Dylan's first bowl of pasta!

This may not seem like a big deal, people, but we are in Italy. When he hangs out with other Italian kids, he's not going to say, "Hey, guys, you should taste my mom's seitan casserole. It's great!" Oh, no, when Italians get together - even Italian children - it's a pissing contest to see whose mamma is the best cook of all things Italian. I've heard Italians fighting over whose mom makes the best tomato sauce because one puts a tiny bit of carrot (supposed secret ingredient of many mammas) or another puts a pinch of sugar. I mean they can talk about this stuff for hours. One day I saw some kids coming out of a middle school and one kid said, "Why don't we go to McDonald's?" and another kid said "No, let's go to my house. My mamma will make us pasta!" and all the kids screamed "Yeah!" in unison and scurried toward their little friend's house. Now, that's weird. When I was 13, I would have taken McDonald's any day over anything my mom cooked at home. Sorry, mom.

All this is to say I've been waiting expectantly to give Dylan his first bowl of pasta. The pediatrican told me I could introduce tomato at seven months even though I've read pretty much everywhere else to wait until ten months or so. I'm going to wait on the tomato. Well, yesterday I had the brilliant idea to make a carrot pasta sauce with a tiny bit of shallot. Yes, a shallot. I mean, I want Dylan to be as much of a gluttonous pig foodie as his father and I, so I think it's important that his food taste good as well as be nutritious. I boiled up some heart-shaped baby pasta, added the carrot sauce, a bit of parmesan and, of course, some baby extra-virgin olive oil with vitamins A, D and E. He loved his first bowl of pasta and as soon as he can talk I fully expect him to be duking it out with the kids on the playground over whether his American mamma can rustle up a good bowl of pasta. Or will he prefer the Value Meal with Supersized fries and drink? With my luck, he's going to be a fast food junkie and all of this time spent making my own organic baby food with macrobiotic condiments (yes, I grind toasted sesame seeds in a mortar and pestle to make gomashio for my eight-month-old and, no, I am not normal) is going to be for nothing.

Man, am I loquacious. All I wanted to do was post a few pics of Dylan's first pasta meal!

The all-important ingredients

Let me touch it...

The consistency is a little funky but I'll eat it...