warmhotchocolate

Some Thoughts on Food and Family

I’m off to a pretty good start with my New Year’s resolution of cooking more. I love cooking sweets – cakes, crepes, cookies, etc. – so this year I’m trying to focus on meals more. I made mini quiches earlier this week and was hoping my egg-loving son would like them. I tried introducing them as scrambled egg cupcakes to reduce the ‘new-factor.’ Jenna loves trying new foods. Jason. Does. Not. But the boy loves eggs and, of course, cupcakes, so what’s not to love about scrambled egg cupcakes? He ate one, but it was was a bit of a struggle (and the promise of cookies may have provided the necessary motivation to overcome said struggle).

In thinking about meals for my family over the year so far, I’ve realized something about my initial resolution to cook more:

I want to cook more for my family.

This is challenging for several reasons:

1. Jason is a picky eater. He likes very plain foods along with the standard preschool fare (pizza, mac-and-cheese, sandwiches) and has very little interest in expanding his repertoire.

2. I am a vegetarian. My family is not. The challenge here is two-fold: limiting the need to cook different meals and learning to cook recipes that I’m not willing to taste. Not at all. I’ve definitely fried my share of bacon and cooked the occasional chicken breast, but I’d like to learn a few more recipes for the carnivores among us.

3. For health reasons, my son needs to maximize his calorie intake. We’re talking an enviable diet of cheese, cream and bacon. Unfortunately, we can’t all eat like this. Sympathy bacon-eating might sound like a great idea, but sympathy weight gain is not. In other words, I don’t need to learn how to make cake pops, I need to learn how to make cake pops but not eat them.

4. What started out to be about cooking is also about time together. Between our schedules and our devices, sitting down face-to-face and talking to each other becomes harder to do. I read this post about how the design of a chair responds to (and perpetuates) parents’ technology dependence, and it definitely struck a chord. I’m secretly hoping that cooking more meals will result in more time together.

So what sounded like an easy resolution at the start of the year is shaping up to be a bit more challenging. But I’ve got 11 months to go, right?