Urban Mamas

At the turn of the year, we love to make resolutions.  Many might like to make resolutions of the health variety: I resolve to eat better, I resolve to exercise more, I resolve to lose weight.  A few weeks might go by, and our resolutions might slip.  In fact, over a third of resolutions are broken by the end of January.

Then, there is a twist.  On January 1st, the NYT ran an article discussing new studies in the realm of obesity: once obese, are we always obese?  Some studies show that we can get stuck in a fat trap, once fat.  Obese individuals who successfully lose weight will only regain all that weight (and more, possibly) in due time.

Depressing?  Yes.

What can we do about it?  Well.  There is much focus now on "upstream public health", tackling the root of the cause, preventing the fatness before we even enter (and get stuck) in the "fat trap".  This got us thinking about programs that affect our children, making sure that programs are designed to keep them active, to make sure they have access to healthy food, to help them be safe when active.

We live in a busy, complex world.  Our lives can be overwhelming.  How can make living a healthy lifestyle easy for people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, races, etc in our modern world?  Our lives are complex, and the environments that shape our health behaviors are too.  Work, school, urban or rural infrastructure all of these these can attract us to or deter us from eating more fruits and vegetables and moderate exercise.  How can we make this utopia of walkable/bikable cities with access to affordable fresh produce for all a reality for all?  What do we, as parents, see to be barriers to that reality?  What do the experts think we can do to change?  What are your top priorities for change?  What do you do in your day-to-day life as small steps toward keeping the family healthful?

* Keep the conversation going at a screening & panel discussion of "Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead", next Monday, January 23, 6-9pm at Living Room Theaters.  100% of proceeds of the $35 ticket go towards EcoTrust's Farm to School program.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, as it's all focused on food. A traditionalist and a lover of everything about this holiday, from the concept of gratitude to cooking elaborate meals to Native Amerian tales to the artist's imagination of Pilgrim garb (knowing, of course, the inherent conflict of the romanticized tale of the first thanksgiving celebration -- well, I like a complex tale too), I've been cooking a full Thanksgiving meal almost every year since I was 19 years old. That year, I made a Kroger turkey and cranberry-and-orange sauce and mashed potatoes and turkey gravy and two kinds of pie.

At the time, I had no idea about the politics of turkeys. These I would learn later -- when I read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle in the winter of 2007-2008. I was already a farmer's market junkie, but this opened my eyes to the crazy modern history of poultry raising. I know it's kind of a weird way to go about making judgments, but the part that had me convinced was the whole chapter on turkey sex. (Yes. There was a whole chapter, pretty much, on turkey sex.) The turkeys that are for sale at every grocery store in the country right now are 95%+ the broad-breasted white variety -- one that has been carefully selected and bred for enormous breasts and fast growth. This breeding has left us with a turkey that's pretty much unable to have regular turkey relations. Like chickens, our turkeys are brought to us through artificial insemination.

They're also grown in big turkey pens that look something like the videos of riots at soccer stadiums. You know the ones? You're always afraid someone will be trampled. That's what routinely happens to turkeys (I know this is a fairly alarmist link, but there isn't much controversy about the underlying conditions in turkey farms; they're mostly like this). And besides the obvious inhumanity concerns, there is the fact that stressed, unhealthy birds are not the best choices for our table.

My six-year-old is always hungry when he gets to school -- even if he's just finished his toast or pancakes on the bike ride there. No matter the quantity or quality of the calories, he's hungry. And as our elementary is a school with a large enough percentage of free and reduced-price lunch families, breakfast is free for everyone; so he feels that breakfast is a must. (As an aside, this frustrates his teacher to no end; he and a few other of the not-so-early risers in the class eat their breakfast at their desk, delaying her reading group schedule. I don't know what to say; I can't get him out of bed any earlier, I'm literally carrying him out of bed as it is. He insists that he's hungry. I have no good solutions.)

So today when we went through the line, I saw the no-thank-you table chockfull of yogurt, so much that the cafeteria employees had set out a bin for it. Usually, the no-thank-you table works on equilibrium; there are roughly equal numbers of kids who don't want some of the mandatory breakfast items as those who are hungry for extra. I commented on this to the cafeteria worker.

She told me that she supposed most kids don't really see yogurt as a breakfast food; they think of eggs, potatoes and pancakes as breakfast food. This surprised me, as I don't remember this ever being the case at Bridger, where Truman and Everett went last year; yogurt on the no-thank-you table was usually snapped up by kids who could eat two or three.

Our family has always considered yogurt an acceptable breakfast food but I wondered if it might be cultural; the makeup of Bridger (lots of Hispanic kids) was very different than Grout (lots of caucasian kids and East African children). Even though it has rather more sugar than I'd like, I generally approve of yogurt, especially over those "bagel wraps" and a few of the other highly-processed breakfast options.

What about your school? What breakfast options are popular? Does your child seem to get hungry as soon as he approaches the cafeteria, too?

Och! School fundraiser season is upon us, and if you want to get my blood boiling, ask my five-years-ago self to have my kid sell frozen cookie dough and cinnamon rolls in order to earn cheap prizes probably made in China. Go ahead, make my day!

But when Truman brought home the fundraising forms last week -- Delicious Delights! like the Thaw-and-Bake Blueberry Muffins ($16) or the Pizza Pail ($16, too), full, I was sure, of all kinds of ingredients I try to avoid, not to mention expensive (win a Sling Shot Plush animal! a plastic crawling bug! A Tornado Mug!) -- there was a bit of a surprise. The PTA letter that accompanied it judiciously mentioned that the school would get 40% of the proceeds from the sale of these caloric firebombs; or you could write a check and the school would get 100%.

So, I was getting ready to write a check for $20 (with "donation in lieu of fundraiser" in the memo line) when I saw a comment thread from another Portland Public Schools mom. She was lamenting the state of her PTA's fundraiser, which hadn't been accompanied by a letter like mine. Another mom on her thread said her school (in the area, I assume) had given parents a donation goal for the year -- $500, plus fundraisers.

Meanwhile, I'm helping the cross country team raise money to go to invitational meets and buy uniforms. Nearly all the money for sports is now provided by parents -- the coaches' salaries and the cost of buses come from the sports fees, and fundraisers pay for uniforms, and the Booster Club pays for end-of-season "banquets" (which are usually potlucks) and awards. Volunteers often end up paying for the privilege through t-shirts and Chinook Books and (in my case) babysitting. When I do the math, I realize that high school students who are involved in a few activities do pay $500, plus, a year for the privilege of going to public school.

What is there to say about this? Sometimes I feel like the school year is one big revolving hit-up. I'm hitting other parents up for Chinook Books for cross country while they're hitting me up for Run for the Arts laps while the schools are hitting us up for snacks and boxes of tissues while my friends' school are hitting me up for Burgerville and Pizzicato fundraising nights. I remember writing at least five or six checks for field trips last year. One of the cross country runners rolled his eyes and said, while we talked about the lap-a-thon we are planning for Friday, and the book sales, and the other money-raising ideas, "why don't we just ask people for one check?" Indeed.

Why don't we? Wouldn't it be easier and simpler? At the beginning of the school year, principals could come out to us and say, "we need $12,000 per kid for what we want to do. The state gives us $10,800. Pay up (if you can)." Obviously, we all couldn't afford to make up the difference. But at least we wouldn't have our kids pushing sweets and pizza and those endless forms at us -- the kids could focus on doing arts and PE and (I don't know) reading and math and not on raising money for it.

If you ran the world (or even just your own PTA), how would you fix it?

However tempted I am to say something like, "Halloween was simpler when we were kids!"; it's just not true. When I was of trick-or-treating age, I was faced with an enormity of moral and safety concerns each October 31st. My family, very faithful Conservative Baptists, approached Halloween with great suspicion thanks to its age-old ties to the Devil himself. A few years, we went to church on Halloween for witch-free celebrations (that's where I got my first goldfish!); I always chose "good" costumes, princesses and fairies and, ok, I really only ever wanted to be a princess. Also, we had the specter of razor blades and poison, which must have happened one time ever, and yet most of our parents were sure there were razor blade vendors on every block. Beware of the caramel apples! Take heed of the popcorn balls!

This year, in Portland, we have a modern flavor on the ages-old debate over Halloween. At Buckman Elementary, costumes will be banned for the second consecutive year; the principal "says celebrating Halloween at school excludes some kids and can be very offensive." (My six-year-old's school, Grout, is allowing costumes but banning weapons and gory/offensive/skimpy "content.") This has brought up all the debates you'd think ("what's happened to childhood?" "Halloween is an American celebration" "children need to have the opportunity to use their imaginations and dress up, but I do not believe this needs to be accomplished through Halloween"), and a few new twists. A few commenters on Think Out Loud said that they were disallowed from costumes by their family due to strict religious beliefs, and they appreciated the opportunity to stand up for their beliefs (in one case) or to soak up the "normalness" of the culture around them (in another case).

I'm not very passionate either way on this one; costumes at school, for me, means I have to have them ready earlier (I'm a very-last-minute homemade costume aficionado). And I do understand that they are distracting from the learning environment, and agree that there are ample times outside of school to wear costumes. On the other hand, I disagree that Halloween costumes in particular create disparity and cultural discomfort. As one commenter said and I agree wholeheartedly: these differences are always apparent, and Halloween costumes don't highlight them more or less than any other day at school. In my experience, you can see the cultural/economic differences best in the clothing worn to school when it's cold and rainy outside. (And as someone who was once a very poor high school student and is now a high school coach, I'm telling you, the disparity issues only get worse and more obvious every day that goes by in public school.)

Want more reasons to feel ambivalent about Halloween? The candy. It's not just probably pretty bad for you and your kids (and even I let my kids gorge for a day or two on Halloween and a few other holidays; childhood, right?). It's also the product of child slave labor.

Having recently moved, my new neighborhood supermarket is Safeway in addition to a small, great local produce stand.  I find myself accomplishing my supermarketing tasks very, very slowly.  Not only do I try to enjoy the time without kids (when I am able to escape to market without them), but I am stuck on the labels.  I look carefully.  

Granola bars: the 70% organic CLIF bars run over a buck a pop but a box of the Quaker Oat bars ("now made without high fructose corn syrup" the box boasts!) will give you 8 for $2, if on sale.  The economics are compelling.  The kid CLIF bars usually run about $0.75 each, still significantly more than the ones I usually consider "candy bars" more than anything.  I struggle.  Do I have time this week to make my own (this one being the favored recipe so far)?  The wrappers.  I think about the wrappers.  Can we make an art project out of the wrappers?  Make a reusable shopping bags for holiday gifts?

Cereal: this is a treat in our household.  The poor children beg for it.  I sometimes look past the high fructose corn syrup (why do Rice Krispies need HCFS as a sweetener?) and reason that the iron-enrichment is worth it.  Why not?  On special, we could get two boxes for a few dollars, compared to the one box of my preferred brand of "natural" cereal.  What are your preferred O's?  Does it break the bank?

Lunch Meat: Oscar Mayer was on sale.  And, as I was humming "my baloney has a first name, is O-S-C-A-R....", I was thumbing the list of ingredients: ham, water, sugar...... sodium nitrite.  Is sodium nitrite bad?  Well, it could be.  But, it also does good in preventing botulism.  To be sure, though, the meat processing industry have indeed found ways to make us lunch meat that do not include sodium nitrite.  I've seen it at the store "No Nitrites", but it's just a bit too expensive.

Then, the bread: we have had long conversations about our decision-making process on the bread.  We look for lower sugar, no high fructose corn syrup, more whole grains, no enriched processed white flour (but wonder bread can be so good!).  We look for loaves under $5, please!  Under $2!  There are so many things to consider.

Between choosing these four items and whether or not I buy them, I could easily spend 45 minutes. It is a balance, and we all have our own ways that we juggle the cost, the convenience, and the health impacts.  What frustrates me to no end is how much I feel bombarded to buy the cheaper varieties, which often end up being the less healthy options.  How easy it is, though: cereal for breakfast, meat sandwich for lunch, granola bar for snack.  That's half of the day's meals, taken care of with just a few dollars and a few boxes.  It's not a decision I feel good about.  To eat out of stuff that has been previously wrapped no longer feels right to me.  That's just me.

When I go to the market, I wonder: why is it so hard to buy whole fresh foods?  Why do many factors push us to buy the convenient food, the cheaper food?  How can I continue to afford the whole food if it is priced higher than the processed food?  All of these things, I wonder, in my love/hate relationship with granola bars, cereal, lunch meat and bread.  It's a luxury to be armed with all the information we have, to have the time to ponder these questions, but I know I'm not the only one thinking about these things.  

I start every school year thinking this will be the year I win my kids over with the homemade lunches. And every year, I end up giving in to the siren song of the cafeteria (last year, it was the second week of school, when Truman came home with a bill -- he'd been getting both a cafeteria tray and his lunchbox every day). Certainly, I've loved being here in Portland, where school food is undergoing a serious revolution, and, most days, the children will have ingredients from local farms on the menu.

However, as the photo above (taken at a field trip near the end of school last year, so we've got to give them some slack for brown bagging necessities) indicates, there's a lot of room for unhealthy choices. As hard as I try at home to steer my children clear of refined sugar, preservatives, processed flours and other highly-processed foods: if Truman has a choice, it's chocolate milk every day, and, judging from this small window on school food, no one eats the good stuff like grapes.

So I'm trying to get it right this year.

It was Citymama herself who cooked up the fresh goodies at the preschool where Everett began his tenure (until she, sadly, moved away to California). Watching small children eat pasta with eggplant tomato sauce or steamed green beans or little hummus cucumber sandwiches is so affirming it made tears come to my eyes. ("They like it. They really LIKE it!") Later, I would birth a baby who would eat carrot greens out of my farmer's market bag, raspberries right off the bushes outside, and salmon salad sandwiches with fresh onions and yogurt-chive dressing (that was today).

Last month, I went to a culinary conference in Austin. There, my friend Michelle (this friend!) organized a visit to a charter school at the University of Texas where grade school-aged kids had grown and learned to cook vegetables from a garden right behind the school. The presenters asked the kids what they had learned to love that they never would have tried before. "Sorrel," said one (!!). The next four kids picked "brussels sprouts."

So when I saw the FOODday piece by Leslie Cole in this week's Oregonian, "Taking a Fresh Approach to Daycare Meals That Kids Will Actually Eat," I squealed a bit. One-year-olds at ChildRoots eating beets, black beans, and steamed grains. Preschoolers at Maryam's Preschool eating Persian rice and vegetables. Parents thrilled... but not really doing anything nearly like this at home.

After having made some mistakes and some total victories with my own kids (and having the sort of child who has a totally unique set of likes and dislikes -- my middle son, Truman, will only eat dried fruit, and only carrots if he can see the vegetable, though he will happily eat grilled fish or sardines or pate, straight), I can say that it's not just exposing kids to a variety of freshly-prepared healthy foods that aren't hidden in other things that is important in developing healthy eating habits; but also maintaining, as much as possible, a food environment in which unhealthy choices are severely limited. It's just a fact: if there is soda in the house, my kids will drink it (same for energy drinks and prepared chocolate milk etc. etc.). If candy is offered right before lunchtime, they'll eat that and skip the salmon-salad sandwiches. If even such a mildly unhealthy choice as Trader Joe's breakfast bars or those sugary yogurt tubes (even the organic ones are pretty high-sugar and TJ's bars have less whole grains and more sugar than I prefer for the kids to have), they'll disappear before the whole-grain scones I made are even touched.

This piece is fantastic inspiration to keep me offering fresh peas and cherries instead of Starbucks treats and yogurt squeezers. I love that more preschools and elementary schools are offering kids whole grains and fresh vegetables prepared in delicious and visible ways (no wink-wink hiding black beans in brownies). I think parents (and here I include my own thoroughly fallible self) could do a better job of supporting these institutional chefs by putting a variety of recognizable vegetables and fruits and whole grains in front of our kids and keep the packaged snack food and sugary treats and breakfast food out of our cupboards. Not every child is going to become a brussels sprout and quinoa lover. But we should give them lots, and lots, and lots of chances -- and they just might end up surprising us.

The growing season is here!  And, farmer's markets will soon be in full swing.  Portland Farmers Market is the big daddy of markets around here.  In ther 9th year, they have grown to a location on every single day of the week: Saturday at PSU (the OG), Sundays at King School, Mondays/Tuesdays/Thursdyas at Pioneer Courthouse Square, Wednesdays in the lower South Park Blocks, Thursdays at Buckman and in NW (EcoTrust bldg parking lot).  I guess nothing queued up for Fridays.

There are many, many  more markets beyond these main ones.  OEC has a comprehensive listing of Portland-area farmers markets: Tigard, Beaverton, Interstate, Lents, Montavilla, Hollywood, Hillsdale, Lloyd, OHSU, Moreland, Parkrose.  There are so many to chose from; it's a little dizzying.

An urbanMama recently emailed:

I know lots of the area farmer's markets are starting back up and I would love to hear people's thoughts about the different ones, i.e., price differences between them, quality and diversity of the vendors and items offered for sale, etc. I am familiar with the big one downtown, and the one in Hollywood, and I have to say that they have started to seem pretty expensive in the past few years. Are any of the other ones (Lents, Montavilla, Beaverton) any less expensive?

I've moved beyond wondering if how much he eats is enough.  Now, he's in a food rut, eating just a few things, and a whole lot of them (thank goodness).  We offer all sorts of [gluten-free] options, but the child is constantly gravitating to the same old things.  I know I've been through this before: my biggest girl would only eat yogurt & veggie booty all day long.  I know it passes.  Aside from continuing to offer new things, lots of options, and waiting for it to pass, is there anything else that can nudge a toddler off a single-track meal plan?

My friend Michelle Stern was still pitching The Whole Family Cookbook when I met her face-to-face a year ago during the IACP conference in Portland. Once she closed the deal and started creating recipes, I did a little testing and, as you'd expect, lots of photograph-making in the process. Because her book is focused on cooking together with children, I wanted to get Everett and Truman and Monroe involved; and I was immediately surprised to see how much benefit we get from having them join in the cooking fun. [Note: Enter a giveaway for the book by commenting; details at the end of the post.]

Even months before we got the book, then, we were discovering how much healthier kids might eat if they just take a hand -- not just in cooking the food -- but in planning that cooking. I'd ask Everett which of a couple possible recipes to try, and we'd discuss whether a recipe had ingredients he'd like together. I was a little thrilled when he said one of the recipes we tried was too sweet for him -- and we made another variation on it that had honey and a small amount of sugar and that we all loved, adding a great sherbet recipe to our family repertoire. (The recipe that made it into the book is a delightfully tart buttermilk lemon sherbet, a winner indeed.)

Handing kids a cookbook with lots of pretty photos of healthy food and asking them, "find something for dinner tomorrow" is the best way I can think of to get them involved in this hardest parental job (filling their stomachs with good "growing food") and to make sure the hard work you put in to choosing sources and shopping and lugging the stuff home and cooking it all on demand pays off. Until, that is, they're old enough to do all the shopping and preparing on their own (I was particularly freed by the image of Rebecca's teens from last week's post making turkey sandwiches and sweet potatoes). I did that one night, and the next night, we had taco salad straight from Michelle's book (my recipe adds red cabbage to the onions for a little extra nutritional zing).

Two of my kids are in baseball this spring and with practices and games at least three evenings a week, it is clear I need to step up my meal planning game. The most stressful part of my day is coming home from work and cooking dinner as three hungry boys forage and constantly remind me that they are hungry. If I am prepared, I can give dinner on the table in 20 minutes. More often than not, I am scrambling. It's not pretty and I scramble to throw something together that's available from what we have on hand.  My go to meal is pasta with a quick and easy tomato sauce. 

Feeding the family is favorite topic on urbanMamas, we've talked about meal planning loosely especially as it relates to Sunday night stress, running a tight ship, and recently about how much does dinner cost but I am in need of specific ideas and to compare notes on strategies to make meal planning an integral part of the family routine. Do you plan meals? Do you plan by the week, two weeks, a month?

I am a finance person through and through.  It's what I do for work, and it's what I spend extra brain power on when we're at the supermarket.  And, not only do I track and calculate what we spend on food weekly, I have started to try to estimate what each dinner might cost.  Recently, I came across a new issue of Delivered Dinners in Portland and was surprised at the price tag: $45-50 per meal. Perhaps I'd rather opt for the DIY Freezable Dinners, which bear a much lower price tag.  Maybe the delivered dinners would equate to a fancier night out for the family.  To be sure, that's not what I spend on an average weekday dinner.  When we're looking for take-out, we might hit up some of those chains, where ne'er would we break the $30 point, barely even $20.

Lately, I've been doing the calculating.  Our cheaper dinners are meat-free: black beans & rice, an egg bake, tofu stir-fry with veggies over rice.  Those dinners are well under $10, probably more like $5. Meat dinners are much more expensive.  I splurged on a seafood dinner last Friday & it was the price of a dinner out!  Thank goodness, though, with the discovery of food buying clubs, I feel I am saving more and investing in great quality.

Right now, we are needing to pinch pennies more than ever, and I am always thinking: What is your *super-affordable*, healthful, and easy dinner option?  Your go-to family-pleasing meal that meets all the criteria?

It is hard enough managing food allergies, sensitivities and preferences in our own households.  When a child has celiac or other diseases/allergies, how do you manage to maintian this diet even outside the home?  Even if you pack his lunch for school, he will still have exposure to other children's foods. An urbanMama recently emailed:

I am looking for a "preschool" that accommodates gluten free.  In searching, I have only found Urban Roots.  But I wanted to post asking others if they knew of any childcare/preschools that run gluten free.  I have a celiac who, despite us packing his lunch, keeps having an exposure...correlating with EVERY time he goes to "school". 

Do you let others know, when he goes to birthday parties, school, playdates?  Do you ask that children do not share food?  Impose other rules or restrictions on children in these other environments? Going out to eat, do you only eat foods that your son can tolerate, to minimize chance of exposure?

A recent report on the healthiest counties in Oregon shows Multnomah county ranking in the middle.  Not all of us are fit and mindful of our sugar intake.  The Multnomah County Health Department recently launched the “It Starts Here” Campaign for a healthy, active Multnomah County.  “We are promoting healthy eating and active living as a means to combat obesity and its many associated health consequences. You can learn more about our campaign at our website multco-itstartshere.org.”

How does this image make you feel?  16 packets of sugar?  WOW, is that how much is in a bottle of soda?  The County is working on an outdoor advertising campaign to raise community awareness about the health burden of obesity and the effects of hidden sugar, particularly in sugary drinks like soda, sports drinks, and sugar-sweetened juices.  Care to share your input?  Click on the image <above> to complete an anonymous survey.  The county appreciates the input!

Do you or your kids drink soda?

I came to realize that there were a handful of grocery items that really added to our level of waste: milk (at least we can recycle the jugs), cereal (boxes recycled, inner bags usually not), and granola bars (CLIF might have a recycling program for their wrappers, but all the other shiny ones are usually chucked into the landfill).  

So, I have been experimenting with making granola bars using ingredients I can buy in bulk (nuts, sugar, oats, choco chips!, dried fruit).  Other mamas have recently asked me for recipes, and lots of us seem to be experimenting, so I thought it'd be fun to share tips, tricks, and favorite recipes.

The hardest part is getting the consistency down, making sure the liquid binders (maple syrup, honey, butter, peanut butter, coconut oil, etc) is ample to hold it all together.  When I mix it all together, if the end result doesn't look sticky enough, I'll throw in a beaten egg, which is sure to keep it all together.  So far, two of my favorite recipies are from Alton Brown and this thick chewey bar recipe that happens to be gluten-free (one of our kids is gluten-free).

Have you made granola bars at home?  Best recipes to share to make the perfect bar?  Must-try ingredients and mix-ins?

Have meal-trains become more and more popular or has our community just become more tight? Perhaps a bit of both.  When my last child was born about 1.5 years ago, I was absolutely floored by the generousity of friends, life with a newborn and the gift of meals was so abundant!  

There are quite a few babies entering our lives soon and there are also families in help due to serious health conditions.  I have come across several different tools to help plan out meals: MealBaby seems to be popular, but there is also Lots of Helping Hands (which can also help with coordinating care), Take Them A Meal, and MealTrain.  Which meal train websites have you used?  Which do you like and why?

My little man is so very, very little.  At 16 months old, he weighs about 18 and a half pounds.   Not that we're in a rush for him to sit in a forward-facing car seat, but we have often thought that most one-year-olds will be facing forward already (good thing he mostly rides in a bike seat;  he faces forward all the time.)  He is a vibrant, inquisitive, and capable child.  He is developmentally spot on.  Still, his gain of9 ounces over a 3.5 month period was a bit alarming to us and our health care professionals.

Some have suggested that we give him Pediasure, for a bulky, reliable cocktail of carbs, fats, and protein.  Primary ingredients:

Water, Sugar (Sucrose), Corn Maltodextrin, Milk Protein Concentrate, High Oleic Safflower Oil, Soy Oil, Whey Protein Concentrate, Medium-Chain Triglycerides. 

Wait a minute.  Can't I just mix some water, milk, sugar, and oil and call it Mamasure?  Needless to say, I was not comfortable offering the Pedia-cocktail to my toddler.  Instead, I am digging deep to come up with healthful, easy-to-eat, nutritious, wholesome foods that he will love: lots of granola with coconut oil, avocados on tortillas, pancakes/waffles/biscuits with butter, whole milk products, some meats, and grains.  Lots of good grains.  I welcome your thoughts and suggestions on good whole foods that can help bulk up our little people with healthful alternatives to the Pediasure.  I also welcome links to recipes!

My neighbor Camellia posted on Facebook about her lunch pool -- something I fell in love with briefly once years ago but never executed. When she offered to write a post about her new experiences, I said, "yes!"

I was nervous about my almost-Three starting Montessori school. I was worried about him adjusting, about drop-off, and about…it seems silly, but packing lunches. After reading the recent posts about kids leaving their lunches uneaten and Sunday night insanity I was nervous about being prepared each morning with balanced, nutritious lunches he would actually eat. Even at home, I don’t feel like we always do a very good job of coming up with good little guy meals day after day. We fall back on quesadillas and Cheerios far more often that I’d like.

A woman overheard me discussing the topic at the gym and approached me with a suggestion: lunch-pooling. You find a parent in your kid’s class with compatible lunch-styles and take turns making lunch for both kids, one week on, one week off.

I love it. It’s actually easier to pack two lunches because you can use up your ingredients faster, packing fresher lunches with more variety. I feel like the challenge of coming up with a week’s lunches is much more manageable than the prospect of packing lunches every day. And so far, the kids are eating nearly everything! My kid actually eats better than he does at home, because I have to plan better, and he has to eat what he gets instead of demanding Cheerios. Arranging it in a cute little box helps, too.

Of course, the challenge is finding a friend who eats more or less the same stuff your kid eats. This could be harder if your kid has dietary issues. But even if you don’t find a lunchbox buddy right off the bat, there are other ways to lunch pool. Even if your friends’ kids go to different schools, you can swap home-made lunchbox staples for the freezer. Mini-muffins, meatballs, soups, and pot-stickers are a few our kids like.

In general, I love the ideal of “pooling,” be it transportation, lunches, or what-have-you… I love that the same effort goes twice as far, and it’s more fun, too. As the old saying goes, many hands make work light. I have friends who even pool soup dinners through their kids’ classroom: several families rotate cooking duty on Soup Night, making a savory soup that’s substantial enough for a meal with salad and bread. They exchange soups at school when they pick up their kids. I’m also part of a carpool for picking up our raw milk and fresh eggs from the farm. What do you pool? What are the pros and cons? And what are your favorite freezable lunchbox staples?

I was visiting another school at the 3pm hour today.  I noticed a papa with his two kids packing up on their bikes to go home.  Before putting the bags into the cargo bin, the papa rustled through the kids' lunch bags.  "What did you eat today?"  He sounded exasperated.  When I heard him, I felt a bit relieved.  I was glad to know that my kids' lunches aren't the only ones coming home almost completely intact.  I would say they are anywhere from 60-90% intact, on the whole.  

What is it the kids eat all day?  How is they get through the day, if all they eat are crumbs and nibbles of bits and pieces?  Is it too distracting at school for a proper lunch?  I would think that the full day of activity would make for ravenous children.  Why is that when they get home, they are suddenly so hungry and tear through the cupboards for that pre-dinner snack?  Should I be packing other items, more suitable for hurried lunch hours and distracted mouths?  I would like to know: how much of your kids' lunches make their ways back home?

I've been downright cynical about the fate of school lunches. The breakfasts have often been the worst: plastic-wrapped greasy sugar-or-salt balls, was my verdict. While there may have technically been "nutrition," protein and carbohydrates and some pass at vitamin enrichment, I suspected breakfast from McDonald's would have been healthier.

Today, I dropped my children off late at school and there was a big basket of leftover breakfast in the office. Monroe got one, too, and as we headed home I checked it out. The Zac O Mega-bar had me at "northwest fruit filling" and the insurmountably reliable ingredients list which was filled with stuff that's in my kitchen, not the contents of a chem lab. Yes, there's still sugar (zoinks!) but I was pleased with the whole wheat flour and oats, the molasses and honey. Fairlight Bakery in Vancouver makes the treats, and uses Shepherd's Grain flour from northern Washington, a sustainable farming cooperative.

It smelled good -- smelled real! -- and tasted great.  Today's lunch is macaroni and cheese; I've got a call in to ask further, but a lot of effort has gone into making more food from scratch, so I'm hopeful.

With Hood to Coast now fading into a memory, we are looking forward to the start of school next year.  We're trying to enjoy these last moments of summer vacation.  No summer camps this week, only organizing school supplies and cooler weather clothing.  We're trying on backpacks and making sure our lunch totes fit into the backpacks.  And, we are talking about lunches.

As I was reading about Portland Public School's new nutrition plan, I needed to organize my thoughts and cupboards around the lunches that await us.  I asked my first-grader to make a list of her favorite lunch items (we pack lunch almost every day), and I reminded her that she needed to have a protein, a fruit, and a veggie with every meal.  I typically stay away from packing snacks or granola bars, fearing that those would be the only items eaten when it came to lunch.  I am checking out the archives for suggestions on what's for lunch, here and here, but why not restart the conversation anew?  Come next week, what are you packing in the kids' lunchboxes?

Interested in learning more about bringing healthful food to our schools?  See how you can support local and larger-scale efforts through the Ecotrust Farm to School work.

Monroe, finally, seemed ready for potty training. He started to have a more positive response to the question, "do you want to try to go potty?" My sister (who teaches preschool for two- and three-year-olds, and babysits for me regularly) bought him a bag of gum drops from Trader Joe's, and started offering them as prizes. His early intervention specialist mentioned the way to tell he was ready was, could he be dry through the night? And the next night, I let him go the night in his underwear, and sure enough: he made it!

So we began; put away the diapers and started the slow progress toward an accident-free future. Emphasis on slow. Though he lately seems to have almost conquered the pee accidents, the poop accidents are frequent. So we're on a potty training diet.

The first thing off my list was corn on the cob. We don't eat it much, anyway, as I rarely buy fresh food that's out of season, and it's not something I love enough to freeze. But Everett had asked for some, and there was sorta-local corn cheap at Limbo. Four corn-kernel-filled pairs of underwear later, gross gross gross, and I declared (quietly, to myself, no point in reminding him he loves it) NO MORE CORN. Yesterday, I let him have blueberries, against my better judgment. Yuck. Three times cleaning blueberry poop off the floor was enough to have me questioning that (delicious and healthy but oh! messy!) food, too.

It seems like a perfectly rational plan, to me, to limit the diet to less-poop-inducing foods while you're in the worst of potty training's throes. Maybe my brain is a bit addled by the ick. Have any of you done this? What foods have you, umm, eliminated?

I mentioned the other day that our lemonade stand featured homemade product made with organic lemons and organic agave sweetener.  I did not mention that we do not normally stock these products.  My husband bought the lemons when they went out for a walk, and they were considered a "treat" for the kids.  The agave sweetener was on sale at the market and - with a Chinook Book coupon - was cheaper per unit than sugar.  

A couple of years ago, we talked about how to balance our food buying: how can we buy healthful foods on a budget?  Where are you shopping now?  How have you changed what you buy?  Are there items you buy only organic, but others you buy conventional due to price?  Do you take advantage of local fruit and veggies, canning, preserving, and freezing for later in the year?  Buying clubs are also on the rise locally.  I myself am a new member of the North Portland Buying Club, and another urbanMama (Sarah) is a member of Know Thy Food.  Perhaps you are a member of a group purchasing club in your neighborhood?

Feeding our little folk is such a big thing for us mamas.  Especially in the younger tender ages, when we want them to grow, but also develop healthful eating habits and preferences.  I am often thinking about this these days, as my littlest is just about 10 months old, enjoy trying new foods, tastes, textures, smells.  I am a bit more sensitive about it all, as he is pretty much off-the-charts on the little growth percentile graph.... I'm talking negative percentile.  Ah, well.  I'm not too worried about it, but I do wonder what are delicious, enticing, amazingly nutritious things we could feed the littlest of the littles?  I am glad that I'm not the only mama wondering.  An urbanMama recently emailed:

I was wondering if you could do a post about what and how much does your young toddler eat?  My daughter is 16 months old and it is a constant struggle wondering if she is eating enough.

Last year, I was invited to join a group of amazing women, mostly food writers or bloggers, but a few simply passionate about preservation, in Seattle, Philadelphia and a few other locales to help promote the Canvolution -- a celebration of Canning Across America all year long that culminated in a weekend Can-a-rama. In cities across the country, canners were invited to host events in which beginning and experienced putter-uppers would join together in something like the harvest parties of old.

The inaugural event was scheduled for the weekend of Hood-to-Coast; much though I wanted to host something, it was a little more than I could juggle. I canned alone on Sunday when I returned home from a lot of mostly-sleepless running. I was lucky enough, though, to be invited to a tomato canning party in September, giving me the community canning fix to get me through the winter (and, for the record, I canned enough tomatoes! -- with my solo jars and the product of our canning party, 70 pints were more than my family needed). I've been inviting a few friends over for strawberry jam-making on Wednesdays, and though it's been a bit chaotic, it's been lovely, too. And the jam has been delicious!

This year I was thrilled to see the Can-a-rama scheduled for the weekend of July 24 and 25. Immediately, I knew I'd host a canning party; every time I've mentioned food preservation here, I've had at least one commenter wonder, how can I learn to can food? This will be just a bit of a lesson, and it will be hands-on and messy and probably hot, but it should be fun.

I'm planning to book a solid day of harvesting and preserving on Saturday, July 24; we'll begin by harvesting some plums from a neighbor's tree, then make a number of preserves based on those plums (including jam, a savory sauce and perhaps plum pickles), and probably some other preserves -- blueberry, apricot, zucchini? -- based on what's bountiful and cheap that week. I'll demonstrate both water-bath canning and lacto-fermentation; but no pressure canning. I think my Southeast Portland home can fit about a dozen mamas and papas; I'd love to see parties clustered around neighborhoods so that you all could use this as a community-building as well as a teaching/learning/food-securing opportunity. (If you want to host but aren't into the coordination, leave a comment and I'll help.)

I know that other mamas have mentioned to me before that I may want to tame my love for dairy when it came to my babe's current eczema.  The suggestion was reinforced by the pediatrician the other day.  So, I begrudgingly committed to cutting the cheese, even though cheese and milk has become a larger and larger part of my diet as I have started to eat less and less meat.

That evening, faced with tight schedules of piano lessons, basketball practice, and bath times, my husband suggested picking up a pizza from one of our reliable chains.  Great idea!  I like to reserve one night a week for a quick and easy pizza.

WRONG.  I took the piping hot pizza out of the oven and thought "doggonit!"  Hungry, I looked sadly at our dinner.  Too exhausted to really fix anything else, I think I had salad for dinner.  A lot of it.

I've been watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (along with a lot of you, I know) and I can't tell if my blood is boiling hotter than my tears are stinging, or vice versa. During the third episode last Friday, I was in need of a good noseblow by the end. I think it was the stunning failure of Oliver to inspire anything like interest in real food in the kids in episode two that hurt the most, and it was the chicken nugget bit that had people talking. I wrote about it: "When he showed children how chicken nuggets are made -- grinding up the least desirable parts of a bird, gloppily straining out the bones, and adding flavorings and fillers -- he expected them to refuse to eat them. Instead, after having cried 'ewww!' and 'gross!' they each asked for a patty, answering his bewilderment with: 'We're hungry!' ...

"Though part of Oliver's stunt was pure fiction -- 'Thankfully, chicken nuggets in this country are not made this way,' he clarified before heading off to cleave a carcass into pieces -- it's part of a wider movement that's calling out processed fake food by name and calling for it to be eliminated from children's diets." What surprised me was how many of the people I know (and plenty I don't) started talking about how chicken nuggets were now off their family's menu.

There's a lot not to like in Oliver's show. There are the cafeteria workers, who grumble and complain when Oliver dares to bring real chicken and potatoes in need of a peeler into the kitchen, where the comfort food comes in a box and needs only to be heated up. There are the rules that say Oliver's many-vegetable pasta "isn't a cup and a fourth" of vegetables (he has to serve fries with his healthy fare to make it up) and that every meal needs to have "two breads" even if those breads are both halves of an extremely processed, nutrition-bereft pizza crust and that schools need to have "two kinds of milk" which often means milk that's been colored pink and sugar-added. There is all that sugar, so much sugar that Oliver himself has been making special note of it. In that post on Moms Rising, he writes, "Ask a pediatrician (or a teacher for that matter) to identify the biggest enemy of child’s health and they will answer,” sugar”. You put beautiful little kids in school, 180 days of the year, from four to 18 and nearly every choice offered to them is some version of junk food."

And there's the grocery store, where the aisles are packed with sugary treats disguised as healthy food. There's the "Froot Loops" and the happy-dippy commercials stacked five solid in our kids' favorite TV shows, the ones that say cheerfully, "part of this good breakfast!" (I tell Everett, overhearing one, "you know, that's not really a good breakfast..." "I KNOW, mom," he replies.) There is the yogurt (even the organic stuff), whose makers feel it necessary to pack it with so much sugar that one eight-ounce serving is as much sugar as the AHA recommends kids have in a day. There are the "fruit snacks," the lemonade which has no lemon juice, the trail mix with so many ingredients I have to look twice to see if there are really raisins and peanuts.

There are our kids, who eat a bunch of candy on Easter or when a well-meaning aunt or uncle stops by, or we ourselves let them go crazy at Starbucks' pastry counter, and then proceed to act horribly, fighting over Froot Loops and Skittles and Petite Vanilla Bean Scones until we cover our ears with our hands and scream, "no more candy, EVER!" (Is that just me?)

In all this craziness, I'm happy to see that more scrutiny is being placed on the harmful quality of junk food, poor quality meats, white bread and the abhorrent state of the "reimburseable meals" provided in our schools. It seems hopeful. It also seems crushing: how many cafeteria ladies will have to be convinced that kids might eat broccoli if we keep offering it to them? How many hard decisions will have to be made -- no chocolate milk, french fries once a week, a re-categorization of "food" in the food stamps even -- how will we pay for it?

A nice mama took me up on my offer from the post about Jamie Oliver, and came over Thursday for a cooking lesson. While I'd quizzed her on likes and dislikes before she came (no mushrooms, she said, and her husband wasn't an onion fan), we hadn't really talked about what she wanted to learn. "I feel overwhelmed," she said, with a 14-month-old in the kitchen and a tight budget. "How do people just always have what they need on hand?"

We quickly realized that she didn't need help figuring out how to dice and peel and saute: she needed to be released from the stress of a recipe. She's one of those people (on the other end of the spectrum of home cooks than I) who must absolutely put two teaspoons of thyme into a recipe if it calls for two teaspoons of thyme, and if she can't find thyme or if it's very expensive or if she gets home and realizes she has, after all, no balsamic vinegar (just cider), or whatever: she panics.

What she needed, I said, was to cook without a recipe at all. Just a process. That would save her from the planning, list-making, recipe-checking, budget-busting stress. She could just buy whatever she saw that was in season and inexpensive (or whatever was growing in her garden, arrived in her CSA box, or her mom had given her), and use the process to make it fit.

We made one thing: a cabbage black bean chili, in which I used the beans from the recipe I included in the first post, and I stressed throughout our time that weren't going to talk about quantities or requirements, just procedures, categories and maximums, and ways she could fit this process into her own family's life. One piece of advice I gave her was, I thought, universally useful, and that is to figure out what are your favorite and most versatile spices, and become comfortable enough with them so you'll always know how much to use. Mine are cumin, smoked paprika, dried chiles, cloves, nutmeg and allspice; other good standbys could include ginger, dry mustard, star anise, thyme, dill, cinnamon and cayenne or chipotle pepper. You could only have two or three (cumin and thyme and some sort of pepper, for instance) and still manage to make good food no matter what, I think. Buy the spices in bulk (Limbo has a fantastic fresh spice and herb aisle; many other neighborhoods sport their own super spice sources) and you'll save money and ensure freshness.

Below is the process for bean soup I used. This is an endlessly great way to make soups, and could be vegetarian, vegan, or thoroughly meaty-creamy, depending on which options you picked. The one we made was delicious! And though I'll probably never make it exactly like that again, I'm sure we'll make many more great soups in our day that will best even that.

I think we've all heard these statistics by now, right? We're raising the first generation of kids who won't outlive their parents -- their life expectancy is 10 years less than ours. Obesity will cost $150 billion this year -- 10% of our health care costs -- and that's projected to be doubled by 2020. Diet-related diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, and many cancers, are by far and away the biggest killers, far worse than even auto accidents. Why?

Jamie Oliver, in his TED talk that has everyone talking, has pegged a couple of culprits. Fast food is one; sugar is two. And we're starting to realize that it's not just high fructose corn syrup that's bad; it's all kinds of processed sugar. Even that "raw" brown sugar in the sweet brown packets. Sugar in the chocolate milk (it's truly terrible; one carton of the stuff has more sugar than the American Heart Association suggests a child have in a day, and more than soda), sugar in the yogurt, sugar in the breakfast cereal, sugar in the ketchup, sugar in the peanut butter and the jelly and the bread, sugar in the pizza sauce for goodness' sake.

And where is this killer food being served? In our schools, first. Even when fresh local cooked-on-site food is available, there's an alternative that includes yogurt, chocolate milk, chicken nuggets, pizza. In our homes, second. We're killing our kids. (Not just other people. Me. Everett's lunch yesterday: yogurt and "I don't want to talk about it any more.") What's more, in many classrooms Jamie's visited, kids don't even know what fresh food looks like. A radish is maybe celery, maybe an onion; an eggplant is maybe a pear; one kid doesn't recognize a potato in its skin. Jamie doesn't mince words: we are, he says, committing child abuse by feeding kids this junk.

His takeaway is this: "I wish for everyone to help create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, to inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity."

How can we do this? Here's one way: to cook, really cook, from scratch. I don't mean "a can of this and a can of that" from scratch; I mean carrots and potatoes and cabbages and dry beans. Take our kids into the kitchen (even if they're just playing with the water in the sink while you peel and chop); take them to the market; buy vegetables and fruits whole; plant a garden (you can put peas and spinach and lettuce and broccoli raab in now!). Here's one recipe I've been making that's easy, easy, cheap, and delicious -- Everett likes it just plain but I dress it up with plain yogurt, hot sauce, and some braised kale or cabbage:

Just a week behind, I finally got around to reading an article in the NYT that considers treating soda like tobacco - through taxes, warning labels, and big public awareness campaigns to discourage consumption.  Also recalling a recent (California) study that linked soda consumption to obesity, it made me consider my own soda consumption, both as a child growing up and now as a parent.

Growing up, soda was the drink of choice in the household once my brothers and I were in the elementary years.  My parents drank a lot of soda.  We, the children, we allowed to drink Sprite but weren't allowed to drink Coke.  "It has caffeine; it's bad for you!"  It was my body-image issues that led to counting every calorie when I was a certain age, which is when I stopped drinking soda.  All the empty calories!  In my adulthood, I drank diet soda from time-to-time.  I recall having a Diet Coke every afternoon during my second pregnancy.

Our girls have rarely had soda.  There are some birthday parties where soda may be the only option, and - while I have suggested they try it - they have never liked the stuff.  Last fall, the family gifted me a carbonator for my birthday, to fuel my love for soda water, and - as a special treat - we have also made some cherry-flavored (cherry extract, sugar, water, and some CO2) soda for the kids.  But, even that, they don't so much love.  Sometimes they girls will tell me, coming home from playdates, that their friends offered them soda with their snacks.  All in all, though, we don't seem to be big soda drinkers.  We don't buy the stuff.

Do you drink soda?  How much?  A serving or two a day?  Maybe once in a while when you go out?  Maybe never?  How about the kids?  When did they first have soda?  Do they like it and ask for it?

Never one to shy away from an opportunity to hyperbolize food, I was enthralled with my neighbor Camellia's email today, asking me to try a recipe for raw, vegan "brownies," and write about them here in the context of life-changing food. What, she asked, are the simple, healthy, delicious recipes we couldn't feed our families without? 

Immediately, I thought of my favorite shortbread cookies, made with measures of brown rice flour, whole wheat flour, and white flour; honey; and plenty of butter. They put me at peace despite the fat content; it's all whole "real" foods and it's giving us the sweet cookie fix we all crave with a hefty dose of whole grains and none of the processed sugar I've come to fear. I also love the "recipe" Truman and I devised; stir together plain hazelnut or sunflower butter, honey, and a few drops of vanilla, eat with a spoon (that was breakfast today). And of course, there are zinemama's zucchini carrot muffins, shared with us just yesterday (great way to use up frozen grated zucchini!).

As soon as I have 20 minutes to shell the walnuts (gathered, appropriately, from the enormous tree behind her house), I plan to try these out; she, like me, had been treating herself regular with pieces of chocolate bar and these -- with only the whole-foods sugar of the dates -- are a far less compromising luxury. And if you like these, also try the homemade "Lara Bar" recipes here and here. Please, share your recipes that delight both kid and parent alike with their delicious wholesomeness! Camellia's and my recipes are in the "more" portion of the post.

Thank goodness for Asha of Parenthacks, who tweeted about 45 minutes before I was due to pick Truman up from his last day of preschool before the break. She was making this chai concentrate from the Oregonian (lots of good homemade food gift ideas in this series, too) for her kids' teachers. Forty-one minutes later, I'd decided upon some of my fanciest jars of homemade preserves and decorative doohickeys to cover the lids, and off I went. But now I must get together gifts for Everett's teachers to avoid (I type only 16-some hours before his bus picks him up) the last minute.

Last year I had it really together, and purchased farmer's market tokens the Saturday prior to the last week of school. Smart hmm? I even made sweet little notes mentioning our favorite vendors and pointing out that the last farmer's market of the season would be the Saturday after school got out. Though I still think that this is a great idea (more on that later), not only did my gifts almost not get given due to snowed-out school, the last market day of the year was so cold Portland Farmer's Market canceled. Sure, the tokens were good in the spring, but who knows if the teachers remembered where they put them.

While most of we urbanMamas founders had little ones in daycare, we chatted about gifts for daycare providers. Among the comments there was a link to this post about teacher gifts; throughout all these I found many good ideas and themes. Here are some of the most commonly-mentioned ones:

• Gift certificates are the best gift of all (though rarely, teachers find them impersonal). Not only did one daycare provider ask for "a certificate to either a toy store or a supply store. Why? Because, I swear, I lose at least one toy a day due to toddler destruction," but gift certificates can be regifted (I suspect my middle sister, a teacher, of having done this on more than one occasion). I thought my farmer's market token idea was brilliant at the time; but you may want to choose a year-round market.
• Gift certificate ideas: coffee shop, New Seasons, craft store, toy store, restaurant you know is convenient to teacher's home/school, co-op (I saw Truman's preschool teacher at People's so I can give her a GC with confidence!), Fred Meyer, spas, massage therapists, Escential, Powell's, one of Portland's awesome chocolate shops (Alma or Sahagun), other ideas?  
• Winter-themed or holiday-themed ornaments, either purchased or made by your children, are welcome for teachers if you know what holiday they celebrate. Warning: make sure you're certain they celebrate Christmas before giving them Jesus in a popsicle-stick manger.
• Food gifts. The Oregonian, as I mentioned, had a nice roundup of gift ideas; hot cocoa mix spiced with something unusual (chile? cinnamon? star anise?), homemade preserves (especially ice cream toppings), homemade spice blends, dried chiles, and pickles seem good choices. Buy some fantastic finishing salt from the Meadow, if you really love your child's teacher (vanilla salt!). Homemade vanilla is the hot gift this year (so says my Twitter stream); I'm making one batch with a star of star anise in addition to vanilla (I tested this myself and it's delicious -- but if you make it tonight, be sure and add a best-by date on label). However. Please remember, this being the city it is, many many people have very strict food rules, either due to values or aversions or allergies or some other things altogether (fear of pesticides maybe!). It would be unfortunate to give homemade Tollhouse cookie dough to a locavore teacher who doesn't do sugar or gluten. If you don't know, skip the food. At the very least, list ingredients with as much specificity as possible.
• Crafty mamas. I have faith in my ability to make something with my own hands that a teacher will like. Perhaps it's hubris, but I'm going with it. I am, I think, about to head upstairs to my sewing room to pull together some reusable market bags for Everett's teachers and such, into which if I am still in possession of calm children, I will put some sort of food gift. Other relatively quick-to-make ideas I've come across in the past several minutes: quilted list takers (sweet); recycled sweater hats; retro apron; handspun yarn or needle roll (if you know teacher is a knitter). I'd love to hear your ideas.
• Lotions & bath things. This wouldn't float my boat, but according to many online sources and real actual teachers, these are sometimes appreciated. To be safe (again remembering the city in which we live) I'd choose a brand with as few harmful surfactants and parabens and such as possible. One really excellent local brand is Wild Carrot Herbals; I met Jody, mama in charge, when she was hugely pregnant with her little daughter and I appreciate her products and principles mightily. You can find them at New Seasons, Limbo and People's Co-op (and probably other places, too).
• No mugs! (Although if I were a teacher I would love a mug made by a local potter; I'm not a teacher so don't assume ;).
• A nice letter. I was surprised how many times a teacher mentioned he or she treasured a thoughtful letter of appreciation. Especially, a hand-written one.

When I was about 5 or 6, I wanted desperately to fix myself food and snacks.  So, I made myself some toast.  I stood on a stool, I put in my two pieces of wonder bread in the slots, and I waited.  When the bread shot up, I reached to grab my slices, but I lost my footing.  My forearm landed squarely on the toaster.  Ouuuuuch!  It hurt so badly.  And, more than my forearm suffering some minor burns, I was more bruised by the feeling of ineptitude in the kitchen.

There must be a way to help our little ones gain confidence in the kitchen, with our guidance and supervision.  An urbanMama recently emailed:

My 18-month old daughter very much wants to be a part of helping Mommy and Papa cook.  So far one of us has held her up to watch the other, but this doesn't always work, and it doesn't give her a chance to be involved.  Bottom line is we have to find something that raises her up to where we're working.  We can't use a chair because we've been working on the whole "we don't stand on chairs" idea (and it's not safe, of course).  I am also not comfortable trying some kind of foot stool (too tippy).  Anyone found something that's worked for you?

How have you gotten the children more involved in the kitchen?  At what age?

Over the course of the past several years, I been by friends' sides as they have delivered new life into the world.  And, in ensuing weeks after their babies' births, I have delivered meals to their homes and ooh'ed and ahh'ed over their cute little snuggle-bugs.  One such meal was (embarassingly) a Papa Murphy's lasagna that I brought over to Sarah's house after Truman was born.  Alas, life is so busy for us mamas, with or without newborn.  It is a wonder how delicious, nutritious, fresh homemade meals are made by us busy mamas.  But, they are.

Today, my thrid child is three weeks old.  Already, I have been the gracious and humble recipient of meals and treats and even a few hours of donated time as mama's helper from a fellow mama.  There have been cakes, soups, pot pies, cookies, kale, bread, salad, wine, pasta, and chicken verde.  With all the fixin's.  Delivered to my door, which I open, unshowered, unbrushed, unrested and generally smelling of a savory mama milk and baby barf blend.  To you all, I am so grateful.

This is a wonderful gift to a new mama, no matter how many times I have been a mama to a newborn before.  It gives me time to cuddle with my littlest fella.  It gives me time to focus on helping his two big sisters with their homework or reading.  It gives me a little time to fold some laundry, because there is oh. so. much. laundry.  Every day.  And, a supremely lovely part is I don't have to think about it, I don't have to worry, I don't have to plan.  There are so many other things I need to be doing - namely nursing, diapering, sleeping, and putting someone else to sleep.

It all started weeks before our baby's arrival.  I was asked if we had any dietary restrictions (we don't) and whether we'd prefer meal deliveries every day or less frequently (every other day would be great, thank you).  And, voila!, our friends sent us a schedule of days we could expect a meal delivery.

So, now that I'm done oozing with my love and thanks, I ask you: have you been a recipient, participant, or organizer of one of these meal trains to serve the families of newborns?  Anything you would suggest for a seamless flow of food to the recipient family?  Anything else that seem to be "must-have" in-kind contributions for a family of a newborn?

It seems that each week brings a new bit of evidence or an old-but-new-to-me essay inspiring me to work even harder to ply my children with nutritious, slow, fresh, whole, inconvenient foods. This summer, I've been making progress, involving the kids in the magic of the garden and cooking foods they (supposedly) love in the slow, slow way. A few weeks ago, Everett harvested two pumpkins and brought them inside to me to make his favorite food: pumpkin pie. I did so, in a crust made of whole wheat flour and lard I rendered myself (I believe in high quality animal fats, but that's for another time), using that pumpkin from our front yard garden, eggs from our backyard chickens, and honey from the People's Co-op farmer's market. I worried that it wasn't sweet enough. Was too lumpy. Wouldn't be like that pie at the annual Thanksgiving feast at his school.

He loved it, and offered a piece to a friend who came to visit, saying, "my mom made this, and it's really good!" There were tears, fat and heavy, in my eyes. I'd just finished reading this article about how a young man's diet is the best -- by far, far better than socio-economic class or community or parenting situation or playing violent video games or anything -- the best predictor of criminal behavior. Eat mostly junk food, you're more likely to go to jail. Period.

And yet, here we are, about to head back to school, where the lunchtime fare at most public schools is decidedly junk food. At Everett's school, it's particularly bad, and the teachers there will back me up. The vegetables that are available are so burned by refrigerants, or spoiled, they're inedible. The rare fruits and veggies that survive the weeks (or longer?) from harvest to lunch tray are doused in chemical preservatives and, often, sugar. The meat is from the lowest possible quality sources; the baked goods are thoroughly packed with processed ingredients. Whole foods are cut up and wrapped in plastic. The best thing there is yogurt, and that's full of sugar. Each meal surely exceeds the new recommendation from the American Heart Association that we severely limit our daily added sugar intake. The real food at Everett's school is rare (and he insists on eating school lunches; he's struggling mightily with other kids making fun of him, so I don't dare put my foot down).

It could be better. Slow Food USA is working to to advocate for this. Today, right now (I should have written this earlier!) in conjunction with the awesome Time Based Art festival, is a Slow Food Eat-In picnic as part of the National Day of Action to get real food in schools. I am going. I am bringing a salad I made of green beans (cut in half crosswise and cooked about six minutes in boiling water) sauteed with cherry tomatoes (cut in half) and crushed garlic -- all from my garden -- in a little bacon fat, and tossed with salt and feta cheese. It's real food and I harvested it today. I know this can't be the lunch at Everett's school tomorrow. But it should be, some day.

And I'd love to share some with you if you can make it to this event. There's one in NE Portland, tonight, too. Or tell your real-food-in-schools story, here.

I've long subscribed to a variant of the theories out of Take the Fight Out of Food, an excellent book I recommend to those who are suffering from food issues. While I don't always execute my theories quite as they're devised in the ideal parenting lab that is my brain (ahh, if only I could be the perfect mama I have designed there!), they've been working pretty well for me. Essentially, the concept is to present a variety of healthful food options, and occasional treats, constantly expose your children to new foods, but never make a big deal out of what they actually eat. Don't set up "good" and "bad" foods; use words more along the lines of "foods that make your taste buds happy" and describe the physical benefits of other foods; protein gives you strength and makes your brain work better, etc. (And along the lines of our sweets conversation, Donna Fish, the author, has a great post on how to handle dessert battles here.)

So I was thrilled to read this interview with Michael Pollan, one of my writerly food heroes, about his now-16-year-old son and his past food issues. He was a "white food eater" when he was young; he'd eat chicken, potatoes, bread, rice, and nothing else. Upon reflection, Pollan believed this was due to his need to reduce sensory input (he doesn't say it, but I wonder if the boy was diagnosed with a sensory integration disorder). In fact, it was his son's "tortured" relationship with food that got him interested in writing about it.

About two years ago, Pollan's son began to suddenly expand his food repertoire, and after working in a kitchen for a summer began cooking seriously, and is now a "food snob" who makes a port wine reduction to go with the grass-fed steak his dad cooks for dinner. (I can only dream.)

It's a relief to a mama like me.

Ok, I'll 'fess up: I've been casing out overgrown kale plants in my neighborhood, considering knocking on doors to offer my services as a volunteer harvester. The kale, the broccoli, the arugula and collards and brussels sprouts that have overwintered are now going splendiferously to seed. And what's shooting up like green and yellow fireworks is delicious. It's called "raab" or "rapini" or "rapa," and this is not the first time I've sung its praises.

Last weekend at the farmer's market, I asked about the price of some bunches of raab at the Viridian Farms booth. It was only the middle of the day but her veggies were already picked-over; the farm focuses on berries and peppers, so April is a quiet month. "Two dollars," she said. The bunches were huge and my eyes lit up. "No, $1, they're looking pretty limp." I handed over two dollars before she negotiated further (heh), and asked what kind of raab it was. "Arugula."

I always thought I didn't like arugula, but I sauteed one bunch up as soon as I arrived home, relegating to the pantry the booty of two bunches of kale raab and one of brussels sprouts raab ("it's only available this time of year!" the farmer said as another customer considered a bunch, critically -- some varieties, like Italian broccoli, produce raab year-round and are very easy to grow in a NW garden).

Unlike most veggies that can be prepared so many ways, I believe there is one best way to eat raab -- unless of course you have a garden, and you should just nibble straight from the stalk; the not-quite-open florets are the best part, along with the tender new leaves. I call it "raab one way" and I've detailed my method here at Culinate. Once you've cooked it, you can eat it straight, or toss into scrambled eggs or a frittata; with raw, chopped garlic or green garlic, white beans or lentils, and olive oil for a warm salad; as a bed for poached or fried eggs, with hollandaise, if you're the sort of person who makes hollandaise sauce; on a homemade pizza (I think a white pizza or pizza formaggi would be perfect); tossed with pasta (strozzapretti or gemelli would be fun, or fusilli), garlic and some sort of good hard cheese or fresh chevre; or with smokey blue cheese and canned roasted peppers or dried tomatoes.

Raab, more than anything, is a simple spring vegetable, full of newness and tender sweetness, a burst of spring, reminiscent of the plant underneath but mellower, brighter, its winsome little sister. You'll fall in love, like me, and chances are your children will too. (Everett, seeing a pot of sauteed raab on the counter: 'Oooh! Greens!' and makes himself a plate.)

My neighbor, Camellia Nieh, is a great gardener -- I often admire her skills from my window and have tasted many of her cherry tomatoes and other goodies. She offered to write an introduction to vegetable gardening in Portland, and I said, yes please!

As weather begins to warm, Portland gardeners begin to anticipate the joys of the growing seasons. Waking up on a sunny morning, strolling outside, and harvesting a basket of fresh tomatoes, basil, spinach, and chives for your morning omelet. Sending the kids out into the yard to graze on sugar snap peas, strawberries, and cherry tomatoes when they clamor for a snack. Browsing a bounty of ripening cucumbers, eggplants, and summer squash as you decide on a vegetable for dinner. Snipping a bowlful of baby greens to bring to a dinner party and garnishing it with edible gem marigolds, day lilies, and sweet violets.

The gardening buzz is everywhere. You’ve heard about the Obamas’ breaking ground for their vegetable garden at the white house, and about the resurgent victory garden movement. You know all the reasons. There’s the statistic about how our average meal travels 1500 miles to reach our plates, and the fact that switching to a local diet is equivalent to driving about 1000 miles less per year. And you’re painfully aware that the average American consumes a pound of pesticides a year, and that we don’t yet know how that chemical load will affect our kids’ growing bodies.

But if you’ve never grown your own food before, perhaps you’re not sure where to start. Not to worry. Growing edibles in Portland is easier than wrangling a wild banana slug. There are tons of resources in this town to help you get started, many of them inexpensive or free.

Spring is late this year, but everyone still has heavy, wide-eyed piles of one of the original, most thoroughly lowly, peasant foods: the cabbage. I can't believe it took me so long to discover the cabbage. I always treated the bulbous lady so badly, pushing her red fronds aside in college salad bars; eschewing the smarmy cups of coleslaw for her mushy cousin, potatoes and gravy; recoiling in horror from sauerkraut. I hate cabbage, I thought.

Oh me. You were so, so wrong. Or perhaps you were right; that cabbage wasn't loved, not the way my cabbage is now. The first farmer's market of the season I spent the better part of $10 on cabbage, and it's a good bet it will be all eaten within two weeks, and I haven't even made kim chi.

The first, best, most wonderful way to enjoy cabbage is a recipe I adapted from The Paley's Place Cookbook. Trust Vitaly Paley, with his Russian heritage and his local, seasonal mien, to deliver cabbage in its sweetest, truest form. I like savoy cabbage or red cabbage for this; the big heavy pale green heads don't turn as jammy, although sometimes I mix some green in with the red for a play of textures. Here is the recipe for honey-braised cabbage; it also calls for a little bacon fat (or olive oil), an onion and an apple, some vinegar and honey. I serve it with everything; with corned beef or sausages, spooned into lentil or potato soup, heaped into a bowl of pasta, mixed with leftover potatoes and grated beets and lots of fresh garlic for a surprisingly perky fried potato cake. It kind of disappears into soups, even as it adds sweetness, so it's great for kids (yes! mine have now eaten cabbage, and liked it!).

It's that time of year again.  In fact, we may even be a little late to the game to start thinking: how does your garden grow?  An urbanMama recently emailed to glean ideas for their new family garden:

It was almost a year ago when we started talking about our weekly grocery bill, finding ways to trim.  Now, with our local unemployment as one of the nation's highest and with many of our families in the throes of the recession, cutting costs is more important than ever.

With the economic downturn, I'm wondering how mamas and families are weighing shopping for healthy and sustainable food on a budget. I used to buy the organic milk, no question. However, our family often can't drink a half-gallon before it goes bad, and I haven't found organic milk in half-gallons. So now that I'm on a budget, I'm buying the quarts of local, hormone-free but non-organic milk. Same with eggs. The enviro side of me says go for the organic, but the thrifty side says the cage-free eggs are a good compromise. (Yes, backyard chickens are a good solution, and we're working on it, but that isn't for everyone.)

Do others have the same conflict? And if anyone has good leads where the two meet I'd love to hear. For example, I found the whole-wheat organic bread made at New Seasons is good stuff for $2.99 a loaf, cheaper than other organic breads and locally made. And if they happen to have some cooling in the back before they put it in bags, I can reuse the bag from the last loaf (if I remembered to bring it). You have to keep it in the freezer or it gets moldy fast.

Are you buying less organics due to the cost?  Are you finding organic products are increasingly available as affordable options?  Or, is the point moot because you find yourself shopping at discount supermarkets anyway, where organic goods are hard to find?  Are there economical ways to find healthful, minimally-processed food options?

It's time.

Today is the first day of the Portland Farmer's Market for the 2009 season, and chatting with other urbanMamas I discover that lots of you are expecting your first box of food from a CSA sometime in the next several weeks. And there are questions, mostly, what do I do with this? This weird knobby vegetable (if it's huge, it's celeriac; if it's tiny, it's a Jerusalem artichoke; both should be peeled and can be diced and used in soups or gratins); these four heads of cabbage (one for braising, one to chop and put in soups, two for kim chi, of course!); this enormous quantity of kale (rinse well, chop roughly, and put in a large cast iron or stainless steel pot, with several cloves of whacked garlic, a glug of oil or butter or bacon fat, and some salt, cook, stirring often, over medium heat until almost crispy, put in everything or serve alone).

But let me start over. I am here to help you with your quest to cook more vegetables (and the occasional fruit) and figure out what to do with what seems like way too much of something. Also, it would be good if your children ate some, too. Each week (or thereabouts) when I come home from the market I'll write a post about something that's in season and link to some recipes I love, and present a few for you. If you've just received a CSA box or a gardening neighbor's gift, or harvested a bumper crop, of some particular vegetable, leave a comment and I'll try to come up with some great (and easy) ideas. And hopefully I'll have a few sentences of gardening too.

This week, I'm getting a second round of peas planted outside, and a few kinds of onion seed; a bed of lettuce; and hopefully some carrots and potatoes, too. I'll start tomatoes, jalapenos, celery and artichokes inside -- this year I've promised myself I'll use a flourescent light to help them germinate, we'll see if it works out! What are you planting, harvesting, buying, and eating this week? I need to make some of the aforementioned kim chi, so I'll be picking up an extra cabbage or two at the farmer's market, a jar of jalapenos, some carrots, and some collard raab. I love that stuff.

If you can't make the national Farm to Cafeteria conference this weekend in Portland (drats) but are interested in the topic, you can learn what's going on and weigh in on OPB's Think Out Loud today, Friday 3/20 from 9 to 10 AM.  The title of the show is Local Lunch, and here's how they describe the issue:

Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup may not seem like the advance guard of a revolution, but that's exactly what Representative Brian Clem (D-Salem) is hoping for. Along with Rep. Tina Kotek, he's sponsoring House Bill 2800, which would provide up to $19 million in state money for schools that spend some of their federal dollars on Oregon food. What's Oregon food? Anything that was "produced, packaged, packed or processed" in the state. This is where the grilled cheese sandwiches come in.

Portland Public Schools is one of two districts taking part in a Kaiser Permanente-funded pilot program to see what happens when schools are given seven extra cents per meal to spend on local lunches. PPS chose to concentrate those pennies into monthly "local lunches" (grilled Tillamook Cheese sandwiches and Pacific Natural Foods' tomato soup were on offer this week). Gervais Schools decided to spread their grant money around more broadly. According to a recent report, the grant money triggered more in-state spending from the schools' existing coffers: grants of about $66,000 dollars turned into more than $225,000 spent on local products. What's more, argues Clem and other Farm to School supporters, that money in turn will itself have a multiplying effect as it makes its way around the state. The result, they say, will be healthier students, healthier farms, and a healthier economy.

If you can't listen this morning @ 9, you can always catch the rebroadcast tonight.  And of course you can join the conversation online, too - they regularly raise questions on the show that were posted online.

PS - They had another relevant show earlier this week on what books, plays, and other media are appropriate for school, and which are being censored right here in Oregon.  Check it out.

One of my new year's resolutions is to get more creative and interactive in the kitchen at dinnertime.  The kids have poured through their cookbooks, and I've told them we can choose any of the non-sweet recipes and we can give it a try.  We've had one recent recipe that is an overwhelming hit - both to make and to eat - an easy version of pad thai.

We've shared our dinner favorite recipes and we've also drummed up your inspiration for dinner meals.  We've even tried the freezer food assembly productions.  On the mama circuit of late, I can sense that we can use even more inspiration.  Have at it, mamas.  Please share some of your fool-proof, easy-to-make, well-balanced, and crowd-pleasing dinner tips.  We could always use some fresh ideas.

The hour is hovering bedtime, and it's already been a long day.  I can't wait for the kids to slumber, so I can get a little down time of my own.  In the mayhem of it all - dinner, bath, reading, and music - they always seem to ask, "Mama, can I have a snack?" right after I ask them to brush their teeth.

Growing up, every meal experience was an opportunity to bond and share quality time, snacks included.  I had a "midnight" snack at 9pm almost every night with my brothers and parents.  Chat and munch, chat and munch.  Sometimes, we had more conversation over snack than we did over dinner.  We have been big fruit & cheese lovers, so maybe we shared fruit or a slice of cheese and crackers.  And, a drink.  Formerly milk or water, now I may have some wine with my snack of berries.

To this day, I am a *horrible* nighttime snacker.  I think my midline is starting to tell me to reconsider my ways.  Nostalgia or hunger, I often give into the requests for the 7pm snack.  Milk and a cookie, fine.  Water and some pita chips, ok.  A bowl of cereal, sure.  I know, I know - it's horrible.

I can't be the only snacking culprit out there.  Am I dooming my kids for bad habits for years to come?  Like I am now a culprit of snacking?  I swear it's all the running and biking around makes me so ravenous at the 9pm hour!

Charity is very much top-of-mind this week. My husband is in the Army Reserves, and either we are the only large-ish family in his unit and thus deemed needful of charity based solely on the number of mouths to feed, or perhaps he has slightly exaggerated our financial plight (I'm freelancing as our main source of income right now, and while the work is plentiful, my time is not so much). Either way we have received two gift baskets in the past week, both stocked with hams, a pound of margarine, and various canned goods and other nonperishables. I am grateful. And yet, given my now year-long commitment to feed my family organic, fairly traded, as-local-as-possible food, it's been a challenge deciding how to face a six-year-old who I found hoarding two boxes of cake mix and a package of Sara Lee dinner rolls in his bedroom. Among other things. One day I'll let the boys gorge themselves on Trix, Campbell's chicken noodle soup, and chocolate icing straight out of the carton, the next day I hide it all and force-feed them sourdough whole wheat baked goods and raw milk. As a culture, we believe that one should not look a gift horse in the mouth and that those receiving charitable assistance should be pleased to eat whatever GMO-ridden, conventional, processed, sugar-packed, wrapped-up-in-excess-packaging goods the givers choose.

I am torn. I wish to be grateful and am thrilled that such largess exists. I know that those who assembled the gift packages did so out of a genuine and generous wish to make our lives better. (And the PGE gift card that was included in one of them will, indeed!, make our lives better. If anyone should be struggling over what to get for a needy family -- go with the PGE gift card!) And at the same time I wish I could somehow send a message to all those who shop for holiday gift baskets and ask if they might consider getting big bags of Bob's Red Mill organic whole wheat flour, and a dozen eggs from Kookoolan Farms, and perhaps a nice local ham from Sweet Briar Farms or the Pacific Village cooperative.

There's something really appealing about having food magically appear on our front porch, especially given the multiple barriers between me and the grocery store these days.  Plus, somehow I figure that if it lands on our porch, we'll eat it, brussel sprouts and all.  My husband says no, it'll just rot.  And he's the cook in our house, so his opinion carries serious weight. 

One friend introduced me to the Noris Dairy idea (my kids drank that r-e-a-l milk like it was a narcotic), and someone else raved about her Organics To You delivery (and after a quick visit to its web site, I admit to liking the varied options re box size and contents).  And then there's Azure Standard for bulk items. 

It's (really) nice to have so many options, and in the slow food capital of the country, I'm not surprised.  But which to choose?  47th Avenue Farm is right in town (and a true CSA), and then there are those groovy new businesses that'll farm your yard - or someone else's - and give you the edible results.  Like The Backyard Farmer.

So have you signed up for one of these services?  If so, which one?  Thumbs up or thumbs down?  Eating more veggies or just composting more on the back end?  'Cause I'm ready to sign me up.  If for no other reason than the excitement for the kids of ripping open the box to see what's there. 

Are you ready for something healthy and sustainable after that talk about childhood obesity? Remember: today is the Local Lunch at Portland Public Schools cafeterias all over town. I'm heading to Pioneer School today to eat lunch with Everett (and pay penance for having screwed up the dates and missed his annual Thanksgiving Feast parent lunch yesterday, ouch!). The menu appears to have changed slightly and is now "Oven Roasted Glazed Chicken featuring Draper Valley Farms Natural Chicken." Either way, I'm looking forward to having lunch with my little boy; as Aliza Wong wrote so eloquently in her entry on Culinate, eating lunch with your child is good no matter what the ingredients.

This morning, the OPB call-in radio program, Think Out Loud, will discuss the issue of childhood obesity (at 9am and 9pm).  According to the Oregon State Physical Activity and Nutrition Program, one in four of our children are overweight.  The proportion of overweight children in our state is increaing.  The percentage of children who don't eat enough fruit & veggies is high (60%).

Despite the fact that we like to model good behavior with all our biking, homemade food, and additive-free cereal or bread choices, obesity remains a reality in our community.  The Think Out Load episode explores:

Have you struggled with childhood obesity? Are you the parent of an overweight or at-risk kid? Are you a teacher or school counselor? What barriers do you see for kids who are fighting the battle of the bulge? Who is ultimately responsible for preventing childhood obesity?

Feel free to listen, call in, or discuss here or there.