What's on the Menu?

An oldie but a goodie re-run for today.

Each week I post a menu, including Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner and Snack, plus notes of who has hot lunch and if there are any specials –like a team Pizza Night or some such. When I first started the Menu, there were of course, complaints.

“I …DON’T…LIKE...CHICKEN!” Ignoring the fact that pasta was also listed for that evening, such that he didn’t have to eat the chicken, he howled at the injustice of it all. Having chicken simply available was tantamount to a poisoning of the dining experience in my seven year old’s mind.

Similarly, my oldest groaned when he saw pasta without meatballs listed, and another day where eggs were the primary source of protein. He lives on red meat and potatoes, or would if the budget allowed. When the nine year old stamped her foot in protest of seeing beans as the selected vegetable for a night with hamburgers, I instituted two new rules regarding meal time.

Complaints equals Kitchen Patrol.

Reaching back into family lore, I took a tip from my Granddaddy’s days as a herder in Southeast Texas. Cowboys had a simple rule about meal time. If you complained, you got to do the dishes. Granddaddy had made it a point of honor to never get stuck with KP duty. One evening, so the story goes, his fellow cowboys and field hands plotted to get “Green” to do clean up. They laced his scrambled eggs with enough Tabasco to kill a Bull.

Granddaddy sat down to his eggs and took a bite. His eyes popped and he stood up quickly, “Boy That’s HOT!” he gasped.

Everyone’s eyes were on him as he stood. The he smiled, “But it’s just the way I like it.”

Granddaddy never did have to do dishes.

My children are inspired by his wit and such a devotion to avoiding unnecessary and unpleasant tasks, and thus have learned not to make such announcements in the presence of their Mother.

The second rule is a concession on my part to the legitimacy of not agreeing with the menu planner’s choices. It also eliminates sullen faces at the table. If a child objects strongly to the dinner on tap, they may request the option of cold cereal, provided they make the request before the meal is actually served. This also prevents my getting overly frustrated at having fixed a meal which no one eats or fretting over the fact that someone did not eat at all.

Special Orders Upset Us.

I admit, the mistake was ours to begin with, we wanted to raise strong minded individuals. We now must cope with their individualized opinions about how food should be prepared and augmented. We have learned that the transitive property that works so well with algebra (if a=b and b=c then a=c) does not work with children and food.

Take hotdogs as a prime example. All of my children will happily scarf down up to three hot dogs a piece, or as many as money and parental patience will allow, sans condiments or any special preparation techniques, if we are at a ball park.

At home however, their appetites become a bit more selective. The oldest likes his grilled with the buns toasted and then adds ketchup or mustard, depending upon his mood.

The second prefers hers sans bun with ketchup or chili on the side for dipping.

My third wants her dogs boiled and in a soft bun, no condiments.

The forth likes two in soft not crunchy buns and will accept boiled or grilled if the grilled have no black. He also uses ketchup excessively.

The fifth likes hers to be obliterated by ketchup but for the bun to be absolutely “clean” but toasted. I don’t know how this is possible physically.

The sixth howls for a bun but eats his dog cut up, dipping it in ketchup and usually rips the bun into shreds and molds it into a gooey inedible red ball of dough before asking for seconds.

In the interest of self preservation, I haven’t introduced the toddlers to hot dogs yet.

The Trifecta List

Some of this knowledge has become so routine for me that it is institutional memory. As such, I forget that when visitors like grand parents show up, my frame of reference for meal time is radically skewed from most people’s reality. As such, I tried to create a list of meals entitled, Trifectas. For babysitters and grand-parents and any other friends and family who for some reason have to take on the task of cooking for my horde, these meals were guaranteed successes.

Upon examining my first three choices, Pancakes and Bacon, Spaghetti and Meatballs and Fietas with Beans and Rice, I found each involved a level of complexity that rivaled the Hot Dog senario.

Looking at the list, my in-laws opted to run the kitchen like short order chefs, cooking each child’s meals separately and my parents when they visit, just order out.

I revised the menu for babysitters and Grandparents: Cold cereal, it’s what’s for dinner.

The Cost of Sweet Nothings

The News is screaming these days about the price of food.

It seems to have increased by a third.

I haven’t noticed, not because I don’t shop, or because our budget hasn’t been hit.

I haven’t noticed, because for the past five years, whatever food I bring home gets ripped through by a horde of happy raccoons within five minutes of darkening our doorway.

So I’m aware that it cost more, for the price of air.

The other day, I spent two hours at the store. I had brought a list. I had planned a menu. All the organizer/budgetary/helpful how to manage your family type books and web sites suggest using such things. I had even used coupons. I felt like a good mom. I unloaded and then went to pick up my little darlings from Mother’s Day Out and school.

When I got home, there was a need for a double diaper change which took me out of commission for a few minutes, followed by a phone call and a frantic search for the Spanish to English Dictionary for one’ child’s homework. I returned to the kitchen to prepare snack.

You know that 70’s commercial about the American Indian crying by the side of the freeway at the sight of pure devastation?

Green apples in refrigerator –gone. Well, okay, that’s alright, at least it was healthy. Sure I planned to hand those out the next day for school lunches but…hey…the apples are still here, on the table. Five of them have bites out of them. Who was the apple eater? Goldilocks had sampled the fruit until she found the one that was JUST RIGHT. Then there was the little matter of the two children opening a cereal box, and a fourth making two peanut butter and banana (Nuts, that’s my back up plan for tomorrow’s fruit in lunch), sandwiches.

Lest one think I only deal in healthy issues, I checked the closet. The box of five sets of Zebra Cakes? Open. Down to two. The Chips Ahoy, the only processed cookie my middle son eats? A sleeve is missing.

OKAY. I do not use my inside voice. WHO HAS EATEN? I wait for responses. It seems, each of them have now had a snack, they just each chose different ones, leaving six separate foraging trails for me to follow. I declare war. I threaten major chaos. I promise a semester worth of snack baggies filled with nothing but raisins and celery if I don’t see some major clean up detail. I promise to purchase freeze dried space bar ice cream and store brand beef jerky instead.

They think I’m bluffing.

So I remind them, I write fiction. I write articles. I could make a query to a magazine…Frugal Mom or some such on how to economize during this fiscally turbulent time. We’ll live on oatmeal, pasta and eggs for a month. It will make a great piece, feeding a family of ten on just ten dollars a day…what a hook…

There is a flurry of cleaning activity and a few verbal commitments to follow the menu schedule. Still, there is a seventh child I haven’t seen yet. I take the remaining fruits out to the second fridge to keep them safe until the next day. There is my four year old in pure chocolate bliss, having found the Double Stuff Oreos and done just that.

“These are my favors Mom.” He says in a goey voice. There is a layer of top soil cookie crumbs on his hands and face. He offers me a cookie.

Looking at the refrigerator, I eat the cookie and take another. It’s very expensive rare air, but it still tastes good.

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