I have spent the last three months learning how to be a chef’s widow. Or really, if we’re going for accuracy, a culinary student widow. (As a real chef’s widow could tell you.)
Oh, don’t feel bad for me. It’s not like restaurants won’t be lining up to hand him an awesome $9 an hour line cook job when he graduates in January. Good ones too!
I take comfort in Nate being away six nights a week by reminding myself that I’ve got nights to myself with no one criticizing my TV choices. I’ve got time to write. And of course, I’ve got those delicious, delicious class assignments to surprise me each morning when I wobble to the kitchen and crack open the refrigerator door.
Let’s just say he just finished the pastry section of the curriculum. And he earned a 98 on his recent evaluation.
Yeah, baby.
(That’s my thighs talking. Sorry, they’ve got a thing for quoting Austin Powers. Annoying, I know.)
This week though was something different. Nate came home from his nutrition class like an atheist who found Jesus, ranting about high fructose corn syrup and overprocessing and Michael Pollan and carbs and and type 2 diabetes. And how our children are pretty much the worst eaters in the world and how we need to do less Cheerios and more eggs, less mac and cheese from a box and more fat peas from the garden. Hallelujia, for Mr. Let’s Introduce The Kids To Marshmallow Fluff himself has seen the light.
I am all for my children eating better and not getting major diseases because man, if I think I feel guilty now about not signing them up for ballet lessons, imagine how I’ll feel about having them on insulin the better part of their adult life. I do my best to read labels and ease up on the sugar and buy the organic products that matter (with help from Food Momiac). I try to be the mom who says “no dessert unless you eat your dinner” and to make sure they don’t eat peanut butter for every meal, which believe me, they could do.
But I had this odd sinking feeling at the same time that Nate was ranting about the sweeping dietary changes about to befall this household, and how there would be no more boxed cereals and no more white flour pasta, which pretty much wipes out two of the three food groups in our home.
Ricotta cheese, mercifully, remained.
In part I’m feeling guilty and defensive and kind of annoyed. Mostly defensive.
I grapple with the degree to which my kids are picky eaters because they’re two and four, or the degree to which they are picky eaters because we’ve let them be. I’m sure it doesn’t help that now I’m on dinner duty six nights a week, even as I’ve let my cooking skills atrophy–thanks to a partner who can whoop me silly over a Viking range and doesn’t think twice about criticizing my boiling water ability. (Not enough salt.) I think boneless chicken breast, but somehow I reach for the mac n cheese when I’m too tired to see straight, let alone make a marinade. And if you want to assuage the mac n cheese guilt with the organic kind? You’d better be prepared to shell out three tiems the price.
So I’m sitting at the family dinner table over Nate’s outrageous ravioli with a homemade lemon herb sauce with spring peas, grappling with how I might transition from the ease of Cheerios to me actually having to stand my tired arse over a pan of eggs first thing in the morning.
Slowly, I come around. I’m imagining that with a little work, I might actually be able to deliver on Nate’s Great Nutritional Ephiphany of 2009. It wasn’t an attack on me specifically – it was an observation about the way we live, and the way food is sold, and how we might work together to change it for the benefit of our kids.
Yes! I’m thinking. I’ll totally start making all those vegetable purees to hide in the pancakes and freeze them for the week. I’ll start scouting out the “nutritious family meals you can in 4 seconds” blogs and Nate and I will work together to figure out how make some changes around here. This will be a really good thing.
I let my shoulders down. I breathe deeply. I manage to smile. We’re in this together.
Then Nate looks down, and seeing my utensils in the all done position says, with his most condescending voice possible:
You are going to finish your peas, Mommy. Right?
And I nearly jumped out of my seat and stabbed him with my fork.
71 shards of brilliance… read them below or add one
OK. A few other ideas for the 4-min meal. If you can find time to do a big shop and moderate cooking session on Sunday, you can make a few staples that turn into your dinners during the week.
This lemon chicken is a big hit with my kids. Makes 2 pounds of chicken breast strips you can dole out during the week. (Don't bother with the satay dip). http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/grilled-lemon-chicken-skewers-with-satay-dip-recipe/index.html
Cook a big pot of whole wheat pasta (or tricolor pasta) and keep it in the fridge until time to nuke it at dinnertime. You can add parmesan and butter, or sauce and mozzarella.
Cut up veggies in a tupperware so they are easy to serve (red pepper, cucumber, carrots, sugar snap peas). Dip in ranch dressing or hummus.
Do your kids like eggs? Hard boiled eggs are great. Or scrambled eggs (wrapped in a tortilla with cheese), or eggs and toast and fruit.
Rice is a good staple to have pre-cooked. You can get some pre-made curry sauce to pour over yours, and if too spicy for kids, serve theirs with eggs or the aforementioned chicken. Have you tried that packaged Wildwood tofu? Kids love it (Savory flavor); serve on side of rice. With some frozen peas (still frozen — pea popsicles!)
Amy's frozen pizza is good. My kids will eat the spinach variety, which makes me feel pretty good about it.
What would you make yourself for dinner, if no kids around? You could try going that route (unless of course it's a vodka tonic and potato chips). They'll only reject a food a few times if you keep exposing them to it. They will eventually get hungry and try it.
Good luck. It's so hard to be a single working mom every evening. Wish I were still in NY to have you guys over for a meal or two.
That's awesome Susan. Love you.
I came back looking for more tips (tired, pregnant working mom here….) and Susan's ideas are great. We may adopt appetizer night at our house… except the only “dip” my toddler likes so far is ketchup.
Another one that works in our house is pancakes + home made smoothies for dinner. Anytime fruit is heading past its prime, I cut it up and toss it in a tupperware container I keep in the freezer. I keep a bag of frozen berries on hand, too. On smoothies night, I dump my stash into a blender with a little juice and/or water and make a smoothie. Sometimes I add a tub of frozen yogurt (makes a creamier smoothie- I freeze a single serve tub of vanilla yogurt for this purpose). I recently learned that the berries are key because they cover any weird colors from the other fruit- everyone drank the odd brownish smoothie I made last week (it even tasted nice), but I wasn't too thrilled with it.
I hear that you can hide spinach in a smoothie and no one can taste it, but I haven't tried this. I'd know it was there, and although I like spinach, I don't really want it in my smoothie.
Pancakes really do take about 4 minutes to mix up. And you can even make wheat or oatmeal pancakes if you want to be extra virtuous.
I do smoothies with quesadillas, too. Basically, I feel that adding a smoothie greatly increases the nutritional value of whatever half-assed meal I'm doing.
Lucky for me, my daughter loves sweets and I'm a pastry chef! Easy, right?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I love Susan's tips. Those are the suggestions that I really need. How to shop/prep/organize so that things are quick and easy when everyone's hungry and cranky.
I think my 17 month old inherited my junk-food-junky-gene. Damn.
I'm confused…Cheerios have almost no sugar at all…and eggs are all high fat…so why shouldn't eggs be a couple of days a week and Cheerios a couple days a week?
Crap. I'm from the Bay Area, and even I am confused.
Jellyjules, I suck at the nutritional stuff but eggs actually are really low in saturated fat (1.5 grams each) while Cheerios are processed grains and high in carbs. What I do know from South Beach and the Zone and blah blah blah is that carbs make you fat, not fat.
You'd think they'd rename fat or something and make it easier for us!
I can't for the life of me get my child to eat anything healthy, and this morning, I came downstairs to find that my husband had given her CAKE for breakfast. Oy. Someday, she'll eat a green vegetable.
I missed the part about the husband in cooking school. I am somewhat jealous, as well as awestruck.
Magpie, what – you didn't recognize Nate's inner culinary prowess when you saw him wielding that squeeze bottle of mustard over his Hebrew National hot dog?
I disagree about carbs being bad, no matter what the diet gurus say, but I agree that over processed carbs are bad. So what you say about Cheerios makes sense. I like them because they don't have a lot of sugar, but yeah, they are over processed.
My 13 year old is on a Special K bender right now, and while I would prefer to see her eating shredded wheat or something like that, I know better than to make eating into a battle. So I let her. Once in awhile she'll eat eggs if I cook them for her.
I liked Susan's idea of an appetizer dinner, esp for little ones. Sandwiches can be quick and healthy, too, and there's nothing wrong with scrambled eggs for dinner, esp with some good whole grain toast and fruit on the side.
In summer, we often have smoothies for breakfast…fruit, yogurt, a little OJ, that's it. Fast and yummy.
Well, kids need fat. In particular, growing brains need cholesterol. That's why we're told to give kids under the age of 2 whole milk. Their bodies can't make enough to supply their brains yet.
The thing that bothers me about the anti-processed food “movement” is that it feels to me like a command to do everything myself rather than availing myself of the efficiencies of the division of labor.
So the cereal bar I give my daughter to bribe her into her carseat after day care is bad, because it is “processed”, but if I personally bake something similar to that bar (and yes, I do have a recipe for this), it would be OK? Would I have to make my own filling from fresh fruit, or could I cheat and use jam as long as it was locally produced? Is the worry about some ingredient the store-bought bar has that I wouldn't add? If so, tell me which one, and I'll decide if I think it is worth worrying about. Or is it just that people working at a corporation, using machines made that store-bought bar, and corporations and machines are somehow bad?
I've read some of Michael Pollan's books, and I agree with a lot of what he has to say. But from a nutritional standpoint, I don't think it matters who makes the food my family eats- me, a local baker, or some big company. I think it matters what is actually IN that food. Now, from a “good of the earth” standpoint, maybe it matters. But I want to see a detailed analysis on that, because it all has started to feel to me like people with more time and/or money than I have making arguments to justify the way they spend that time and/or money and making me feel bad in the process!
OK, end of rant. (Mom-101- this rant isn't directed at you. I'm not sure who it is directed at, actually. Maybe pundits who write articles and go on TV and make blanket statements about how we should all eat without really analyzing what they are saying. A lot of what I hear people say and support by referencing Michael Pollan doesn't at all match what I understood from reading his books!)
Cloud, I just want to say
WHOOOO!
Well, here's what I had to say on the topic of picky eaters a while back: http://www.halushki.com/2007/10/i-want-250-gift-card-for-use-at.html
Other than that, I'm all for “add ins” as I'm also for a box of Mac and cheese with a dab of ricotta and some real cheddar mixed in as I'm all for making things from scratch with organics that cost more than my car. I try to balance physical health days with mental health days with “not going to feel too guilty” days with “today I'm going to try something new” days.
And just think of this story: Had a friend who lived in an earthquake zone who fed her kids very healthily from scratch every day. Comes to find out that at the local shelters, they stock only non-perishable “lasts forever” kinds of food – mac and cheese and ravioli in a can, etc. A letter came to families encouraging them to make sure their kids would eat these things in case of a disaster. So…there's your choice: healthy now or survives to rebuild society after doomsday.
This made me laugh. It feels so familiar… like my husband and I have had the same interaction – probably not over food – but I totally know the feeling that you were writing about.
This is definitely a “toughie.” We're so busy with other things that convenience foods have sort of taken over (I'm somewhat guilty myself). I just try to get as many veggies and fruits down their throats as possible and call it a day… : )
Yowtch! I have to say we're very much taking the “nutritious eating” process one step at a time. Baby steps. But the power of small is making progress: now my daughter will actually eat brown rice, and my son is cool with whole wheat bagels!
Lisa
Okay, Nate and my husband should totally hang out. He has had a similar epiphany and I had a similar reaction as you: defensive and totally annoyed.
(You are such a talented writer!)
Ahh, the life of a Mom who is “single” yet married. I know it well and I've just begun to BLOG for the first time. I am planning to include my own personal “single-mom” anecdotes and I loved reading yours. Be strong, it sounds like you're well-fed even if you handle it ALL on your own- Kudos to you-
http://www.MashugaMom.com
(Crazy Mom)
AS far as processed grains go, Cheerios are pretty darn good. The ingredient list is small. If your kids dig them, there's no reason they shouldn't be a staple. Plus, Cheerios are a fairly decent carbs. High in fiber.
Mini-wheats are also pretty good. Though I'm not sure if they contain the HFCS. I should check on that.
Having just taken a nutrition class, I get defensive about carbs. We require them for energy, and the breakdown should be around 55-60% carbs, around 10 -20% lean protein, and 20% healthy fats. One course does not an expert make, I know. But some carbs are really, really good!
I hear ya sister. I've just been “turned on” to Michael Pollan (and Mark Bittman who actually has great RECIPES to back up his “eat food. not too much. mostly plants.” way of eating.
My kids are 3 1/2 and 8 months and I've, of course, been expecting the second one, who is much more easygoing than the first, to correct all of the misbehaviors (including picky eating) of his older brother. Well, he's now on solids and is making the same gaggy, choky “get that vegetable AWAY FROM ME” faces his brother did. Though he does like toast (wait, am I even supposed to be feeding him toast yet?).
That said, I have a little advice for you. Call it a 6-step program (they're half-pints after all):
1)realize your own eating habits are abismal and your kids learn to eat from you
2) start cooking with lots and lots of veggies and every time you want a snack, grab fruit (and offer it to your kids).
3) plant a garden to get your kid interested in growing food
4) take your kids to a farm, cheese factory, chocolate factory, whatever, to show them where their food comes from
5) involve your kids in cooking, even if it means you're tearing your hair out as they spray pasta sauce all over the white walls of your kitchen
6) offer that healthy, fresh, good-for-you food at every meal. Put it on their plate if they'll let you. Con them into taking at least one bit of it before you cave in and nuke the mac'n cheese, make a peanut butter sandwich, etc.
Mind you, this is still in the experimental stages in my house. I'm keeping close track and writing about it, so will let you know how it goes! And good luck to you!
trader joe's multigrain pancake mix, a little extra wheat germ tossed in, mixed with two eggs (farmers market free range etc etc), maybe some yogurt, and then milk to mush it together. Make pancakes. Put in chocolate chips or m&ms. Your children think you are SOOOO NICE. They have had a (reasonably nutritious) meal. Repeat at dinner, maybe with peanut butter and/or jam instead of choc chips. I feel your pain: my eight year old has not knowingly eaten a green leafy vegetable in his life, and he's teaching his younger brother the same habits – such a good sharer, eh? I figure if they see me (or Husband HAHAHAA) actually cooking, see actual fruits and veggies at the farmer's market, and if not every meal comes in delivery bags, then…eventually…maybe…they will eat something outside the white food groups. Eventually. Hope springs eternal.
My mom went to culinary school in NYC. French Culinary Institute and then she did an internship in France. Where is your hubby going to school?