Aug 24, 2023Liked by Virginia Sole-Smith, Amy Palanjian
Finding spices is always so hard for me. Any time I try to make anything with more than 4 ingredients my kids Will desperately need help. This podcast came at the perfect time, when my husband starts back coaching soccer season I have to shift back into making sure our kids are fed every night when he normally cooks during off season. I was making an updated list of their safe foods yesterday bc I am tired of only eating spaghetti and meatballs for 3 days a week!
my MIL still does back up meals for our Friday family dinners- I don’t love it but she doesn’t seem to mind all these kids in her cabinets/fridge once a week! She has a short list of available stuff- basically plain pasta, cheese and crackers, chicken nuggets or any whole piece of fruit are always an option and my kid who is at her house every day after school does get food for himself around 3:45 too. I continue to hope we will move into more separating components of the more “adult meals” but the 5 kids 6 and under is still difficult in this phase. My niece has dropped a lot of former safe foods and the kids charcuterie has been a strong vibe, when we were all together at the beach every night it was interesting but also encouraging for me to see my kids compared to their cousins!
I loved the discussion of the evolution of your friendship. My college roommate has been a very close friend for 17 years but in the last 4 years since we had kids 4 days apart in age she became my closest friend next to my twin. She moved 1 hour away and, I feel I can tell her what I am feeling with transparency even when it’s hard. I have a group text with 2 friends from law school who moved 4.5 and 3 hours away from me (I stayed where we went to school). We graduated 10 years ago this year. They can still fall into diet culture discussion and I have shut them down bc they will say something that crosses my boundaries. When we were in law school I was very much in my disordered eating pattern and I don’t think they knew how triggering it was to me to talk about body image post partum and looking to me for emotional labor regarding not wanting to be as fat as me. I exited the conversation when they were talking about bikini shopping and “looking fat” this summer and when one friend wrote her specific weight while pregnant with laugh emojis that I currently weighed then 3 years postpartum. I have grace for people knowing that experiencing life as a thin person with thin privilege is vastly different than being a woman who was always somewhat fat except for a 2 year period of my life when I was unwell. It’s always a lesson of talk to your friends, they don’t know what’s ok! I have found more local friends in the last 4 years mostly through different mom groups and my long term friends are always happy for me.
I am all about the Backup Meal Lite. For my kids, they each have like two specific backup meals they can regularly expect to choose from, as in expect that we will have it on hand etc, which are each a thing that requires no prep and are also, crucially, a thing that the other child does not like, to minimize snowballing. Then whoever ate less than a full night's worth of food at dinner pounds a cheese stick and possibly their second Backup Meal Lite option before bed.
The sad reality is, my kids have virtually no acceptable foods in common, even when it comes to supposedly easy meals. One likes chicken nuggets, tater tots, and Bagel Bite pizza but hates frozen burritos, pasta with butter, and mac and cheese; one hates chicken nuggets, tater tots, and Bagel Pite pizza but loves frozen burritos, pasta with butter, and mac/cheese. etc. This extends even to such micro-categories as berries (one likes raspberries and strawberries but hates blackberries and blueberries; the other vice versa). So even on my "heating up frozen kid food" nights, I always really feel like I am making a meal that realistically speaking, only one kid is actually going to eat. The other gets their Backup Meal Lite. I have moved past feeling like every single night is either: me as short-order cook, or else Sophie's Choice, and I just accept it. Someone's gonna be eating a banana (or, if you are the child who hates bananas, a granola bar) and a cheese stick tonight and that's still food.
Also, I GREATLY appreciate the calling out of the time spent looking for spices and random little-used ingredients. If I see an "easy" recipe and the cooking part actually does seem fairly easy, but the ingredient list is like 13 items, I do not even consider making it. I know myself.
I am now convinced to buy this cookbook. I have basically given up buying cookbooks because all I do is look at them and then fail to even try, and feel bad. Adding to cart now!
I love hearing how you're doing this because it shows exactly how differently we each can do it to make dinner work best for our own families. (My son eats so many cheese sticks for dinner!)
I need to check this out. In general, for me, timing and spice levels are the problem with meals. By the time we have it together to have made Official Dinner, my kid has had, like, a turkey sandwich and half an apple for "snack," but really it's his dinner. Then we try to get him to have a bite or two of whatever we're having and sit at the table and chat for a few minutes, but realistically a lot of the stuff we make for ourselves is too spicy to reasonably expect a kid to eat anyway. So if it's something he really likes, we'll try to get it ready a little earlier and be like "only half a turkey sandwich because dinner is mapo tofu and you love that," but, I mean, if it's dakdoritang with a ton of gochujang in it, we're just making a box of Annie's for him because making two different meals is the price of getting to eat what we want. But I always feel like we need to do better coming up with more meals that we all like.
Aaaaaand ordering NOW:) such great timing I have been feeding everyone scraps from the bottom of the deli drawer for weeks and I’m craving actual dishes!
Finding spices is always so hard for me. Any time I try to make anything with more than 4 ingredients my kids Will desperately need help. This podcast came at the perfect time, when my husband starts back coaching soccer season I have to shift back into making sure our kids are fed every night when he normally cooks during off season. I was making an updated list of their safe foods yesterday bc I am tired of only eating spaghetti and meatballs for 3 days a week!
I feel you, I’m working on a similar list!
my MIL still does back up meals for our Friday family dinners- I don’t love it but she doesn’t seem to mind all these kids in her cabinets/fridge once a week! She has a short list of available stuff- basically plain pasta, cheese and crackers, chicken nuggets or any whole piece of fruit are always an option and my kid who is at her house every day after school does get food for himself around 3:45 too. I continue to hope we will move into more separating components of the more “adult meals” but the 5 kids 6 and under is still difficult in this phase. My niece has dropped a lot of former safe foods and the kids charcuterie has been a strong vibe, when we were all together at the beach every night it was interesting but also encouraging for me to see my kids compared to their cousins!
That's really great that she's leaned into letting the kids have options!
I loved the discussion of the evolution of your friendship. My college roommate has been a very close friend for 17 years but in the last 4 years since we had kids 4 days apart in age she became my closest friend next to my twin. She moved 1 hour away and, I feel I can tell her what I am feeling with transparency even when it’s hard. I have a group text with 2 friends from law school who moved 4.5 and 3 hours away from me (I stayed where we went to school). We graduated 10 years ago this year. They can still fall into diet culture discussion and I have shut them down bc they will say something that crosses my boundaries. When we were in law school I was very much in my disordered eating pattern and I don’t think they knew how triggering it was to me to talk about body image post partum and looking to me for emotional labor regarding not wanting to be as fat as me. I exited the conversation when they were talking about bikini shopping and “looking fat” this summer and when one friend wrote her specific weight while pregnant with laugh emojis that I currently weighed then 3 years postpartum. I have grace for people knowing that experiencing life as a thin person with thin privilege is vastly different than being a woman who was always somewhat fat except for a 2 year period of my life when I was unwell. It’s always a lesson of talk to your friends, they don’t know what’s ok! I have found more local friends in the last 4 years mostly through different mom groups and my long term friends are always happy for me.
I am all about the Backup Meal Lite. For my kids, they each have like two specific backup meals they can regularly expect to choose from, as in expect that we will have it on hand etc, which are each a thing that requires no prep and are also, crucially, a thing that the other child does not like, to minimize snowballing. Then whoever ate less than a full night's worth of food at dinner pounds a cheese stick and possibly their second Backup Meal Lite option before bed.
The sad reality is, my kids have virtually no acceptable foods in common, even when it comes to supposedly easy meals. One likes chicken nuggets, tater tots, and Bagel Bite pizza but hates frozen burritos, pasta with butter, and mac and cheese; one hates chicken nuggets, tater tots, and Bagel Pite pizza but loves frozen burritos, pasta with butter, and mac/cheese. etc. This extends even to such micro-categories as berries (one likes raspberries and strawberries but hates blackberries and blueberries; the other vice versa). So even on my "heating up frozen kid food" nights, I always really feel like I am making a meal that realistically speaking, only one kid is actually going to eat. The other gets their Backup Meal Lite. I have moved past feeling like every single night is either: me as short-order cook, or else Sophie's Choice, and I just accept it. Someone's gonna be eating a banana (or, if you are the child who hates bananas, a granola bar) and a cheese stick tonight and that's still food.
Also, I GREATLY appreciate the calling out of the time spent looking for spices and random little-used ingredients. If I see an "easy" recipe and the cooking part actually does seem fairly easy, but the ingredient list is like 13 items, I do not even consider making it. I know myself.
I am now convinced to buy this cookbook. I have basically given up buying cookbooks because all I do is look at them and then fail to even try, and feel bad. Adding to cart now!
I love hearing how you're doing this because it shows exactly how differently we each can do it to make dinner work best for our own families. (My son eats so many cheese sticks for dinner!)
I need to check this out. In general, for me, timing and spice levels are the problem with meals. By the time we have it together to have made Official Dinner, my kid has had, like, a turkey sandwich and half an apple for "snack," but really it's his dinner. Then we try to get him to have a bite or two of whatever we're having and sit at the table and chat for a few minutes, but realistically a lot of the stuff we make for ourselves is too spicy to reasonably expect a kid to eat anyway. So if it's something he really likes, we'll try to get it ready a little earlier and be like "only half a turkey sandwich because dinner is mapo tofu and you love that," but, I mean, if it's dakdoritang with a ton of gochujang in it, we're just making a box of Annie's for him because making two different meals is the price of getting to eat what we want. But I always feel like we need to do better coming up with more meals that we all like.
You guys are so lucky to have each other. 💜
Aaaaaand ordering NOW:) such great timing I have been feeding everyone scraps from the bottom of the deli drawer for weeks and I’m craving actual dishes!