I love to eat out. In addition to enjoying a vacation from cooking and doing the dishes, I get excited about trying new foods and discovering fresh ways to prepare old favorites. I was recently at Range where they had a cream of escarole soup. I've been eating escarole all my life but never thought to blend it with cream for a soup. What a great idea.

But eating out as a family is not always a satisfying experience, and can sometimes be downright stressful. In addition to the obvious issues of trying to enjoy a meal while a toddler sits on your lap and bangs a fork on your plate, there is the basic problem of small picky eaters raining on your dining parade. I've found that even the best little eaters can clam up, so to speak, when eating out. The child who enjoyed roasted pork with green beans the night before at home may insist she only likes grilled cheese when dining out. This can be frustrating, but you shouldn't lose hope as there are some great ways to help your children become adventurous eaters in restaurants.

It seems that the idea of the limited and inexpensive kid menu has been adopted by not only by the chains, but also small independent places and even some high-end restaurants. And although some of these places offer decent dining options for children, most kid menus are limited to chicken fingers, mac and cheese (from a box), grilled cheese, and frozen pizza. It's tempting to order one of these options when the price of an entrée is often two to three times more than that slice of kid pizza the boy at the next table is eating. So although my frugal side finds the price of these meals alluring, I try to resist. I am not advocating purchasing $20 entrées for your kids (unless you don't mind paying that much and your kids will eat them). Rather I suggest exploring some other ways to get your children to eat "real" food when dining out.

As with getting your kids to eat vegetables, helping your children to become adventurous diners takes a little work, but is really worth the trouble. Here are some things I have done in the past that have worked well for my family. If you have your own tips, please let me know about them as I'm always looking for good ideas.

1. Try a neighborhood family-friendly restaurant for your child's first (and second) venture away from the kids' menu. Italian, Mexican, and Chinese restaurants are great places to begin. If in a Chinese restaurant, start with the chow mein or chow fun. Your kids will most likely enjoy the familiarity of eating egg noodles, while also getting to try different sauces and flavors. Mexican places have a variety of kid-friendly bean, chicken and cheese dishes, and Italian restaurants have, of course, pizzas and pastas (although of a much higher caliber than what you usually get off a kids' menu) in addition to everything else.

2. Make an effort to try something new yourself and tell your kids about it. Too often kids feel they are in the spotlight, having to try new things while we sit and watch them. So take your own culinary leap and tell your kids what you think about it.

3. If you're on a budget (and who isn't?) and are forced to choose between the cheaper kids fare or an expensive adult menu, ask your server if you can order the kid's pasta but with some vegetables mixed in. Most restaurants are happy to oblige and this will give your child some other flavors to try while keeping the dining bill under control.

4. If your child is interested in trying something new, but is concerned about a topping or sauce that comes with it, ask for the questionable item to be placed on the side. Your child can then try the sauce or topping on his own terms.

5. Help your child make her own decisions. Look over the menu with her and discuss realistic options. Too often, kids' menus are printed onto coloring sheets, which are then set before your children and immediately colored over. This means they often don't even have the opportunity to explore the bigger menu. To give your children more choices, show them the main menu and see if there's anything on it that interests them. They don't have to be able to read to discuss what sounds good.

6. Let your child help you choose your own entrée and then share it with him. Often entrées are enormous and can easily be shared with a child. And, even if the entrées aren't large where you're dining, you can usually get a salad or appetizer to help fill you up. Give your child two or three choices and then ask for a second plate so you can divvy up the dinner. You can then discuss what you both think about the meal as you eat it together.

7. Try going to a restaurant where your children can see the prepared food and pick it out themselves. Dim sum is a great way to do this as most kids think it's fun to choose plates from the carts brought around to each table. My kids also love sitting at the bar in sushi restaurants. They like to point at the sea weed, fish eggs, and cooked fish (I don't allow them to eat raw fish), and then order themselves.

8. Let your child talk to the server. If he has questions about a dish, let him do the asking. If he is curious about something, let him speak up. Too often we try to speak for our kids and then get it wrong. This also helps teach your children that they have a voice when it comes to food -- and, more importantly, life -- which can help them feel empowered to make their own choices.

9. Let your kids try something exotic when eating out. This can range from encouraging them to use chop sticks to taking them to an Ethiopian restaurant where they get to eat with their hands. Most kids will be so focused on how they're eating the food that they won't be as nervous about what they're eating.

10. Try to eat on the earlier side. Your kids will most likely be more alert and happier, you'll have an emptier restaurant to dine in, and you'll probably get a better table and service too.

11. Have fun with your kids. If you're going to be stressed out taking them to a certain restaurant, choose another place. A family night out should be fun for both the parents and the kids.

I have been in Southern California for about a week. I am here for some work obligations, and also to "babysit" two boys. The boys are 11 and 14, and they are like little brothers to me. I've known them since they were born, and we all truly enjoy hanging out together. I convinced Jack, the oldest, that my name was "Cool Jen" when I was a baby, and the name has stuck. Even as young men, they still introduce me to their friends as Cool Jen.

Of course, someone local could have watched them while their parents were gone for a couple weeks, but I cherish spending big chunks of time with the boys by themselves. It gives me an opportunity to check in with them, and to do random things with them that their parents don't have time to do. When they are on a normal schedule, it involves two incredibly busy working parents and a lot of sports. But when I'm with them, I usually have time to drive them around Southern California following a spotlight to the end (which was, disappointingly, the grand opening of a lame Chinese take-out), and take them bowling, and do all manner of activities.

What does this all have to do with food?

I think that Jack and Mark's parents will readily admit that I am more adventurous than them when it comes to food. They feed the kids well, but it's often the same sorts of food all the time. I think that their eating habits are much in line with most Americans. The boys have no complaints and it works well for the parents. But opening their eyes to my way of eating is one of the ways that I really can influence them.

I remembered this week, though, that it's tiny little things that make a huge difference to them and that I don't have to take them to an authentic Chinese banquet, or to my favorite izakaya, or do much more than make a roast chicken in order for them to them stop and think about their food, and what they like and what they don't. They notice the way that I live my food life and are curious about it.

"What kind of coffee are you drinking, Cool Jen? I know you don't drink Starbucks so where do you buy it?"

Jack asked me this very astute question a couple days ago and we talked about local coffee makers and what I choose when I'm in Long Beach. I had brought home a latte from The Daily Grind, which is a cute little coffee chain in the area.

"Where would the chicken's head be?"

I was quickly making a roast chicken the other night when Mark sidled up to me to see what I was doing. I was manhandling the raw chicken and plopping it into a pan after rinsing it. We had a quick chicken anatomy lesson, and he walked off to watch The George Lopez Show.

"Remember that purple cauliflower?"

I was running to the Sunday Long Beach farmers market, and neither of the boys wanted to go with me. I didn't push it, and they both went off to ride their bikes with friends. As I was leaving, though, Jack reminded me about a purple cauliflower we had seen at the market together about two years ago. I remember Jack sulking around the farmers market because I made him go with me. He remembered the cool purple cauliflower.

There have been some failures this week, too. I took the boys to Phillipe's on Sunday for French Dip sandwiches -- they were annoyed, and I was cranky. I snapped at Mark when he declared my bright purple pickled egg "weird." They wanted their sandwiches completely dry, and we may as well have been at any sandwich shop in America. But maybe they'll remember it differently.

This post is a reminder to myself, really, that kids do best learning from example and that it can be the smallest things that make a huge difference to the way that they perceive food.

I have a confession to make. For a couple of weeks in April, I allowed my daughters to place a little bag of Doritos in their lunch boxes. Many people will think I'm ridiculous for feeling this is something to confess to, but I know a lot of you out there struggle with the same feelings I have about junk food. I never thought I'd feed my kids processed food, but after a lot of thought, I came to the conclusion that a few Doritos were actually good for them.

Okay, they're not good for their health or digestive system (obviously), but they may just be good for their general ideas about food and food consumption. Many people will disagree with this statement, but hear me out.

When I first started packing my daughters' lunches in Kindergarten, I would include organic yogurt, tofu bologna and turkey sandwiches, apples slices or strawberries, cheese, and a slew of other healthy choices. They devoured these meals, each day returning with empty lunch boxes and happy faces. In first grade, they started to tell me about other kids' lunches. They started to become very opinionated about the visual buffet before them each lunch period. I got some ideas from the other moms, such as sending miso soup in a thermos and chopping up fresh mozzarella cheese with grape tomatoes for a side salad. Meanwhile, my daughters started to question the lunches some of their schoolmates brought each day. Why did some kids get bright orange chips in a bag while they never did, and what were those yellow plastic lunch trays with pizza and nachos in them (the answer was Lunchables, a mass-produced Kraft product advertised to look fun, with it's own game site marketed to unwitting kids)?

I explained what these things were, noting that everyone's food choices were a personal matter best discussed in their own families, while also making it clear that those food choices weren't mine. Meanwhile, I continued with my own school-lunch repertoire and thought all was fine and good until my daughters started reporting on who had "unhealthy" lunches. I quickly found out who had Lunchables, who had Ding Dongs, and who had Doritos in their backpacks. I started to feel uncomfortable with the sanctimonious tone my daughters used when ratting out their peers, and cringed when one said that my lunches were healthy because I loved them (which seemed to imply the kids with Lunchables were unloved).

And then, early this year, one of my daughters repeatedly told me about a few girls who would dangle Doritos in front of her face each day. When she told me about this, she said she wouldn't want the Doritos anyway because they weren't good for her, but I could see how much she wished she could eat just one of those bright orange chips. She was saying what she thought I wanted hear (that Doritos were bad), but inwardly craving the junk food she was seeing in other kids' lunches. When I asked her to honestly tell me if she wanted some, she admitted she did.

My first instinct was to say "too bad," but then I decided that at 7 ½, she was old enough to be an active participant in her own food choices. I was also concerned that in my attempts to give my daughters a nutritious energy-filled meal at school and speak honestly with them about nutrition, I had instead somehow equated homemade sandwiches and cut up vegetables and fruit with being "good," while at the same time transforming junk food into a "forbidden fruit." I began to wonder if one day, maybe in high school or college, they would rebel by gorging themselves on Twinkies and Cap'n Crunch.

I was also concerned that I was raising them in a bubble of food elitism, where we were smug locavores and everyone who ate otherwise was gastronomically bankrupt. Even worse, they seemed completely ignorant of the fact that healthy food is simply more expensive than processed food, and that much of the world is striving to get enough food to eat at all, let alone organic and locally raised. As I didn't want to get into a prolonged discussion about the farm bill with my two 7-year olds, I thought that in addition to trying to inform them about food with age-appropriate discussions, I would also help them learn to make their own nutritional decisions. Let them eat cake (or rather processed chips), while telling them what's in them (i.e., why they are such a bright orange and why they taste different than regular corn chips). They're smart girls and I thought it was time for them to start thinking about this stuff on their own.

It was through this reasoning that I found myself buying a box of small bagged Doritos. I looked at my daughters in the grocery store aisle and said, "So, is this what you really want in your lunch?" Both looked at me wide-eyed. "Yes. We really really want them," they yelled with huge smiles. As I placed the Doritos into my cart, I tried not to frown. I hated buying this crap for my kids, but I also didn't want to create little eaters who feel superior about their cut red peppers while longingly eyeing other kids snacks. By taking away the stigma of processed foods, I was hoping to also take away the allure. I was hoping that the road to a lifetime of loving vegetables and slow food just might start with a small bag of Doritos once or twice a week.

Has anyone else out there struggled with their kid's desire to have junk food? If so, how did you handle it?

Update: I included the Doritos in my daughters' lunches for about two weeks. I never asked them if they wanted them. They had to initiate putting the bags in their lunch boxes themselves. This week, however, they seem to have forgotten that those little red bags even exist. When making their lunches in the morning, we have included the normal peanut butter and jam sandwiches, yogurt, cut up fruit and homemade popcorn, along with other standard choices. No one has asked for Doritos or even acknowledged that they're sitting in the pantry. I'm hoping that by making then accessible, they're no longer so appealing and therefore ancient history.