menu: bringing food to parents of newborns

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Soft, triple cream French cheese

(mom may or may not have laid off soft cheese for nine months, so a good treat)

Quince paste

Sourdough seeded baguette

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Homemade organic heirloom spicy tomato sauce

(from The Silver Palate Cookbook)

Fresh and dried pasta (gemelli, for newborn Gemma)

Organic hearts of romaine and a bottle of salad dressing 

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One package of ultimate chocolate chip cookies from DeLessio Bakery

(I'll tell you, there were two packages yesterday, only one made it into the bag this morning)

Vosges Dark Chocolate and Bacon Candy Bar

Place all ingredients in a bag. Drop bag at front door at agreed upon time and send a message to let everyone know it's there. Return hours later at agreed upon time to meet their adorable new baby and hear wonderful birth story. Against all intellectual reasoning, wish you were having another baby. Come to your senses and make a new vow not to take your own babies for granted, and to get down on the floor with them every day, and make sure you really, really look at them every day.

As to dietary restrictions for nursing mothers, I learned the second time around that uncomfortable gas in newborns is not caused by dietary things like garlic, onion, broccoli or what have you existing in breast milk, per se. Those types of foods do not cause a reaction in an infant's stomach. What does happen is that the baby may taste something it doesn't like in the milk, try to divert itself from the breast, create a "bad" latch, and end up gulping enough air to cause gas pain. It's more mechanical than biochemical. We had a non-diet related case of this with Oliver, and thank goodness for the advice nurse who sorted out my nursing style for me and delivered me out of a two week stretch of baby-up-grunting-in-discomfort all night long misery. I think in general garlicky tomato sauces aren't a big issue. Someone always brought us lasagne when our kids were born and we never had any trouble. I hope that's the case tonight with little Gemma.

What a beauty!

09.18.11