Public Service Announcement

Editor’s Note:  This is not a paid endorsement (Ha!  This little tiny blog?  The word PAID?  Surely, you jest).  Nope, this is one lone, hungry woman speaking into the lives of a whole lot of other dinner makers out there telling you that IT GETS BETTER.  Take heart, my downtrodden friends.  You don’t have to live this way.

Once upon a time, a woman had some trouble. 

BIG, recurring trouble.   

That trouble was called DINNER.

Here are the fundamental problems associated with DINNER:

1. Children get hungry.
2. Children get hungry at predictable intervals.
3. The dinner hour arrives every single night at a predictable time, and is designed to assuage the predictable hunger.
4. The parent on scene is reminded, yet again, that some adult around here (namely, HER) is going to need to make dinner.  Most nights, this parent is surprised anew that the dinner hour is upon her YET AGAIN.  She is gobsmacked and amazed and bewildered that she is going to have to create culinary alchemy with whatever is in her freezer and pantry, because, despite her high level of education and above average tactical abilities, she forgot that dinner is a DAILY THING, and therefore planned NOTHING.  Nada.  Zilch.
5. Cue the shrieking and crying and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  (Not from the children, mind you.  From the dinner-maker).
6. Parent pours a glass of wine and starts throwing baby carrots, cheese sticks, and crackers at her children, not at all unlike a really deranged zookeeper.  

Sound familiar to anyone?  

Please say yes.  Please, please say yes.  Please don't let me swing in the wind ALONE over here.

Well, NOT ANYMORE!  There is a NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN.

Plantoeat.com has changed my life more than any single technological advancement in the history of the world, and while I am obviously prone to exaggeration, THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE TIMES. 

It’s just that life-changing.  

Here’s how it works:

1.  You sign up for the free 30-day trial.  FREE!!  Then you quickly fall in love and decide that the monthly subscription cost of $4.95 a month is just a STEAL, as it ALLOWS YOU TO REGAIN YOUR SANITY.  
2.  In the handy-dandy recipe book, you either type in or upload your favorite recipes (using this convenient little button that you install on your computer’s toolbar). 

Isn’t it darling? 

Then, the recipes appear in a neat, organized column for you to peruse at your leisure.  IT IS MAGICAL. 

3.  Now.  BRACE YOURSELF HERE.  You need to look at your calendar for the MONTH.  Yes, the MONTH.  You may weep softly to yourself and curse the day you agreed to let your children do ANYTHING outside of the house.  But then, you take a deep breath, wipe the tears from your eyes, tell yourself that at least the DINNER PROBLEM will be solved for the month, and you GET TO WORK.

4.  Open the planner and DRAG AND DROP your very own recipes into the date that you plan to make the dinner.  PRO TIP:  Consult your calendar while you do this.  I look to see what the evening activity schedule looks like, what kind of running I will have to do, and if there is a carpool involved.  These factors inform my meal planning decisions.  Will we eat at the table?  Will we eat in the car?  Will dinner be consumed in shifts?  MUST THERE BE A THERMOS AND BENTO BOXES PREPARED?  I make a note at the bottom of each day what the after-school time looks like before I start the DRAGGING and DROPPING and PLANNING. 

THEN, THE REAL MAGIC HAPPENS.   

Click on the SHOPPING LIST tab.
That’s what I said.  CLICK SHOPPING LIST.
VOILA!  Look what appears before your bright little eyes!

Everything that you just planned has been automatically created into a grocery list for your very own convenience!  NO LIST MAKING!  It’s MADE, Jack.  You just bookmark the PlantoEat website on the homepage of your phone, click on the shopping list, and get your sweet little self to the store.  Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy, as Carter would say.  

What are you waiting for?  Are you still even HERE? 

Leave me now.  Just go. 

Get thee to plantoeat.com and change your life FOREVER AND EVER.  Amen.  

One more thing. . .

Interested trying a month's membership to the greatest, biggest, baddest dinner game changer in the history of the world?  Sign up for a 30 day FREE trial at plantoeat.com.  FREE FREE FREE FREE.  Did I mention it's free?   F.R.E.E.

Ok.  One MORE one more thing. . .

Wondering what’s for dinner this week? No problem, friends.  The Pett boys will be dining on fish tacos, courtesy of the great cookbook Dinner, A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach.  CLICK HERE to read about what happened when I first got this book in my hot little hands. 

AND LASTLY, a BIG THANKS to my friend Kara for convincing me to give this a try.  YOU HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE FOR GOOD.

If you love your friends, and I know you do, share your joy.  JUST SHARE THE JOY.  Keep us posted on how this works for you!

HAPPY EATING!

Blog to Book: Dinner: A Love Story

I am sick of food.  Sick.  Of.  It.  Thinking about it, shopping for it, organizing it, cleaning up after it.  All of it. But,  I like to eat it.  Therein lies the problem.

My appetite is legendary.  It is family lore that I singlehandedly put an all-you-can-eat-kids-under-12-eat-free place out of business when I was 11.  I ate an entire chicken at my soon-to-be mother-in-law's 50th birthday dinner on a dare.  But now, as a mom and wife and maker of the family's food, three times a day every day plus forty billion snacks in between,  I.  AM.  OFFICIALLY. SICK. OF. IT.

photo-4 copy

Dinner has the nerve to come around every single, solitary day. . . with its expectations and judgy demands for flavor and variety  and nutritional value.   It's so damned annoying.  And then there's the people in this house with opinions about food.  Also annoying.  The nerve of the eaters sharing what they THINK about what they are made to EAT.

As I was complaining about this Groundhog Day scenario to my friend Claire, she said I absolutely must read Dinner:  A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach.  And whoa, Nellie!  Just like that, this book fixed my wagon and reminded me that I do actually like to cook, and that it is not that difficult, and that the rewards of a family dinner can be great.  And, according to my hungry and very culinarily bored family, it is not a moment too soon.

Part cookbook and part memoir, Dinner:  A Love Story is divided into three main sections: How We Taught Ourselves to Cook (or, the pre-kid years), Early Parenthood, and Family Dinner (when it all starts to work). Each section contains generous helpings of Jenny's charming family, with practical suggestions and realistic expectations about how dinner happens during the many seasons of family life.   I really like this Jenny. She's a creative, interesting woman with a warm voice and a practical sensibility, and a true zeal for family dinner.  I can't help but be inspired by someone with a truepassion for something.  As I read, I  had the sense I was having tea with a friend who had figured this family dinner thing out.  This friend shares strategies to overcome the "heart sinkers," (like a clean, unloaded dishwasher when faced with mountains of dirty dishes at the end of a meal), and calmly explains her foolproof, kid and adult friendly recipes with me.  She is a self-styled "dinner doula," which totally fits.  This book is a family dinner doula for mommas like me.

And do I ever need a dinner doula.  Because here is how the Pett version of Dinner:  A Love Story has gone thus far:

The Early Years:   Starring the Unholy Trinity of frozen ravioli (meat or cheese for variety), tacos, and frozen pizza.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

The First Babies: We were so tired and overwhelmed I have absolutely no idea what we ate.  I vaguely remember goldfish.  And baby carrots.  And pb and j for JT.  (Who am I kidding?  He still eats that all too regularly because (until reading this book) I STINK AT MAKING DINNER).

The Onmivore's Dilemma Years:  Cooking from our own garden, locally sourcing our food, making sure everything is grass-fed and antibiotic free.  The menus were simple, and not terribly tasty, but REAL.

Coming Out of the Fog:  I start really cooking again!  Hello Julia Child!   Hello wine and butter and cream and deliciousness!  Hello tons of work and calories and burnout!

The Second Babies, otherwise known as The Crock Pot Years:    As my friend Will would say, a whole lot of charf (chicken in the crock) and barf (beef in the crock).   Reminiscent of the Unholy Trinity, only this time it is tacos, spaghetti, and sloppy Joe's.  Over and over and over and over again.

The Dawning of a New Era:  Circa now.  Chicken cutlets with arugula and tomato salad, Italian sausages with apples, onions, and potatoes, spicy shrimp with naan, individual chicken pot pies, chicken with bacon and brussell sprouts. . . . I can go on and on.  I've actually made three of these dinners, and they are delicious and fun to prepare.  Two are on deck for later this week.  And LOOK!  I even bought a new pan.

photo-4

In other words, I'm hopeful.  Jenny says, "It all begins at the family table," and I agree.  I always have.  Getting all of us around the table has always been a priority, but the food has not.  JT told me recently that the key to keeping these boys and their friends around as they grow is food, the good stuff, and LOTS OF IT.  So, in order to do that well, I need to be able to cook tasty things, and this book is a practical, charming, and fun start to that journey.

(Can we say sayonara to the crock pot?  Not yet.  Everybody needs a backup plan.  Or a nuclear option, depending on your point of view).

Enjoy Jenny's blog here.