Mommy Two Pots

How do you cook for a picky 3 ½ year old, a 10 month old and two food savvy adults living in San Francisco?

I’m stuck with the task of making dinner. Although the idea of the woman of the house cooking all the family meals is fairly common to most, to me it came as a complete surprise when it applied to myself. There are a slew of logistics my husband and I talked about before having kids, but how the cooking would be accomplished was never discussed. I guess I assumed we would feed ourselves the same way we always had.

Before kids we mostly cooked together. If one of us wasn’t home, we’d wait for the other one then migrate to the tasks that suited our skills and knowledge. I often prepared a special vegetable dish, he was the meat and second side dish hand. Either of us mixed up a salad just fine.

Then presto blamo…kids, and my whole cooking and eating experience changed. With less time and less sleep, food prep was reduced to 30 minutes and eating time was pushed to the early bird hour. We couldn’t keep our eyes open long enough for the 9pm dinner of our childless years. Meals were simplified, missing ingredients ignored and cooking no longer filled a creative void.*

Even the actual process of eating has become an event we just have to get through. Our older son will not stay seated at the table. I take a bite of food and I’m scrambling after the three year old and plunking him back in his chair. Another bite of food and I’m dangling a bit of chicken in front of his mouth hoping he’ll get something close to the RDA of protein for the day. There’s some laughing and singing that goes on in this process, but there’s also a bevy of screaming, pouting and regurgitating of food. I sit on the edge of my chair, I feed the 10 month old with one hand, pick at my own food with the other hand and read an upside down book to my older son hoping he’ll stay put. Even if there were a fully shelled Maine lobster with a side of melted butter sitting in front of me, there would be very little enjoyment in eating it. At least I don’t eat standing up.

CLEAN UP

So everyone’s got something in their belly – mission accomplished. Well, not quite. I turn to face a kitchen of dirty pots and crusty food scraps. Cooking induces cleaning and for that reason I do not use more than two pots. If I have three things that need to go on the stove, one item gets cooked in a pot, set aside and then the next item goes in the pot. No washing in between. Shared flavors are good. Stir-fry is the best - it all goes in one pan.

On the menu tonight:

Grass fed steak - grilled

Russet frites**

Cucumber salad

Mixed greens

Cooking vessels used:

1 – baking sheet for frites

*I do not eat or serve processed foods. No mini toaster pizzas served here.

**Frites is a just a fancy way to say baked fries