This was our Wednesday lunch: a date with Daddy at Chipotle. It rocked.
We beat him there by a few minutes—just long enough to run to the bathroom and wash hands after an hour of cricket-chasing at a nearby park. (Can I say how happy I was to have a warmish sunny day at last?) This is Baby A waiting patiently for his arrival:
Hope your Wednesday was this good, too.
"Look out!
We've never been big on not playing with food—within reason. Throwing it? Making intentional messes? No way. But a little thing like this? I can deal. Everyone needs a little levity.
Switching gears completely: Can I tell you how sweet things are right at this moment?
I'm sitting on our bed, listening to the rain outside (rain! in the South! the grass may yet survive!) as Baby A and The Wonderful Husband finish the second book in the My Father's Dragon series. (It's awesome for early chapter-book readers...or listeners.)
Our next baby is tumbling around inside me, managing somehow to thump me hard in the back on my left and poke out on my right side at the same time. At just twenty-one weeks along, it has already been a big mover and shaker for quite some time; TWH jokes that he or she is going to roundhouse its way out of the womb.
I'm in the last stages of a big chunk of freelance work—an annual report for an institute within a major university nearby—and the deadlines have kept me from posting here much over the past week or two. I'm looking forward to finishing. Think it will be the last big project I take on before the baby arrives around the first of July. (And that, THAT, will be the big project for at least three or four months afterwards. That and the quest for sleep.)
TWH and Baby A have finished the book now and are talking about it. There's a map inside the cover, and she's telling him which islands are which. I know from reading the earlier chapters that she has them wrong, but what does it matter? TWH lets it go. Sunday night, when we started this book, Baby A nuzzled down into my side and turned to me with an unmatched look of excitement on her face. I recognized it and something inside my chest went all warm: She was incredibly excited to be on the verge of starting a new book.
I'm so grateful she feels that, too. We do get lucky and pass on some of the good stuff, don't we?
It's amazing how many kid-development milestones just kind of happen on their own. Just when you're despairing, thinking you'll be changing diapers (or throwing away unsalvageable underwear) forever, they start using the toilet. Just when you think they'll be packing tubes of Little Bear toddler toothpaste for college, they learn to spit.
And just when you think your child won't ever lighten your day with some bathroom humor, you get a song like this: "I went some at school, and some at the Y, yeah,/ Poopy poopy, poopy, poopitypoopitypoopity POOP!" (copyright 2008, Baby A, just in case you were thinking of pirating that one).
Aaaaaaaanyway, seems it goes the same way with expanding their palates, too. Here's one writer, over at the lovely Babble site, who's taking that whole process in stride.
And that's cool. All things in time, right?
So last night we're making a forty-five-minute drive home during the second half of the Duke - Virginia Tech basketball game. I love me some Blue Devils, so I build it up really big with Baby A: "Guess what? You get to listen to the Duke game on the radio! With me! Like a big kid!"
She's all, "Mommy, you LOVE radio! Especially NPR! And you love Duke! Yay! This will be FUN!"
But here's how it actually goes, copied from a sympathy-pleading email to my husband, who often doesn't understand why I want to take a break from talking for a little while after he gets home in the evenings:
we missed the whole game, though, in no small part because a. WOULD NOT STOP TALKING as i tried to listen on the radio on the way home. here is a two-minute slice:"he's dribbling? that means bouncing the ball, right? devils scored! did the other team loss, er, loser, um, not win yet? seventy is more than fifty-five, right? duke has seventy. that's more. the man said duke THREW THE BALL AWAY? so he put it in the trash can? why would he do that? how can they play the game if the ball is thrown away? OH NO! can someone get it back? do they have extra basketballs to use? just an expression? what means an expression? does duke have the ball now? what color is the other team? is it clemson? they're orange. or is it temple? is it the grey team we saw the other day, um, um, um, gorgetown? i'll be a cheerleader! goooooo, duke! dukedukedukedukeduke duuuuuuuuukkkkke!"
i swear i've never head a person so capable of keeping up a nonstop stream-of-consciousness chatter. so then i'm Mean Mom, punching off the radio and yelling, "SHUSH! just listen!" over and over but it's like she is on speed and can't stop her mouth.
la la la la la la....
When your family road-tripped, was McDonald's your mealtime stop? And when you were a kid, was that not the most awesome thing about the trip? Somehow it made those hours of confinement, during which your little brother could not keep his BRATTY HANDS on HIS HALF of the BACK SEAT, bearable. I mean, really, what about the imaginary line down the middle of the bench seat did he not understand?
The only thing better than the set of arches on the horizon was the time we pulled over at a rest stop on the South Carolina-Georgia border and ate a surreal picnic of hard-boiled Easter Eggs. (Fortunately, this was an actual Easter trip.) What, break, peel, and eat these works of art? At a picnic table? Here?My parents must have been truly desperate for a stop.
Heather Armstrong of Dooce remembers McDonald's and road-trip details as their family sets off on an impromptu road trip to California. She's funny enough to make your latte shoot out of your nose--as you might already know--but the best part of this post for me was realizing other couples actually do fight. Badly. And get over it fast.
If McDonald's wasn't your family's regular road-trip stop, what was?
What's up with the difficulty of planning meals and shopping lists when there are little kiddos around? Grocery lists become just one more bit of proof that I can't think through anything from start to finish these days. I try, really I do, but it's just frustrating. And that's before the shopping trip, which always ends up feeling like a freakin' marathon event.
Jessica Ashley, better known around the blogging world as author of the Sassafrass blog, knows your pain. And mine. She's got a great post at Strollerderby today. It'll make you think, Okay. It's not just me. And then she links to inspirational posts from bloggers who do manage not only to get it done, but to blog about how they did it, and how we can do it, too. (Props. Mad props.) There's CityMama, and Foodmomiac, and Adventures of Bittyman, and An Ordinary Mom, and Mommy Cracked.
There's more inspiration for you here at Quick Serve Kids...scroll down and look under "More, Please" on the right-hand side.
Lately I've been using my iPhone (what is it NOT useful for?) to keep a running grocery list that I'm sure to have with me. That image above is my most recent version. (Too bad the phone can't help me make better blog graphics. Sigh....) As you can see, it's, um, pretty short. From there, I'll grab two more kinds of groceries: staples we always keep on hand (cheese, pasta sauce, fresh fruit) and things that look good at the moment or inspire some thoughts for that night's meal. The cart is never full, though. I like to keep it fresher than that.
What's your strategy for keeping the pantry and fridge reasonably stocked? Or do you let take-out take care of it?
Speaking of this whole struggle, this is probably a good time to catch up on our family's own quick-serve trend--which is sharply away from quick-serve patronage. It's not part of any kind of campaign, or really anything purposeful at all. For a while, Chick-fil-A, Panera, and a couple other concepts were figuring into our mealtimes once or twice a week. Lately, though, we're doing a lot of home cooking. I like the variety, and home is snuggly and relaxing when it's 20 degrees outside.
If we do go to a chain these days, it's Chipotle. There are more locations near us now, which makes it convenient (which, duh, is our point). The food there is fresh and delicious, the wait time is near zero, and I love love love the natural and organic consciousness that company is pushing. Go here and click on Manifesto. Note as you read that this quick-serve chain actually recommends you read Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation. How's that for confidence in its mission?
Sweet. We actually visited Chipotle two days in a row recently. But mostly, lately, we've been doing a lot of cooking at home. It just feels right.
Hmmmm, why all the pickiness? Why the strange domesticity?
Could it be...
I'm nesting?
So. It's been a while. Now I feel like I've just run into an old friend on the street.
"What's new?," she asks. And though a million things have happened in the meantime, but not knowing where to start, I say, "Nothing, really. Same old. How are you?"
I've had so many ideas for posts. Really, I have. Just haven't had the time to flesh them out and actually, uh, post them. Haven't had the energy, either, but I'll leave the juicy details on that for the next post.
Then this morning I opened my inbox to find a message from one of the Noodads, alerting me to his post about a recent family trip to Subway and his disappointment in the kids' meal toy. The picture above is his; read the whole post here. It's worth the trip over.
The amazing thing is hundreds of people have continued to visit Quick Serve Kids every week. Granted, they're staying less than a minute on average, but that's to be expected. For pete's sake, my last post was a big whine, and that was weeks ago.
This week will be different--and I have a lot to share. Stay tuned. And keep on checking back.
Last week, Baby A was "helping" me shop at Trader Joes, meaning each time I turned to focus on something she loaded up the cart with whatever caught her eye—in this case, almond biscotti, a huge package of trail mix, and a pound of French roast coffee.
As if, child. That's about the last thing she needs.
The one contribution of hers I kept in the cart was a paper bag overfilled with smallish but gorgeous red apples. But it was sort of against my better judgment because the handwritten sign above them touted how they were "treated with minimal spray"!
Now, I'm not always careful to get organic apples. Sometimes surviving the shopping experience becomes more important than making sure each item is as carefully selected as you'd wish. Know what I mean?
But somehow having the "spray," however "minimal" it might be, pointed out so plainly, as an incentive to buy, turned me off. Visions of containers of Roundup with little spray nozzles filled my head, with the nozzles pointed straight at my child. It's probably silly, I know. I wash and peel apples for Baby A (also against my better judgment) so there's little chance this one instance of "minimal spray" would get to her.
But. Still.
Then tonight I noticed that McDonald's recently sent its moms panel on a tour of one of its apple growers and processors. Take a look at their journals and video—it's pretty interesting. Of course, there's nothing negative. You wouldn't expect it. But it's a fascinating look into (1) the power the Mom Demographic wields today and (2) just how much McDonald's can influence its producers. Let's put it this way: If McDonald's suddenly came out and said it would buy only organic apples from now on, a big fraction of U.S. apple production would shift to organic.
What's your take? Let me know.
And while we're at it, here's a hypothetical: If you knew McDonald's offered organic apples, would you be more likely to buy your kids the McDonald's Apple Dipper snacks or side dish?
I would.
Oh, the minimally sprayed apples? They're crispy, sweet, and delicious. But I think we'll buy our next batch from the local farmer's market, where I can ask the grower how they're grown. We get some awesome Pink Lady apples around here.
I really should apologize for that headline. But at least you're still reading.
Passing along a news release from Dunkin' Donuts...if you've bought a dozen donuts or a box of Munchkins and got a Halloween glow stick as a prize, you'll want to keep it away from young children. Here's the word straight from the company:
Dunkin' Donuts Announces Withdrawal of Glow Sticks
CANTON, Mass., Oct. 5—Dunkin' Donuts LLC is voluntarily withdrawing approximately 1,000,000 pink and orange Glow Sticks. Dunkin' Donuts has determined that the glow sticks distributed were not labeled properly to warn customers that the cap and lanyard, when dislodged from the glow stick, pose a choking hazard for children under the age of three (3) years old. The company has not received any complaints or reports of personal injury.
Dunkin' Donuts distributed the glow sticks free with every purchase of a dozen donuts or 25- or 50-count box of Munchkins donut hole treats beginning the week of September 24, 2007, at participating restaurants nationwide.
Consumers who have received a glow stick should take them away from children and discard them immediately. For more information, call Dunkin' Donuts Consumer Care at (800) 859-5339. Consumers also can visit the firm's Web site.
Want to see the cutest bib and burp cloth sets on earth? Mostess Creations has launched online sales of its unique sets for the littlest Quicksies.
And the fact that my friend and fellow blogger Mary Michele, she of One Chic Mama, designs and creates them just makes them even cooler. She knows from stylish. She shops for unusual (sometimes one-of-a-kind) fabrics everywhere from the streets of New York to the big shows in Las Vegas to the flea markets in Paris. And as the mom of two children, she gets the details right—for instance, she uses Velcro closures for one-handed release and makes all her goods machine washable.
Got a baby in your life? One on the way? Go now! Shop! It's Friday!
Use this tool to find out which restaurants have kids-eat-free nights and when.
Confession: I know our locally owned Fresh Mex chain feeds kids for free every Monday night. I just can't manage to remember to go there that night.
Can someone make a site that sends this info directly to my iCal, then automatically sends me email reminders?
I love my daughter deeply. Don't get me wrong. But our constant time together was making both of us a little loco. Baby A isn't one of those kids who play alone, nor is she content to sit down with a puzzle or some crayons. Like, EVER. Believe me, I've tried to help her learn to enjoy focused, quiet activities. She's not having it.
No, she's into elaborate make-believe scenes, requiring tons of dressing up (we're talking layers), long-spun storylines, and the construction of props—horse-drawn carriages, palaces, doctor's offices, you name it—using furniture and accessories from all around the house. Of course, all of these stories require additional characters, namely me and TWH if he's home, and extensive dialog. She is a creator, a collaborator. It's how she rolls.
And of course I love it. She awes me. But, good lord, it wears me out, if only from finding new ways to gently say no to my latest role in the latest story. There are things a mom's got to get done during the day.
So when the first days of school rolled around last week, I was a bit relieved—and I think she was, too. Her new preschool teaches through dance, chorus, drama, and art, and with all those props and plenty of kids and teachers into the same things she is, Baby A is very happy there:
** Excited? You think? **
Yes, those are sparkly silver slippers. She wears either those or soccer cleats every day. At least I'm saving money. Right?
** Check the upraised hand: "C'mon! Follow me!" **
Schoolday bonus: going to lunch afterwards with her friends and their mom. We hit a Brueggers for bagels, cream cheese, and delicious fruit cups, with grapes and balls of watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew. My sandwich didn't work out so well—chicken salad just doesn't stay between bagel slices. (Be warned.) But for a mom-and-kids afterschool adventure, it was yummy, easy, and a great experience.
The table tents will never be the same, though. Sorry, Brueggers.
** "I am Table Tent Monster!" **
How's your first week of back-to-school been? Anyone else secretly relieved, too?
Burger King today said it will revamp its kids' meals to bring them more in line with kids' nutritional needs. The new offerings—from flame-broiled Chicken Tenders to apple slices cut to resemble french fries—should be available in Burger King units late next year.
At the same time, BK announced a set of guidelines, approved by the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), for kids' meal nutrition and its corporate advertising for them. The company publicly pledged that by December 2008 such advertising will be limited to kids' meals that provide:
• No more than 560 calories per meal
• Less than 30 percent of calories from fat
• Less than 10 percent of calories from saturated fat
• No added trans fats
• No more than 10 percent of calories from added sugars
CNN reports that BK has not yet set prices for the new kids' items because food and paper costs have not yet been determined. Here's hoping they're affordable so they're in reach for ALL parents—not just the ones who depend on the dollar menus.
Once the new kids' choices are on the menu, BK will join other major brands, like McDonald's, Subway, Wendy's, and Panera, by offering kids (and adults) some better-for-you options. Put this together with the company's announcement in July that it will roll out transfat-free oil nationwide by the end of 2008 (sooner if supplies allow), and it's clear the King is taking some big steps towards expanding its options.
My take after the jump!
...
Continue reading "The King Steps Up to the (Kid-Sized) Plate" »
So recently we were making a five-hour car trip home from Charleston, South Carolina, and dinner time rolled around. Where to stop?
At a drive-in. But of course. And in moments, through the magic of Interstate 95 as it wends through back-country North Carolina, appeared a Sonic Drive-in on the exit horizon.
The Wonderful Husband pointed and said, "Ehh?" I shrugged and said, "Sure. It beats the Lung Wah Chinese Buffet." That is the actual name of a place in that area, and it turns my stomach every time. Note: Don't include body parts in your restaurant name. Mmmmm, let's to go the Leg & Thighery! No! The Spleen Smorgasbord!
We headed toward the Sonic, and Baby A piped, "Is there a playground?" Sure enough, there's an enormous outdoor playground—the kind that sucks your child in for an hour and leads to parents having to inch up a three-story-tall, kid-sized tunnel and pull the child out by the ankle. Yes, I have done that, and I didn't want to do it this evening.
The situation called for a major distraction technique, so we parked in a drive-up slot, turned off the car, opened and sunroof, and let A. violate a big family rule. We let her into the front seat with us. Not only that, we let her stand up and poke her head out of the sunroof.
** FREEDOM! **
Then we set about ordering, and that went pretty easily. TWH had been craving a burger, so he knew what to get right away. The menuboard reminded me about Sonic's Santa Fe Grilled Chicken Salad, with lettuce, carrots, Colby Jack cheese, grape tomatoes, red cabbage, and croutons, topped with grilled chicken and a black bean and corn salsa and a lone onion ring. I got that, gave Baby A some chicken, tomatoes, and croutons. Then I squeezed on some ranch dressing, and went to town. And you know? It was really good. There was not a brown bit of lettuce. The black beans and corn were great. And I love me some red cabbage.
** Looks good, no? **
** Yeah. Yum. **
** Yes, we ate dinner in this redneck fashion. **
Not exactly Emily Post, but it got the job done.
Strange newly realized fact: Baby A does not like tater tots or French fries. She'll gnaw on a fry or two, but, really, she doesn't care for anything made with potatoes—even my delicious (if I do say so myself) homemade mashed potatoes. For a kid who ate many a sweet potato as a toddler, she sure won't touch one now.
What did she like? The cherry limeade. Is this not pure kid ecstasy?
And, afterwards, contentedness:
That smile says it all: I'd call our stop at Sonic a success. The only real challenge was distracting Baby A after dinner as we drove away past the humongous playground. But we pulled it off: Holy cow, do you see that convertible? Over there? It's so cool!
If this roadfood experience sounds like one that might work for your family, it looks like there will be more Sonics on the horizon. The company recently announced (PDF) that as of the end of its fiscal year on August 31, 2007, it has posted 21 consecutive years of positive same-store sales. Not a bad streak. During the financial year just begun, Sonic plans on opening between 180 and 200 new drive-ins.
Baby A does pretty well in restaurants most of the time. I won't promise quietude, or lack of motion, because that never happens (unless she's sleeping, and that doesn't happen much, either). But she can usually manage to keep her little hurricane of activity going within the horizontal and vertical space of her chair, or—even better for us—her allotted space in the booth. She never stops talking and laughing, but she rarely shouts these days.
Yet, the usual things restaurants offer to keep kids quiet don't work for Baby A. I'm sure there are many kids who will sit and color with crayons. Mine is not one of them, even at three years old. Seems it's just not tactile enough for her. We read the little placemat cartoon-y things to her, but that takes, what, less than a minute, and it's over.
This post at Foodmomiac mentions one great solution: a small ball of pizza dough, handed out at their local pizza place. We had a similar experience at a nearby Fresh Mex place, part of a small chain that makes tortillas fresh to order. The cooks there handed A. a little ball of tortilla dough, and it was miraculous. She stayed in the booth and worked it and worked it until our food was ready, and even while we ate she took little breaks to smoosh the dough another time.
Of course, it looked like a disgusting ball of fuzz and crumbs before long, and she tried to take a bite once (looking all the while at me like, is this okay? Cause I know it isn't and I'm seeing if you're going to react...).
A simple ball of dough does it for us, and costs the restaurant very little. Or, I'm thinking, if we know it won't harm the table at the place we're going, maybe we could even pack one of those mini-cans of Play-Doh. What are other solutions that help keep your kids seated until the food comes?
You know what's funny—not funny ha ha, but funny sighhhh?
Yesterday morning I posted about meaning to cook more. Local ingredients, best of the season, blah blah blah. Ten hours later, I picked up a cheese pizza and house salad for our dinner. Brought it home and served it on china plates like I had cooked it or something.
Nothing like a melting-down kid to bring an inspired cook back down to earth. This is when I love having a fast, friendly pizza shop nearby—one that's dedicated to hormone-free cheese and naturally raised meats. It's not a chain, but I sure wish it were. Hint to chains: Parents want speed AND good ingredients. Hop on the train, okay?
We fed Baby A (who is immensely proud to eat "big triangles" of pizza and munch on carrot sticks "just like Ollie the Bunny from 'Wonder Pets' ") and put her to bed, where she stayed, without a peep, for twelve hours, GLORY HALLELUJAH, and emerged her happy and hyper self this morning.
After that kind of good sleep, I'm in a great mood for some Friday Fun. Let's get started.
Each day lately I look forward to the sliver of time between when I stop working, around 11 P.M., and can no longer stay awake, around, oh, midnight.
It's the only time I have for reading, which has finally, FINALLY, re-entered my life after a nearly year of pregnancy insomnia (all right, getting up all night to pee) followed by three years with a child who has deep disregard for anyone's need for sleep, including her own. It took thirty-eight months, but at last Baby A has started sleeping for long stretches, even (gasp!) all night long. That kind of sleep deprivation? It's enough to make you collapse into bed once the work and housework are done. Or cry. Or both. Reading? Not so much an option for eyes that can't stay open.
What a treat, then, what a LUXURY to crawl into our lovely bed, nestle down, tune in to the song of the katydids and crickets and cicadas outside, and open Barbara Kingsolver's memoir Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. She and her family moved to a farm in the Virginia mountains and agreed to eat only locally raised foods for a year, excepting only a tiny handful of ingredients, such as flour, which they couldn't source. They raised poultry, grew a variety of vegetables, and shopped nearby farmer's markets for nearly everything the family consumed. Kingsolver journals that year with an easy, humorous tone. Her husband, a college professor, contributes short pieces throughout, and her older daughter Camille, a student at Duke (YEAH!), writes essays and recipes to close each chapter.
Kingsolver's got me thinking...
Now, this is interesting, and complicated, news. And if I weren't up to my virtual ears in Internet connection problems, and facing a day of travel tomorrow (pleasure, but with a three-year-old, so, you know) and a magazine story deadline on Wednesday, I'd be right here propounding about it.
But it'll have to wait a day or two. In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts.
All I can say is this: Now I know why I find everything I taste from Trader Joe's delicious, with the notable exception of the bottle of wine pictured here. Two-buck Chuck shiraz? More like two-buck YUCK. I would've paid two bucks NOT to have to drink it.
Update: Salon's Broadsheet blog put it well:
The real solution may lie in figuring out ways to make healthy choices profitable and appealing, so that companies want to produce them, and consumers want to eat them. That will certainly be difficult, given that many Americans are always going to pick French fries over carrot sticks. But it's an effort worth supporting.
My thoughts exactly! It's what I'm supporting here. But how to get from A to B? Thoughts, anyone?
Lots of Quicksies around here started the new school year yesterday. And as the kids go back, the debate goes on about what public schools ought to serve for lunch. Ten years ago, school lunches were the vast, unexplored frontier to the nation's largest quick-serve chains, and today there are rumblings again in the industry about the promises of the school lunch market.
Me, I didn't like it, and I had trouble at the time publishing stories about how quick-serve companies could exploit (take that word as positively or negatively as you'd like) the school lunch market. Now that I have a small child, I feel even more strongly about it.
Of course, that position assumes that quick-serve meals are inherently bad, and that is less the case now than ten years ago. What if Panera put its Panera Kids menu, with organic and all-natural ingredients and no trans fats, into schools? Good by me. Or how about Subway's FreshFit menu of sandwiches and sides for kids? I could be happy with Baby A's school serving that.
Here's a pretty balanced look at U.S. school lunch reform efforts. And take a look at the efforts of Two Angry Moms, who have made a movie and started a movement to better U.S. school lunches. And the TreeHugger site has visited this topic regularly.
These reform efforts (and the underlying problems) aren't particular to the United States. Take, for instance, celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's attempts to better the lunch programs in England, which have met with mixed success.
As your Quicksies head back to school, is the lunch program on you mind? How would you feel if a quick-serve chain won the rights to run your local schools' lunch programs? What standards would you want them to adhere to?
Oh yes, well, let's just count them: twelve days since my last post. There are some technical changes in the works here—a switch to a new host and software—but I haven't finished those yet. Stay tuned. You will find an updated and expanded list of links. Look to the right-hand column for an array of wonderful parent bloggers and restaurant resources. Meanwhile, stopping at chain restaurants hasn't been a big part of our summer. There's probably meaning in that, but I'll leave that exploration for another post.
So here's what we have done, lately.
We went to my family's lake house on Lake Murray in South Carolina, a lovely place I've visited my whole life. I re-introduced Baby A to the culinary wonder of warm boiled peanuts. At three, she's able to open the shell and work out those salty, earthy treasures—and work it she did. (That's a peanut she's showing you in the picture above.) She bogarted almost the whole bag.
And we swam and skiied and floated and got ridiculously tan. No restaurant tie-ins here. We had local tomatoes, butter beans, barbecue, all consumed as quickly as possible so mom could get back into the lakewater I love so much. We did have one big Sunday dinner during which Baby A tore into a dinner roll like a Viking, as if she had never seen spherical bread before.
Which, dinner rolls? She really hadn't seen them much, so I hadn't had a chance to teach her the tear-butter-bite routine. I have a feeling adults would eat dinner rolls in a Viking way, too, given the chance. It would be a lot more fun.
We also spent a week with friends in a large house on the intracoastal waterway. Only-child Baby A swam and played happily with their four children, and we parents put them to bed early and pounded a night's worth of wine and poker into the two hours we could manage to stay awake ourselves.
We then followed The Wonderful Husband down to Greenville, South Carolina (yes, there's a theme here), where he was consulting on quality assurance for a manufacturer. ("Daddy helps make engines, only better!," Baby A will tell you.) What a great little city, Greenville, full of parks and fountains and a zoo and a river running down a rocky waterfall right there in the middle of it. Again, no chain restaurant tie-ins here. Main Street in Greenville is lined with little eateries, all with cafe-style streetside dining. Baby A and I had homemade Mexican one day for lunch. After forgoing it for more than a year, A. ate a whole bowl of salsa ("SHALSHAAAAA!" was actually one of her earliest words, she loved it that much early on) and made her own guacamole burrito. The next day, we shared red-curry beef in a lovely little Thai place. Simply awesome. Both of those days, I felt like I was hanging out with the Future A, getting glimpses into what it'll be like when she's five and eight and ten. She wasn't my little baby.
Until, of course, I looked over and saw she was pulling her underwear out from under her dress, right there in the street-facing picture window of the Port City Java we'd ducked into when a thunderstorm rolled up. "BUT I HAVE A WEDGIE!," she protested. Note to self: Wait until child has develped a sense of propriety before introducing words like "wedgie."
I'll have more posts soon, plus more good technical changes and podcasts and some really good reads—interviews, book reviews, that kind of stuff. But for today? I'll throw in another picture or two and call it a summer day.
Maybe it's the warm memories I have from visits to San Francisco. Or maybe it's the warmth spreading through me fron this early-Friday-afternoon Tanqueray and tonic and Trader Joe's Blackberry Crush blend I'm sipping up.
But this story got me, and even though it's not restaurant related, I'm posting about it. And don't ever tell me today's Quicksies aren't as thoughtful as any other generation. All that "it was better in my day" booshiznit...I'm not having it.
A fifth-grade class at Mangum Elementary in Durham, North Carolina, led the way with fundraising to send the school's 71-year-old custodian and his wife on a trip to San Francisco. Mr. Venable, pictured above, said his lifelong dream had been to see the Golden Gate Bridge, and thanks to those fifth-graders, along with faculty, other students, and local churches, his dream is coming true right now.
What a great note to end a hard week on. This is the best kind of Friday Fun I can think of.
[Shout-out to Wade: How much for the bridge?]
[Picture via WRAL-TV]
Whoa, horrible dining experience related by a blogger at the San Francisco Chronicle. And they they left the Burger King bags on the table? How would you have reacted, if at all?
Closest we've come to this is getting Chick-fil-A for Baby A and burgers from Five Guys for us, then eating outside at a cafe table between the two restaurants. Do you ever take other kinds of food along for your kids? On my Parenting Scale of Things, that is overindulgent. How about you?
When I was a kid, we'd go to Captain D's (or the similar Long John Silver's) maybe every couple of months. Mmmmmmmm, malt vinegar on bready things—and what kid could resist that treasure chest full of free toys and prizes at the exit? I think I even signed up for the birthday club, which is now called the Aqua Kids program.
Now, the Captain is steering for a new course. Yesterday the company opened a new pilot restaurant in Clarksville, Tennessee, featuring a new menu and look. Over the summer, the other two Clarksville locations will be converted to the new paradigm. From there, it's on to Nashville and, I assume, the rest of the system.
What's changed? The pilot store offers an array of grilled items, including wild Alaskan salmon, tilapia, mahi mahi, deep sea flounder, and shrimp skewers. (A piece of cooking equipment called a clamshell grill makes the grilling possible.) And there are new pasta selections, like shrimp scampi, creamy shrimp alfredo, and chicken parmesan. Many of the old favorites are still on the menu.
[Aside: Wonder how the FDA's recent ban on seafood imports from China is affecting Captain D's and other quick-serve seafood menus?]
Looks-wise, the revamped Captain D's restaurant aims to create a more welcoming and laid-back atmosphere. There's also a new logo, shown above. Sounds like the company is going for the full-on fast casual strategy, leaving its fast-food days behind.
From my point of view, that's a smart approach to the future—a comfy interior, a menu with more variety, which makes it even easier for families. What do you think? If you haven't been to a Captain D's in a while, would this new menu convince you to give it another try?
A few weeks ago, Noah's New York Bagels rolled out all natural, grilled salmon sandwiches, salads, and new low fat drink selections for the hot summer months. There really are some interesting flavors here: miso, lemon-caper sauce, Thai chili lime. And Challah bread? That's a nice alternative to fluffy white buns.
Who says fast menus (or, in this case, fast-casual menus) can't be creative? Remember, especially for smaller kids, it's easy to order a premium salad and give your little Quicksie some of the meat or fish and fruit and vegetable toppings. (You'll want to do that before adding the dressing, if your Quicksie is like Baby A. I don't get it—I loved salad dressing as a kid. Maybe that comes later.)
Here are the details on those new options...
* Grilled Blackened Salmon Sandwich: Made with 100 percent wild Alaskan Pink salmon, this hot grilled fillet with a lemon caper sauce, lettuce, cucumber and red onion is served on an onion Challah roll
* Grilled Miso Salmon—Miso flavoring is baked into this hot grilled salmon fillet, served on a Challah roll and topped with lettuce, cucumber, and red onion.
* Blackened Salmon Caesar Salad—Noah's tops off their signature Caesar salad with a blackened salmon fillet.
* Miso Salmon Salad—This Thai-inspired salad offers mixed greens, Asian cabbage, cucumbers, peanuts and chow mein noodles. The is topped with a piping-hot salmon fillet flavored with miso and served with a signature Thai chili lime dressing.
Guests at Noah's Bagels can also cool down this summer with one of the two new low-fat blended drinks, Guava Banana or Papaya Yogurt. Or, there's Noah's Strawberry, Vanilla or Cookies & Cream frozen drink, also available with caramel, cappuccino, or Mocha flavors.
The Einstein Noah Restaurant Group has about 600 restaurants in 36 states and the District of Columbia.
Ooooh, the butterflies. I think my heart actually skipped a beat. Two of our friends—a couple, actually—both got iPhones last night, and I got to play with one this morning.
In the wake of all the hype, I half-expected something to go wrong. It sounded too good to be true. Surely the buble would burst. But? The iPhone did everything the commercials promised. It really is amazing—sleek, light, so very fast, and capable.
A Boston Herald reviewer says:
For it's not just cool; this phone is important, in the same way that Apple's first Macintosh computer was important. The Mac showed us a better way to interact with computers, and forced the entire industry to follow its lead. Here we go again. (Read full review.)
I had the same feeling, and after playing with one, for ever so short a time, I can say: It's true. It's all true. And all over again, I'm all giddy for the beauty and vision that Apple manages to attach to everyday tech tools.
This from a kid who was raised on MS-DOS and PCs. My dad had the foresight to insist that I learn to
Question: How many of you read the BabyCenter site pretty much weekly while you were pregnant and the first few months after the baby came along? Yep, I did, from the due-date calculator to the nursing and first-foods advice and developmental milestones lists. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems Baby Center was one of the first comprehensive parenting web sites, and one of the first to feature popular parenting blogs.)
Then Baby A started crawling, and "Lord, what is she into NOW?" became much more pressing than "Wonder what developmental stage is next?"
So yesterday I found this intriguing BabyCenter page of parents' comments on families and fast food. There was one especially good tip:
We've also found that if you ask nicely, most places will put your order in the special box with a toy, and the kids are really happy then!
That's a good one. Have you ever tried it? What other good tips have you come across lately? Comment and share.
And by that I mean environmentally friendly cleaners, equipment, and supplies.
Each year the National Restaurant Association holds a huge show in Chicago for restaurants and hotel companies. The most recent show featured plenty of new green-focused exhibitors, multiple green education sessions, and a well-attended special demonstration of new environmentally friendly products and ideas.
Cleaners so safe the demonstrator squirts them straight into his mouth? Furnishings made from recycled materials? High-voulme composting methods? Sounds great to me—anything to keep this place in better shape for our Quicksies and their kids. Here's hoping the interest at the show carries over into actual orders.
[Photo thanks to the National Restaurant Association's show news site, at the link above.]
A friend—okay, a barista at my favorite coffee shop, and anyone who serves me espresso is a friend—passed along a great article from the New York Times. It's called "Don't Point That Menu at My Child, Please," linked here.
Please read the article (even if you have to register) rather than accept my little summary. It's worth it. But...basically the writer decries the fact that restaurants everywhere, along with grocery stores, approach our kids with the expectation they'd rather eat the usual kid's menu of chicken fingers, mac and cheese, cheese pizza, grilled cheese (pattern here?), and fries, rather than smaller versions of what's on the regular menu:
"In short, I came to the realization that America is in the grips of a nefarious chicken-finger pandemic, in which a blandly tasty foodstuff has somehow become the de facto official nibble of our young. [...] It pains me that many children now grow up eating little besides golden-brown logs of kid food, especially in a time when the quality, variety and availability of good ingredients is better than ever."
Righteous.
Now I'd like to offer some hints on avoiding the usual kid's menu, even in the fast-food or casual dining setting. 'Cause sometimes you just want something different for your kids—you know?
• Try the unusual fruit bowls for kids at California Pizza Kitchen. Then share some of your own, grown-up pizza with your child. Presto: yummy, solid lunch for cheap.
• Visit Chipotle, where there is no kid's menu, and share a Burrito Bol and some of their unstoppable guacamole and chips with your kids. Again: yummy, nutritious, cheap. In the picture above, Baby A is proudly making her own "baby burrito" at Chipotle, spreading guacamole (ours) on a plain tortilla (hers). It cost, like, 50 cents.
• Go to Wendy's or McDonald's and get one of their premium salads—the ones with diced chicken, pecans, and fresh fruit, like mandarin oranges. Give some of the toppings to your kids, even the really young ones. Baby A loved those things when she was just over a year old. Add a fruit and granola parfait and it's an inexpensive, healthy meal.
• Try smaller versions of regular menu items, like the Bambino Burgers at Good Times or the simple taco at a place like Taco Bell or Del Taco. They're ideal for the three-to-ten age range.
• Go to a Thai, Chinese, or Japanese quick-serve place, like Pei Wei or Panda Express, and make a small plate for your child from yours, with rice or noodles, meat or tofu, and veggies. We've been doing this with Baby A for, gosh, two years now. And she just turned three.
In short, think about how you can adapt the regular menu items for your kids. The choices
And, restaurants? Get ahead of the curve on changing kids' meals. I think you'll find plenty of support.
Just found this Family Matters site and an interesting podcast on managing kids' behavior in restaurants. I'm getting ready to listen to the podcast—listen here if you're feeling the need to regulate the kiddos in restaurants. Here's a summary:
Kids in restaurants? Should they stay or should they go? It's a topic that generates a lot of heat from diners. Caroline and Jacquie talk with Cleveland Plain Dealer food and restaurants editor Joe Crea. He offers some suggestions on what parents can do and what restaurants can do to include children and make it a pleasant and rewarding experience for all parties.
Based on our experience at Chipotle at lunch today, I'm willing to visit the topic myself. Yes, we took four trips outside to stop Baby A's whining, bossing, and loud conniving.
Used to be that everyone expected some unruly kid behavior at fast-food restaurants. Today, though? Quick-serves are installing carpeting, padded seats, cool sound systems, even televisions. The bar has been raised a little, and, well, it's never too early to talk about respecting others and the meal table.
Remember, you can listen to Quick Serve Kids podcasts here. Sheesh, it's time to do a new one....
How cool would it be if your mom owned an ice-cream franchise?
First-time business owners Ann Kelly and Nicole Reinhart bought into a Dippin' Dots franchise in Tampa and opened a few weeks ago. With three children of her own, Kelly says she knows what kinds of products kids look for. "Dippin' Dots is an interesting and fun way to serve up ice cream," she says, "and my children and I have loved the little round dots since the first time we tried them. My kids were hooked instantly and will always choose Dippin' Dots Ice Cream over conventional ice cream any day."
Not me. The one time I tried Dippin' Dots, they were too cold and got all stuck on my tongue. It hurt. Give me the real stuff, preferably with chocolate gemmies, any day. Still, the ten-year-old in me says these kids have it made.
Shrek is getting ready to shill for Happy Meals—but for the kind with apple slices and salads, not fries.
Read that whole link. This is an interesting development, the first of its kind, far as I know, where a major motion-picture tie-in promotes a healthier option. My favorite part? "While the apples, milk, salads and other featured products have been on McDonald's menu for more than a year, chief marketing officer Mary Dillon said the company still had 'opportunities to drive awareness both with parents and kids about these offerings.' "
Pssssst, Mary! Advertise here! We're driving awareness!
At any rate, there's no doubt about the selling power of Shrek. Just the other day, Baby A declared she wanted to take a mud bath and brush her teeth with worms—in homage (ograge?) to Shrek, of course. I am sure she'd eat what Shrek says he likes, in a heartbeat. What's your take? Is Shrek's repping happier Happy Meals acceptable? Or not?
Please comment and, er, weigh in.
[Shrek is a copyright of DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. This might be a Reuters image, too, but it looks like thousands of others floating out there with no attribution.]
So, a couple of weekends ago, Baby A finally ate some hamburger. Granted, she's a long way from picking up and chomping a real hamburger. No, because that would be too easy. But she did eat five or six bites of a cut-up home-grilled burger. "No, I don't like beef," she said when I put the plate in front of her. I ignored her. Three minutes later: "Mmmmmm, I LIKE this BEEF!" she was exclaiming.
And there she was, one baby-step closer to leaving for college. *sniff*
But even when kids do start eating burgers, it seems they don't have many choices to fit their smaller hands and appetites. But here's an idea. Today Good Times Burgers & Frozen Custard announced a new hamburger offering called Bambino Burgers. The company says they're designed to appeal to the value-conscious consumer—but looks to me like they'd be the perfect size for kids. Better yet, the meat is something I actually would feed my kid: they're made from 100 percent all-natural Coleman beef, then served on a toasted dinner roll with Good Times' special sauce and pickle.
Price is right, too: The Bambino Burgers sell for just $.75 as a single, in a 3-pack for $2.25 and a 5-pack mini-suitcase for $3.75.
"We anticipate that this will become a great complement to our Mighty Deluxe and other premium burgers," says Bob Turrill, vice president of marketing, "for those looking for a smaller meal or as an addition to other combo meals." On May 14, Good Times will launch a television advertising campaign to promote the new Bambino Burgers combined with a new late-night message that will run throughout the summer. Late night? I'm thinking more like "after pick-up time at Mom's Morning Out."
QSK readers in Colorado—and I know there are a bunch of you!—this news is mostly to your advantage. Good Times Burgers & Frozen Custard has 52 restaurants, mostly in Colorado. But more chains should add small burger and chicken sandwich choices, ones that fit small hands and appetites, but that reflect the regular menu items, unlike a kid's meal choice.