dinners.

We discovered pizza goes really well with salad. It’s delicious-to-eat doughy tomato-sauced melted cheese (our book includes a homemade pizza recipe by the way) goes alongside vinegary green freshness.

The crunchy fresh and crusty warmth makes for a combined sharp and smooth flavor that just makes us want to eat more.

There was often a change during those dinner playdates, a twist, so to speak.

Food curiosity is a wonderful thing.

This is the part of the story where friends would look on and wonder. As an onlooking mom I imagined the inner narrative went something like, “Hmmm, it looks like they’re really enjoying the salad with the pizza. Maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe I’ll try it. Just a bit, to see if I like it the way they do.”

Salad served and dressing poured, slowly, slooooooowly, a forkful is raised to try. The inner voice kicks back in, “Whoa, what is this taste? It’s good. Really good. I’ve never had salad like this before. I want more. I want a whole serving with my pizza.”

More than once (I promise), we’d get a lovely call from a........

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