The Chinese Food Cure

Feeling ill or on the mend? You can bet Chinese food is on the menu chez nous. If I have a terrible cold, I often crave wonton soup, simply because that is what my stepmother fed me when I was sick. She was not the cooking sort, so I suppose she thought it was better than serving me something from a can. Which I guess it was. Of course I would certainly prefer grandma's chicken soup but if nobody is around to make it I'll have to settle for something else.

My husband, too, has a fondness for Chinese when either ill or recovering from an ailment. He longs for hot and sour soup and greasy sesame chicken. Not surprisingly then, that we have passed on this penchant to our child.

Last night, Izzy was suffering from a stomach ailment, as was I. This morning he was nibbling at some bread, same for lunch. By dinnertime, though, he was ready. "I want to order Chinese for dinner, from the regular old Chinese." "Not the new Chinese?" "No, the regular one, I like it better."
How depressing because the new one is healthier. His taste for the old is my own fault entirely. Kids become accustomed to what they know. It is up to me to change it now. So I persist and order from the new.. eventually the new will become old and all will be well...

Some background:

Jersey City is not one of those places where you might look around and say, "I bet the Chinese food here is terrible." Yet in fact it is mediocre at best. For awhile we had been ordering from D.J. Gardens on a regular basis, not a place where you would really want to dine-in. Run of the mill greasy Chinese food. Why I ate it on a regular basis? The only reason I can think of was because my husband likes it. And why that is, I can't say.

So it is only recently that I discovered a couple of other options, one of which is an "Asian bistro" called Confucius. The restaurant itself is large and of the Ruby Foo ilk. The food is decent slightly more inspired than ordinary but nothing earth-shattering. Somehow it seems to be a healthier option than D.J. Gardens. It is certainly not as greasy. So I started to order from there instead because I just couldn't justify feeding my family greasy food on a regular basis.

My husband doesn't understand and sometimes insists on getting his own fix on his way home while Izzy continues to request "the regular old Chinese." What am I supposed to do?