My son hates chicken, but loves Yaya’s (his grandmother) roasted chicken legs, isn’t a big fan of potatoes, but loves her roasted lemon potatoes and devours the rice in her stuffed peppers, even though he won’t eat rice anywhere else.  What is it about Yaya’s cooking that makes such a difference?  I mean, I have been eating Yaya’s cooking (minus the chicken) for my entire life.  As an adult, I’ve come to realize the secret is in her seasonings.  She always adds a squirt of fresh lemon to her potatoes, chops dill into her stuffed peppers, and includes a splash of extra virgin olive oil to her salads.  

Seasonings are the accessories to food that so many of us forget. And it is evidently clear to me in when I hear the very hard to earn praise my son provides lavishes on my mother’s cooking.  

And I’ll admit my son has a point here.  My husband is the king of bland.  His rice is steamed, veggies boiled, nothing added but some salt at the end, and a dab of butter, but if the butter melts slowly, you only get it in one bite and the rest of the plate is bland.

My goal this summer is to slow down, pick some of the herbs I have growing in pots in my garden, after all, why am I growing them for in the first place!

We live in the city, in a small house, with a tiny back yard.  Growing up, my mother had a big yard, with a large garden.  Given the limitations of my yard, I never gave up on the hope that we could grow flowers and vegetables.  Last spring, we dug up the sad, uneven grass patch that had been languishing for years.  Our goal was to either re-lay new sod, or to put in bricks and use the space a separate sitting area apart from our deck.  What ended up happening was we ran out of time.  

In a desperate attempt to limit the mud pit in the back, I started planting things, anything I could find including raspberry and blackberry bushes donated from my mother, tomatoes, cucumbers, and herbs.  Last summer, the results weren’t so fantastic. But this summer, the raspberry and blackberry bushes have been full of fruits.  Each day we go into the garden to check on our bounty.  Some of the bushes grew on the outside of our fence and each time we go for a drive, we are rewarded with a few ripe berries to start us on our journey.  

You don’t need to have a yard to enjoy fresh produce, last summer we had cherry tomatoes and beans grow in a pot on our back step.  I still haven’t finished landscaping my yard, but I have been dreaming about potential additions.  I almost bought a cherry tree the other day after I noticed my neighbour’s tree across the street, laden with bright red cherries, and figured if I kept it small, there would be room for it in the yard.  I’m still thinking about it.

I like to make frozen treats for my son.  When he was a toddler, I used to pulverize frozen fruit in my vita mix and tell him it was ice cream.  He’s not so easy to fool these days.  This has been a hot summer, so frozen treats are high on his radar of requests.  What’s a mom to do?  I’m not interested is purchasing bulk boxes of sugary and food coloring laden product.  I pull out my popsicle mold.  I actually have about 6 different kinds, but my favorite one is a 10 serving version that uses wooden popsicle sticks, and produces rectangular shaped ice pops (they freeze a bit faster than the round shapes).   

What is fun about these molds is that we can experiment with different flavours.  We aren’t fussy about how well they freeze, so I don’t often add in extra sugar or corn syrup, both which help create smoother pops.  This summer we have been experimenting with frozen drink blends.  I tried apple (that one got a 7 out of 10), and some iced tea (8 out of 10). Our latest test was a purple grape/cranberry juice blend (100% juice) which achieved a 10 out of 10.  I’m planning on introducing some blended fruit purees to see how those go over – watermelon pops, here we come.  This is a great, inexpensive way to keep us all happy and cool!

 Summer camp is here and you know what, I actually selected the prepared lunch menu options. I know, am I crazy or what?  But there were a few compelling reasons for my choice.

1. I thought I deserved a vacation from school lunch making – 10 months can really get to you

2. Perhaps they will serve new foods, what a great chance to be exposed to something different? 

3. My son never really eats lunch anyway. Better have him not eat their prepared meals vs. mine

I’m not sure how this will work out. But sometimes I think it’s important to shake things up.  Of course, I’m secretly hoping that he will realize how great my cooking really is…wishful thinking perhaps.

The end of the school year always requires a certain level of celebration.  I must say that I consider myself lucky when it comes to the food part of these celebrations.  My son loves all kind of fruit and each time there is a party in class, he asks for fruit.  Not just plain fruit mind you.  We create masterpieces on wooden sticks.  Our fruit kabobs are always in high demand.   At the end of this school year my son told me that the kids were lined up to eat the kabobs (this time I put them on cocktail sticks so they looked like mini appetizers). I am now used to the popularity of the kabobs. But what did surprise me was the note sent home by the teacher thanking me for providing the only healthy snack.  It was surprising but not unexpected.  I know kids like treats.  But I also think they like to see different things. Stay tuned.  I’m hopping on the “food on a stick” wagon to see what new and formerly unpopular foods I can pass as cool and desirable.

I spent the first five years of my son’s life nurturing a love of whole fresh foods.  Veggie dogs, whole wheat bread, homemade mac and cheese with whole wheat pasta, we even used to have our own version of the “whopper” made with organic ground beef served on a sprouted grain bun.  And then I began working out of home.  My new schedule required a tag team effort between me and my husband, one that has had its turmoil and conflict. Do you need to cook meat everyday!

Once I came home to find my son and husband at the table, ready to dig into plates of fish sticks and potatoes.  “What, no veggie for diner”, I asked my husband.  He got up and said, “Oh yeah, I forgot”, went to the fridge and pulled out a jar of pickles.  They both giggled, grabbed a few pickles each and ate their dinner.  Some nights, we have even resorted to the old standby, of peanut butter and jam.  But I still have some pull around here, in spite of my long absences from the kitchen.  The peanut butter is natural and organic (no sugar) and the jam is homemade, but that’s my little secret.

Just when I think I know what to serve for dinner, the palette of my young diner changes.  The child who once ate everything is suddenly suspicious.  If he has ham there can’t be “edges”, if he’s eating a sandwich, I can put chopped onions, tomatoes, grated carrots and even sauerkraut but if there is even a trace of lettuce he can’t eat it.  You think he would eventually drop his guard. You would be wrong.  He carefully looks through all food, investigating the layers until he’s satisfied there is no lettuce.  I have questioned the no lettuce rule many times and get the same answer each time….”edges”.  Even the old standby fried egg sandwich has been regulated to the anti food list. Have you ever fried and egg and keep the edges from changing colour?   Pretty impossible.   So while I continue to offer the forbidden foods I am constantly amazed at his unwavering will power to risk hunger than actually eat these specific foods.

We all have a lot to learn from our children.  Recently, in honour of earth day, my son’s school hosted a ‘litterless lunch contest” where the lunch room with the least litter would win a free pizza lunch.  To the elementary school crowd, that’s a pretty big incentive - relief from the home packed lunch – even just for a day.

My son is competitive by nature, so he was very motivated for his lunch room to win.  I was confident he would be fine, there is almost never a prepackaged food item in his lunch bag (I know, I’m the meanest mom, and the worst lunch packer in history).  However, I am sure he was busy lobbying the kids in his lunchroom to avoid throwing anything in the garbage can that day.

I think the school underestimated the kids’ motivation to win. 

Rather than really inspiring the kids to encourage their parents to pack litterless lunches, what happened (according to the note that was sent home), was that the school could not award the prize to any of the lunch rooms due to some inconsistent activities (aka cheating).  While that day resulted in the lowest trash accumulation in the history of the school (ok, maybe I’m embellishing a bit), none of the kids habits really changed. 

What happened was that the kids all went home with a full lunch bag of garbage for their parents to deal with.  Maybe that wasn’t such a terrible outcome. 

None the less, the school announced that they would be conducting a random ‘litterless lunch contest’ where they would just pick a day, unannounced, where they would see which room had the least garbage. 

I figure, my son will continue to badger his lunchroom to continue to bring their trash home, for at least one or two days more, until he forgets.  Any in the end, if even one parent was disgusted with how much garbage their kid produced in a day, then that is a victory in itself.

I’m a busy person, and sometimes, cooking healthy meals, and packing nutritious lunches becomes too much to handle.  I love to cook, but the call of the take out menu if often too tempting to resist.  Lunchtime meals present similar challenges.  Coming up with food 5 days a week that I can pack into eco friendly reusable containers can be tiresome. 

So, I admit, one of the motivations for sending my son to a specific march break hockey camp was the inclusion of lunch in the day.  Yes, that’s correct.  There are camps that serve food so you don’t have to!!  I didn’t really ask what kind of food they served.  My little meatetarian will eat most things that were once alive.  And, well, one week of someone else cooking was a dream. 

One thing I didn’t realize was the ‘tuck’ shop access the kids had.  Every day they were allowed to go to the on campus store to buy a treat.  So, in addition to mystery meat, my kid was eating a chocolate bar or chips as well. 

By mid week, I was starting to wonder if I had made the right choice. Sure, my son would return most of my organic, free range meat items almost completely untouched, but at least the few nibbles he took were healthy ones.

By Thursday, I was really concerned when I learned about the pizza eating contest (apparently one of the 9 year olds ate 10 pieces of pizza and won).  Was this the food message I was trying to instill in my child?

But by Friday, I realized that it hadn’t been so bad after all.  Not that I would want to do this all the time, but my week off from packing lunches was quite heavenly.  It was a break for both of us. 

Sometimes, a break from routines (and healthy eating) is good for everyone.

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My son’s birthday is one day after valentines day.  This means every February we have big celebrations, not just at home, but at school, with friends, with family.

Valentines celebrations include gifts of candy from friend, from family.  In class parties with cupcakes and cookies.  Birthday celebrations also include cake and ice cream.  In a two day span, our family sugar intake rivals that of Halloween!

So, what have I learned to do to offset the chaos of these two holidays?  Well, I hide as much of the evidence as I can - out of sight, out of mind works wonders.

I’ve also realized that sharing the birthday cake with friends and neighbours is a great strategy for eliminating leftovers (that out of sight things works here as well).

But, most importantly, I try to remember that most of the time, we have fruit for dessert, and that once (ok, several ) times a year, we have an onslaught.  I think that’s ok.