1. Please?
2. Try holding your nose.
3. See how the fish is pink? Princesses love pink. Salmon is what princesses eat! It's princess food! Yay princesses!!!
4. If you don't eat this, I will take the dog for a walk and never come home.
5. You know how sometimes a needle is so sharp you don't even feel it? That's what this chili is like. It's so spicy that you won't even taste anything.
6. Try the swordfish. It's like white salmon.
7. Try the cauliflower. It's like white broccoli.
8. Try the tofu. It's like white-ish chicken.
9. Try eating. It's how you survive.
10. I went through full labor and then had a C-section in order to bring you into this world. I almost died for you. You owe me.
11. If you don't eat it, then I will. And then I'll hate myself.
12. Don't you love Daddy?
13. Let me ask you one question: Why must you torment me so?
14. It's lemon sole!!! Isn't that a fun name? Sole is a fish. You like fish, don't you? Don't you love salmon? Well, salmon is also a fish! Sole is like salmon's cousin, in that they both swim in the ocean. They swim around and are cute. It's really good. It's even better than salmon! You like fish. You'll love this. I promise. Just think of it as salmon. Or, OK, chicken. It tastes a little like chicken, too. Oh come on, you love chicken. This is breaded and fried, just like the chicken we make. It's like that, but even better. Think of it as chicken and salmon mixed together, and you love both of those things, right? Don't you? You don't?
15. Pretty please?
16. If you don't try this, Santa won't come.
17. The doctor said you need to eat this.
18. There's no more ketchup. Heinz stopped making ketchup last week. It was in all the newspapers. A newspaper is something you read.
19. Don't eat? No treat.
20. Let's think about this logically for a minute, OK?
21. One bite one bite one bite one bite one bite one bite one bite one bite.
22. Remember the mac and cheese you loved at that restaurant in Charleston? This is the exact same recipe, from that restaurant's cookbook, written by the exact same chef who made it for you then. And now I'm taking his exact instructions and recreating the exact same meal for you right here at your table in New York. How cool is that??
23. How do you know you won't like it if you've never tried it? And yeah, I just said that.
24. If you try this, we'll talk about getting you that Polly Pocket Cruise Ship Set that will sit on our living room floor like a hideous speed bump for the next five years until I throw it away one day when you're not looking.
25. Let's play a game: Pretend your life depended on finishing this.
26. Quick! Look over there!
27. Do you enjoy this? Is that why you do this?
28. You like watching your mother cry? Is that it?
29. Your sister finished hers.
30. You think Tony Stark leaves any of his kale uneaten?
31. You liked it yesterday!?
32. You liked it when Aunt Lynn made it for you.
33. Your little chicken is lonely and sad and will only be happy when he's reunited with his potato friends in your stomach.
34. Man cannot survive on pasta alone.
35. What do you think tomato sauce is made out of?
36. Don't you want to live for a long time?
37. Don't you want to outlive your parents?
38. Do you want the dog to get fat? Because she should not be eating this much hamburger meat every night.
39. I'm counting to three.
40. I mean five.
41. I mean ten.
42. I loved this meal when I was a kid.
43. I hated this meal when I was a kid.
44. Don't look at it, just eat it.
Jenny Rosenstrach is the author of Dinner: A Love Story, the book based on her blog of the same name.
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