Eat your alligator!

My younger daughter is a picky eater. I mean, she won’t eat rice. How can you not like rice? And even some foods that she does like, she’ll eat only in particular forms. She’s cool with French fries and potato pancakes, but not mashed or baked. She likes spaghetti, but only with olive oil or alfredo, not regular tomato-based spaghetti sauce. She loves raw tomatoes, though.

Luckily, many of the things she does like are good for her, or relatively so. Almost all fruits. Carrots and asparagus. Bread. Grilled chicken (no sauce, though). So she’s not likely to suffer from malnutrition. Still, it can be frustrating trying to cater to her preferences while meeting her nutritional needs and pleasing the rest of the family as well.

But here’s the thing. This summer, we ate at a New Orleans-style restaurant in Seattle. My older daughter, who’s a considerably more adventurous eater (unless veggies are involved), ordered an alligator sandwich. She liked it. But there must have been something in the air that day, because the younger kid very uncharacteristically decided she wanted to try the alligator too. She had a big bite of her sister’s sandwich–and loved it. Now, having apparently settled on a Cajun theme, she’s clamoring to try frogs’ legs.

All of which is a very long-winded introduction to a new blog theme. Eat Your Alligator! My aim is to try to tempt you to try something a little out of your comfort zone, book-wise. A new genre. A new theme. Maybe you think you’d never enjoy a shifter book but I can lure you in with a hipster architect werewolf. Maybe you think you hate hate historicals but you’d really enjoy something set in 15th century Bosnia.

I’ll begin next week by pimping one of my own books, a ghost story for people who can’t stand ghosts. But I would also be really thrilled to get your recs. What’s a story you read that you think will please those who are gun-shy? Name your alligator! Please comment below or email me (dephalqu@yahoo.com).