Rod Dreher

Mitt The True Believer

View From Your Table

By Rod Dreher • September 26, 2012, 10:08 AM

Escondido, California

I don’t usually do photos of faces in VFYT, but I’m making an exception for this one. The reader writes:

This week we welcomed the birth of our daughter, Rebekah Jo. As you may know, lunch meats are not recommended during pregnancy. So this week I made my wife a killer sandwich featuring: Applegate Farms smoked turkey and salami, lettuce and tomato from our organic CSA (Be Wise Ranch), and two kinds of cheeses all on a honey wheat bread from a nearby bakery and paired with a home-made pickle. She loved it.

The sandwich is in the background, behind the blessed child. Mazel tov all around!

Posted in View From Your Table. Tagged California, Escondido.

10 Responses to View From Your Table

Helen says:

September 26, 2012 at 12:09 pm

Babies are so delicious! Makes you want to pick her up and smooch her.

Many congratualtions! And, if this is your first: Courage. It gets easier. (If this is your second or beyond, you already know this.)
SusanKG says:

September 26, 2012 at 12:25 pm

Congratulations! And such a lucky mom and baby to have such a caring husband and father.
Erin Manning says:

September 26, 2012 at 1:52 pm

What a beautiful baby! Congratulations!
David J. White says:

September 26, 2012 at 3:47 pm

Sorry, but why are lunch meats not recommended during pregancy?

(I ask this as someone born in 1962, which means my mother probably smoked and drank while she was pregnant with me and ate what everyone else was eating, and very well might have taken thalidomide if it had been allowed on the US market.)
JaredK says:

September 26, 2012 at 4:09 pm

Thanks!

Helen it is our first – and I shall be sure to convey your encouragement to my wife. We definitely still need it.
JaredK says:

September 26, 2012 at 10:02 pm

David –

I believe the fear is of listeria. It’s one of those things that is mildly dangerous for adults but much more serious for infants. Honestly, I wonder if it isn’t going overboard. But still, we both prefer to stay on the cautious side.

The next “forbidden food” my wife is anxious to enjoy once again is sushi.
MH - Secular Misanthropist says:

September 27, 2012 at 7:15 am

Congratulations on the new addition to the family.
Naturalmom says:

September 27, 2012 at 9:03 am

I would have thought it was going overboard until I sat on my state’s food safety commission and discovered just how prevalent lysteria contaminationis in lunch meat. Just because you don’t hear about it doesn’t mean people aren’t getting sick. I still ate the occassional cold cut sandwich when I was pregnant, but I either heated the meat first or ate with a sense of trepidation. For quite a while I tried to aviod lunch meats as much as possible for all of us, but now that I have busy, active older kids who don’t care for peanut butter, tactor for packing dinners-on-the-go is too hard to pass up. Better than
Naturalmom says:

September 27, 2012 at 9:14 am

My phone cut me off on that last comment. I wanted to be sure to add my congratulations! Beautiful baby. As the mom of 3, I’ll also add my encouragement. Parenthood can be hard — very hard sometimes — but the great moments outweigh the tough ones, and it can be a o lot of fun as well. Buckle up for the ride! If your wife is feeling a rollercoaster of happiness, dread, and regret right now, tell her it will get better soon and give her lots of hugs. Be on the lookout for listless, depressive moods that begin a few weeks later, however, and get her help if you see that. PPD is no joke. Hopefully, she won’t experience that. I never did, but my sister did.
Enjoy that baby!
Gus says:

September 27, 2012 at 11:00 pm

Good lord, that baby is absolute perfection! Nice sandwich, too.