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.
This guy I dated a long time ago was an amazing cook. I learned much of what I know about cooking and wines from him and his mother. As my mom will tell you, I couldn't be bothered with learning to cook when I was growing up.
But whenever I was away for days at at time—on a business trip, say—this guy's place would be piled up with KFC buckets and pizza boxes. What in the world?
Fast-forward to today: When The Wonderful Husband is out of town (which, thankfully, is much less now thanks to a new job), fast food isn't what I want. If we've been having a good day and she deserves it, I'll take Baby A on a "date" to a yummy local pizza place. "I'm having some Mommy time!," she'll tell everyone in sight.
But most days, after twelve straight hours dealing with Hurricane A, I prefer to feed her an early dinner and put her to bed so I can relish a little time to myself.
It's then that I cook the things that TWH doesn't like so much, dishes with Asian themes like curry and fish sauce and fresh cilantro, with tons of veggies and maybe some tofu. You can't beat a big bowl of curried noodles, especially when you're free to eat it on the sofa with full possession of the remote control and several episodes of "The Daily Show" on the DVR.
Case in point: the dinner pictured above, consisting of lo mein noodles, broccoli, scallions, finely diced sweet potato, and a home-made red curry coconut sauce with plenty of cilantro and lime juice. I wished for a little tofu or beef to add to it, but veggies were all I had on hand. Oh my GOSH it rocked. It was hard to stuff my face with it while laughing at Jon Stewart and crew, but somehow I managed.
So, no empty KFC buckets rattling around The Bungalow. Sadly, there are no curry leftovers, either.
How about you? What do you like to eat when it's all up to you? Do you reach for fast food, or would you rather cook?
Oops, took a little posting break there. We've been spending lots of time outside this week (more on that tomorrow), and when we weren't doing that we were plowing through a new stack of library treats.
And I've been trying to work a little less and pay more attention to myself and my child. When The Wonderful Husband got home last evening, I actually left my iBook closed on the counter, left the iPhone tucked away in my purse, and went for a run. Oh. My. Gosh. That felt good.
But because the hamster wheels in my head never stop spinning, I have been thinking about posting this week, and here are the results.
Yesterday we picked up TWH at noon and went to lunch together. We tried to go to an awesome Middle Eastern deli just down the street from his office, but the line was out the door. (Did I mention it's awesome?) So we went to Chick-fil-A instead. It's among my favorite quick-serve places, but yesterday it felt like such a letdown. I was so in the mood for something different and home-made, not something that's the same every time and everywhere—ever feel that way? But it worked fine, and while we were eating a very kind hostess (or it might have been the owner-operator, not sure) stopped by our table to ask how we were doing and offer to re-fill our lemonade.
I've posted before about how much I like Chick-fil-A's dining room hosts. Again yesterday it was such a nice touch. She gave Baby A a toy cow, and A, who wasn't much interested in her food yesterday, pretended to feed her fruit to it:
Earlier in the week, we did our stock-up trip to Trader Joe's. Yes, I know I keep going on and on about how great it is to encounter a stepstool in a restaurant bathroom. It makes a parent's back so much happier, and with all the icky news about low hand-washing rates, we need all the help we can get, right?
Besides, it makes them so dang proud. Baby A was thrilled to see that Trader Joe's had put a stepstool in the bathroom (which, of course, we have to visit EVERY time because she likes how the pedal-operated trash can works). See the grin?
And, finally, from a weeeknd foray into Five Guys...remember when I mentioned that place's five-dollar bit of marketing brillance? Here's the pictorial evidence I didn't have when I posted about it. Now, thanks to the iPhone (LOVE it!), here's the evidence:
** "Today's potatoes are from Rigby, Idaho." **
Nice touch, right? Makes you feel like you're eating something local—local to someplace, even if it's not your place. Makes you feel like maybe people dug and raised those potatoes, rather than Acme Potatoe Conglomerate Incorporated.
Back tomorrow with more....
Hi, Moe. We've been seeing each other once a month or so for a couple of years now. Gosh, even when I was pregnant with Baby A, I'd stop by and see you pretty often, since you had that one place near my office.
Today you seem to be all over, in nearly every shopping center or mall we visit. No one can say you aren't there for me; matter of fact, you've got 345 locations in 36 states
But, Moe, we need to take a break for a while.
It wasn't one single experience that brought me to this point. No, it was a bunch of small things over the past year or so. For starters, I feel stressed and strung-out by the time I leave your place. It starts at the door; I don't like being accosted with a chorus of "Welcome to Moe's!" when I step in. I know, I know. It's not just for me—you and your crew do it for everyone. I know you're just trying to show me some love. But, most of the time, it's obvious the employees don't want to do it, and I don't like feeling put on the spot. [My fault, I know.]
Then we get in line, my family and I, and the ordering process is rocky. The menu—what to say about the menu? It has a nice variety, and I love that you offer vegatarian options like tofu and beans. That's cool. But the names for the dishes are silly and annoying, and they serve only to confuse the process. Now I see that you've posted a survey to rename a bunch of the dishes. But are you enlisting customers to help choose more sensical names? No, in fact, the new options are only more annoying than the originals and less rooted in anything remotely descriptive.
I often order the John Coctostan. Do you know how dumb I feel saying that?
The other day, in fact, that silly name caused a bunch of undue stress. We were in line for lunch on Sunday, and Baby A was on the verge of a low blood sugar meltdown. Tell the truth, TWH and I probably were, too....
Thanks to The Wonderful Husband's recent retail therapy, we have a fancy new digital cable system that lets us record programs automatically. So, like any decent parents would, we immediately filled the hard drive with children's programs—the gentle new "Curious George" on PBS, plenty of Sesame Street, and the one Disney show I like (really like): "Little Einsteins."
Trouble is, "Little Einsteins" comes on the Disney Channel, and there are commercials—or, as I'm sure Disney would prefer me to call them, "corporate mentions." This morning, I let her watch a new "Little Einsteins," and the introductory montage included a spot with the Chuck E Cheese mascot playing basketball with kids and encouraging exercise...because "it's not only fun, it's healthy, too!," or something to that effect.
That message, of course, is lost on a two-year-old. Her thinking went more like, "Chuck E Cheese! I went to a birthday party there a few months ago. There was pizza and candy and cake and games! I want to go again!" Which then became all she talked about for the next five minutes, until Leo and the rest of the Little Einsteins crew headed to Rocket and her mind moved on.
This annoyance isn't limited to Disney. Even PBS, sadly, has corporate mentions—again, Chuck E Cheese, for our local PBS channel. I hate that.
So what's to do?
Last month Elaine Kolish, pictured here, became director of the Council of Better Business Bureau's Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative. She will monitor and enforce the pledges made last November by 11 major food advertisers to devote half their advertising aimed at kids to the promotion of healthy diet and fitness choices.
Those advertisers include quick-serve companies and suppliers like McDonald's, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Cadbury Schweppes, Campbell Soup, General Mills, Hershey, Kellogg, Kraft, Masterfoods, and Unilever.
All have pledged to reduce their use of licensed characters, product placement, and advertising in schools, and to follow the existing guidelines of the BBB's Children's Advertising Review Unit.
As this interview makes clear, though, the pledges are just that right now. Kolish will spend this spring and summer encouraging those advertisers to put some teeth in those promises. Here's an exceprt:
"[...] We're planning on announcing pledges between May and August this year. I'm not saying everything's going to be implemented between May and August—the pledges are supposed to explain how the company is going to meet the principles they signed onto last fall, to devote at least 50% of their advertising aimed directly at children 12-and-under to healthier diet choices and healthier lifestyles.
That all sounds good—really good, and best of luck to you, Elaine—but I keep thinking back to that Chuck E Cheese spot from this morning: just the mention of the name is annoying enough.
What's your take? Do you mind when your kids are exposed to advertising? Do you intentionally shield them from it? Or do you take it all in stride? Comment and let me know.
More importantly: Wouldn't you want to?
This news really tees me off: Meat from cloned animals won't be labeled clearly as such.
Shoppers who want to be sure they're not getting cloned meat will have to look for the green labels indicating organic standards on meat in stores. The FDA says the government can't tell a difference between clones and conventional cows, pigs, or goats.
As for ordering in restaurants, who knows?
Thing is, truly organic meats (as opposed to naturally raised meats) are very expensive. Bill Niman, founder of the Niman Ranch Cooperative, told me that raising organic livestock is often prohibitively expensive and difficult for today's farmers, meaning the small amount of organic meat on the market comes at a high premium.
The AP article I linked to doesn't say whether or not naturally raised meats will be guaranteed not to contain cloned meat or milk products. Given the muddling of organic and naturally raised standards now that big retailers like Wal Mart, Target, and Costco are offering them, I don't trust the system so much anymore.
Disturbing thought of the day: Will the average quick-serve hamburger soon contain cloned beef? I hope not. We're just back from a yummy late lunch at Five Guys. We don't go out for burgers often—that's one thing TWH and I can cook really well—but I'd hate to think that all restaurant burgers might one day be off our menu. Cloned and genetically engineered stuff are not something I want my little Quicksie eating.
A much brighter thought: Will the next quick-serve beef craze, after Angus beef, be naturally raised meat? Let's hope so. Homemade burgers are the best, but once in a while I'd like for someone else to do the work. :)
What do you think? Is cloned meat something to worry about? I'm not asking about the technology, because it's out there—and it can have plenty of good uses, such as in health care. But would you want to eat it? Feed it to your family?
[photo from here]
A story on today's newswire states something The Wonderful Husband and I have known for a while:
Oftentimes it's less expensive to eat out than to cook at home.
That's especially true when two bags' worth of groceries at Whole Foods costs, what, $40 minimum? During weeks when we cook a lot, I'll pop into Whole Foods or The Fresh Market two or three times—that's about $80, at least—and make a trip to the state farmer's market near our house. That's usually another $15 or so. Antiobiotic-free meats and dairy are expensive, but it's what we try to buy.
Now, the exception here might be frozen entrees. They're filling and relatively cheap, but usually pretty yuck on the healthy meter. 
Not that I don't like a little Stouffer's Grandma's Chicken and Vegetable Rice Bake on a chilly fall evening. Mmmmmmm, that's what I'm talkin' about. But my point is you can feed a family for $6, maybe $8 if you make a salad, too.
On the other hand, we can run up the street and quickly get exquisite chicken Marsala or sushi or even just grilled chicken salads for $15 and below. Plus, the immense portion sizes at restaurants today make it easy for two adults—and even a toddler—to share one main course. Dinner accomplished, no dishes, no shopping time.
Are you finding that the economics of eating out often beat the costs of the home-cooked family dinner? Please comment and let me know.
You know when your kid says something so funny or cute that you decide maybe—just maybe—you'll let them live in your house a while longer? This in spite of their, say, horrid two-year-old tantrums and waking three times a night?
I've decided to start recording a few of those moments here. For starters, this morning, The Wonderful Husband (TWH) got dressed and walked into the kitchen where Baby A was eating breakfast. A said, a propos of nothing,
"Daddy, you look like a circus man."
I think TWH was a little surprised by how hard I laughed. He might even have taken it a bit personally.
I am not a germ warrior. The three-second-rule? I'm down with that. Germ-free environment? Impossible with kids, and probably not good for them, either. But today my own kid's hands skeeved me out, and that led to an idea.
Baby A and I met The Wonderful Husband for lunch at a restaurant. I'd gathered her from preschool—well, "book camp," where she's "studying" Sandra Boynton's Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs!—and put her in front of one of her favorite lunches when I realized I had not washed her hands.
What tipped me off? The brownish grub. The dried paint. The clay under her fingernails. Those didn't bother me as much as the stuff I couldn't see. But have you ever tried to take a hungry child away from a table laden with yummy things, especially to wash her hands? It's ugly.
Then it hit me: Wouldn't it be nice if, on the condiment bar with the napkins and straws and tiny packets of Tabasco (love those, by the way), there were packets of sanitizing wipes? You know, the kind they give you after a meal of crab legs or lobster or BBQ?
They're cheap, and they'd make us skeeving parents Oh.So.Happy.
If I were one of those moms, I'd have a few in my bag, along with Band-aids and Kleenex. But I'm not. And I don't.
So last Saturday we're in the car around lunchtime when Baby A starts begging for something. It takes us a moment to catch on, but soon it's clear.
"Let's go eat at the Chick-fil-A with the little table. Please? I want to eat at my own little table. Daddy has a table, Mommy has a table, and I have my own table. Please, let's go."
So here's my message of the day to the quick-serve industry: I can't think of a less expensive, less labor-intensive way to get kids and families back to your restaurant.
Forget those million-dollar movie tie-ins! Buy a hundred-dollar table-and-chair set and put it in your dining room. 
Keep it clean and in good condition, and I bet you your investment and more that we parents will keep it occupied.
Really: We loved it. A was so proud to do her own thing that The Wonderful Husband and I got to have a few minutes of conversation. That's so worth a $10 family meal.
In fact, there are many little touches that make eating out easier on us parents of little ones, like clean, convenient bathrooms and safely sized portions. Here's another one.
Curious about the URL on the painted table shown here? It's www.prissypots.com. The site says they do wholesale. Another wholesale source for kid-sized tables and chairs is here.
Happy Bastille Day!
Unless you're a superfan of Subway, you'll probably get just about as excited as I do about the chance to purchase Subway clothes and merchandise. Except: How cute is this onesie? "Baked fresh...right out of the oven?" That's actually pretty funny, and the Subway logo is pretty small.
Remember, it's also Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-A. Show up at one of their restaurants dressed head-to-toe as a cow and get a free combo meal! (Or make your kids dress up.) It is not too late! If you do it, PLEASE send in a picture of yourself or your kids. I'll post it (anonymously, if you wish).
Arrrggghhh! (Okay, that just doesn't come naturally for me, but let's go with it. Ahem.)
Continue reading "Friday Fun: Subway for Infants, Cow for a Day, and Cell Phone Booths" »
Trust me...when QSMama asks for something, she gets it. It’s easy for me to say that because, truth is, she asks for very little. Never has. She doesn’t have to have the coolest new jeans, or the most expensive shampoo. She won’t go on a buying frenzy for herself, ever! Even if she really wants something for herself, she’ll wait until everyone else is set.
So, when she asked me to chime in on this parenting blog, I thought, "No problem. I'm the other parent, I have a lot to say. This will be easy!"
But as I got to writing, I realized how difficult it is...
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First came the job: founding editor of a magazine for fast-food industry executives. Then came marriage.
Then came the baby in the baby carriage—and a new perspective on the world in which that baby will grow up.
Now I'm using my fast-food (quick-serve) industry expertise to filter restaurant news and information to other parents. Join me and other parents as we figure out how to raise our Quicksies to make good choices in a world where fast food is part of life.
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