Over the past few days I have been having a lot of conversations with people about how overwhelmed they are feeling. I have come to think that for many of us September is a month of unexpected overwhelm. Here’s my best guess as to why September can be so brutal: for many of us September…
A month or so ago I did a cooking demonstration and workshop where I talked about easy ways to integrate healthier alternatives into your daily diet. One of my props for that workshop was a jar of store-bought marinara sauce. Now, as many of you know, I usually make my tomato sauce from scratch, but…
We all know the benefits of family dinners— less picky eating, lower risk of obesity and eating disorders, higher academic achievement, lower risk of teen pregnancy and substance abuse, the list goes on and on. And we all have that idyllic idea of what it should look like—perfect table manners, no tension, everyone together, beautifully…
Warning: This story contains injury, floods, smoke detectors, yelling and tears. And no pizza. Last week was a rough one at our house. My husband had major deadlines that resulted in his working late every night, including one almost-all-nighter (he got 2 hours of sleep, can we just call that an all-nighter at our age?),…
This has been a week of cooking missteps and averted crises in my kitchen. Last Friday night as I was assembling a huge batch of enchiladas for a large group of people, I ran out of tortillas. It was one of those moments of panic in the kitchen. How did I miscount the tortillas? How…
When I was a kid one of my favorite dinners was tacos. I loved it because it was delicious, but I also loved it because it was fun. The table was filled with bowls full of all kinds of colorful options: green chopped lettuce, red chopped tomato, bell peppers of various hues, black or brown…
Now that the weather is getting warmer and the days longer, getting around to making dinner is getting tougher and tougher. The pull to stay outside, to be out and about is just so strong. So I have been making a lot of dinners that can either be cooked very quickly, 5-20 minutes, on the…
Twice in the past month my younger son, who is a much more selective eater, has stunned us by happily trying and then falling in love with new vegetables (asparagus and artichokes). They are now two of his go-to requests when I check in with him about meals for the upcoming week. I wish I…
There have been a lot of powerful posts going around recently about feeding kids. Two that really spoke to me were one about the pitfalls of pushing the “one bite” and another about the importance of focusing on making family dinners an enjoyable time rather than a time for pushing food or other table manner agendas. Both of these…
This week has been a rough one for us. The boys and I got knocked flat by the flu, the cat got sick, and my husband has been super stressed at work. Not a great start to the New Year. Outside of surviving, the only thing I was really able to accomplish this week was…