Eating Out, Together

There is a restaurant not far away, quite well known for breakfast, that states on the menu something to the effect of "when dining with children, please order for them immediately". I have eaten there exactly one time and I broke all the rules, did not order for my children immediately, and was scolded by the waiter.

This very common child dining concept has never worked for us. You sit down,  flip open the menu to the children's section, quickly choose something from the limited and predictable options, close the menu and order for the children. You entertain them for the few precious minutes it takes to warm up some frozen chicken parts and then sit back and enjoy your time while they devour their meal. And then they are ready to go, because they are finished eating, just as your food arrives. I can't blame them; unless I am left with a lovely Pinot Noir and the company of wonderful friends, I am generally ready to leave the restaurant once I've finished eating.

Because our idea of eating out with the children has always been to actually eat with them, we learned early on to decline the invitation to order their food immediately. We sit down, we talk about the restaurant, we talk about the kind of food we think they might serve. We look at the menu. Even now, with two reading seven year old girls, often we must request menus for them because many places seat us with only two menus.  They read their own menu now, and we discuss their choices. When it is time to order they do so for themselves, even when the server looks directly at me and says "and what are they having?". We wait. We talk about the day, or the weather, school, upcoming vacations, places we'd like to visit, favorite places to eat guacamole, and who needs new sandals for summer. The food arrives and we eat it, together. And when we are all finished we leave.

Bibimbap

Eating out together, not powering through a meal, works for us.

View more of my food related ranting here, at Chicago Now.

Really, Some of Our Best Friends are Hispanic

Several months ago Kate wrote a letter to the Alderman, pointing out the lack of coffee shops and bakeries, and the abundance of banks, in her neighborhood. We never heard back, he did not email or mail any response, which I found to be a bit odd, especially for a newly elected Alderman whose correspondent was a 7 year old future voter. We stopped in his office last week, on the way home from school; the Alderman did not remember getting her letter but apologized and spent some time listening to my daughter voice her concerns about the neighborhood.


Kate labored on for quite some time about the abundance of banks within walking distance of her apartment but a sad lack of restaurants and coffee shops. He assured her that she was not alone and that they were working hard to bring more dining options, and fewer banks, to the neighborhood; in fact they had just turned down a proposal for a new bank on a corner only two blocks away from home. This was all good news, and good news has the effect of making Kate just a bit more talkative. The Alderman asked her about school: where she went, what grade was she in, what did she like to study? He should have cleared his calendar for the afternoon.

How did we choose our school? What did we like about it? Rather than cede the floor to her mother, to offer the chance to blather on to an elected official about the painstaking process of getting two children into a Chicago Public School, Kate took this one. It went something like this, although I was so horrified that I might have blocked some of the more painful statements from memory.

"The first school we tried was not a good fit. Everyone was Hispanic! At first we liked that, because we are learning Spanish, but then, oh no, it was crazy! We went to the first meeting at school and looked around the room and saw NO white people, not one. Not one other person in the room who looked like us. And then it just got crazy, everyone yelling at each other. There were children running wild and the principal was just screaming over everyone. I saw several older boys throwing chairs with absolutely no consequences at all, none! Mom and Dad just decided that was not the school for us, even if they spoke Spanish. We could not go to a school where we were the only white people!"

I smiled over her head and said something profound like, "it's interesting, isn't it, the interpretation of our perceptions?". Kate continued on, speaking for what seemed like hours on her family's general distaste for minorities, ethnic and cultural differences, and Mexican food. I cowered, and tried unsuccessfully to interrupt and get her out of there.

The Alderman was quite nice, and humored me, listening to my nervous chatter trying so hard to explain our want of diversity in a  school, not accomplished with one ethnicity alone. Unable to stop myself, I felt it important to point out, repeatedly, that our favorite restaurant in the neighborhood, hands down, is the small taqueria near our apartment, "Oh we are just like family there, really!".

He promised to try it soon, perhaps we might run into each other? But not for breakfast, they don't serve desayuno, most unfortunately for Kate.

The Kid's Menu

When the topic turned to school lunches, I kept quiet, fidgeting with my napkin, feigning interest in the people outside. Bologna sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly, Chips Ahoy, and finally I blurted out, "my girls don't eat kid food". It was time, I'd danced around the topic for too long hoping my silence would not reveal the horrid truth; Mary and Kate eat grown up food. The other moms handled it well, they asked questions, they didn't judge, I might be asked back.

It all began quite innocently, and selfishly. Jack and I, with no babysitters and no desire to stay at home for 10 years, took the girls with us whenever we went out. A nibble of naan, a morsel of morel, a pod of edamame, and they were hooked. There would be no nugget on these plates, they liked what we were feeding them, and we liked that they were hungry.

Recently Jack and I had a conversation with a friend who, while her children do eat chicken fingers, recognizes that the choices on the kid's menu are generally unhealthy and awful. But it's easier she reasoned, and so she continues to select for them from the small box on the back of the menu that, even in better restaurants, offers hot dogs, cheese pizza and macaroni and cheese.

We skip that box, because to me it makes no sense at all to feed my child a hot dog in a seafood restaurant, or macaroni and cheese in an Italian restaurant. For us it was not a healthy choice driven decision but a hope that the girls would develop a taste for complex flavors, and an understanding of culture through food. Knowing that they wouldn't starve and understanding that they won't like everything, we continue to present them with choices. Indian food, we have tried countless times and haven't yet found anything that appeals to their five year old pallets, and so their meal now consists of naan and basmati rice. We are on an Indian food moratorium, a family agreed upon hold, until we do some research and find something less spicy that might appeal to Mary and Kate. The Southern Indian dosai has been suggested and so a trip to the Indian neighborhood, and Udupi Palace, is on the schedule for September.

They like shumai and pho, sushi and gyoza, but not American cheese. In fact Kate will send back, or ask us to, a sandwich that appears with what she calls plastic cheese. Offered this when she was two by a good friend of ours in her home, both girls handed it back to us, and then we knew, cheese snobs. Not so great when you know you are heading into the years of play dates and school outings, where, with certainty, they will be offered plastic cheese sandwiches, and your child is going to be the one asking for hers with a mature English cheddar. Also problematic, Kate imploring her friend Rachel to "just try it, it's good" when Rachel has no interest at all in Kate's hummus and tapenade. My children have requested tamales, quesadillas and guacamole at their upcoming birthday party, will they be the only ones eating?

Twins have actually made eating out easier; knowing that we could either buy two things from the children's box, or one adult entree to share, made our plan financially more feasible. Until now, until this past year when different opinions, and the ability to read the menu, forced us to two entrees. Tonight's stir fried vegetables came with chicken and rice for Kate, tofu and noodles for Mary, and the leftovers came home. Most of our favorite places graciously allow for a half order, meaning that Mary can have gnocchi with marinara and Kate, farfalle with chicken and mushrooms, and everyone is happy.

Acceptance is the first step, palak paneer comes next.

Getting a Good Deal on a Sandwich

Certainly you saw it also, the line that snaked around the corner and down the street? I saw it three times today, people standing outside, warm in the sun, spending what I assume to be a good portion of their lunch hour standing in line. Blackhawks paraphernalia, right? Must be, Stanley Cup tshirts or car stickers maybe, clearly that was the origin of the line. Maybe Patrick Kane himself was signing the game winning puck?

One dollar sandwiches at Jimmy John's, from 11-3, for customer appreciation, and let me be clear, people were taking full advantage of Jimmy John's need to show their appreciation. How much does a Jimmy John's sandwich cost on a day when they are feeling less grateful?

The McDonalds in my old office building used to do the same thing. Once a year they would sell those little smashed up burgers with the ketchup mustard combo squirt for around $.50. In a two hour window in which everyone who worked in the building, all four towers of at least 30 stories each, would cram into the lower concourse, gleefully clutching their dollar bill, or perhaps two if they were feeling flush, to spend at least an hour waiting to enjoy the bliss delivered in getting two burgers for one dollar. Colleagues would plan their day around the event, scheduling meetings and calls on the outside of the precious window, years of experience valuable when planning your descent into the madness, choosing just the right person to while away an hour of valuable work time in pursuit of the bargain burger. Much like those who line up on Saturday morning at Costco, having sniffed out the woman with the buffalo chicken in her mini oven, they block the already congested aisles, hoping to be first in line for the free fragment of processed frozen chicken covered in mozzarella sauce. Best to be first I suppose as what remains is surely to be sneezed on by the kid next in line.

Where do you find a good sandwich? Not a chain sandwich, or a gimmicky sandwich, not one that is rolled or flattened or stuffed with french fries. Two pieces of bread, put together by an actual person without a photograph of the finished product before him, layered with things that make a sandwich the perfect summer picnic food. For that I would happily pay full price.

Two Sides to the Story

A few weeks ago I had lunch with a friend and her two young sons. She most graciously noticed how nicely Mary and Kate sit in a restaurant, and I thanked her, they do. There's no secret, we've been very consistent, they know what is expected, and they actually enjoy their food. Rarely do we resort to coercion or bribing, they try new things, they order for themselves, and they stay in their seats until we are all finished. Napkin in lap, dab your mouth, lovely.

But we can't spend our lives in restaurants and once a week or so we have to go to Target or Trader Joe's, not just to buy milk and Ivory soap, but to remind me that these children are four year old maniacs bent on destruction. Initially we appear normal, a mom and her two children running the errands of reasonable household, but then it begins. The magic Target doors open and they are off, in opposite directions, which is actually better as they can't attack each other from different areas of the store. From lingerie Mary finds a bra, the biggest one she can get her hands on, squeezes and yells, "MOM, LOOK, BOOBIES!!". From 14 aisles away Kate, who quite often can't hear her name called from three feet away, responds, "BOOBIES!! MOMMY HAS BOOBIES!". She races across the store, lacrosse stick in hand, lopping off 14 racks of boobies as she rounds the corner. They struggle for control of the weapon and they are off, now armed.

Target has artillery, Trader Joe's has tanks in the form of mini shopping carts, perfect vehicles for the kind of terror best suited to the grocery aisle. Senator Durbin and President Obama always make the trip, holding on with small tightly clenched plastic fingers, riding wildly into display after display of reasonably priced soy nuts and Three Buck Chuck. No longer do I wear sandals, this trip calls for Wellies with six layers of socks, my ankles having been destroyed on previous missions. We weave in and out, kind people smile, intelligent people run, and childless parents laugh, at me. And while at Target they scatter, at Trader Joe's they stay right together because two carts coming at you is just more dangerous than one. And bumper carts! You can't have that kind of fun at Target.

And there I am, the mom I never wanted to be, the kind that smiles through clenched teeth at her children, who raises her voice to a shrill and piercing sound in public, the kind that just yesterday picked up a bottle of Windex, aimed and seriously considered shooting, right between the eyes. Desperately I want to stop people, just grab them by the arm and say, quite calmly, "really though, I have complete control usually, you should have seen us at lunch today." And as they shrug and back hurriedly away the shrill voice comes again, "We go to tea for God's sake, at the Peninsula!".

If only the Italian restaurant at the end of the block sold toilet paper.

These Are a Few of Our Favorite Things

At dinner last weekend we played the recently received in my inbox game, what are your top three favorite things to eat. Sitting in a BBQ restaurant to celebrate, belatedly, Jack's birthday, I was certain burnt ends would make his list. Wrong, we live too far from Kansas City, too far from Florence, too far from Kinsale, and so the rule became favorite things to eat in Chicago.

Jack
1. Hot Pepper Noodle with chicken from Penny's,
2. Dynamite roll at Katachi,
3. Bone in filet at Joe's Seafood (NOT Joe's Crabshack).

Mary
1. Gnocchi at Fornello,
2. Avocado roll at Katachi,
3. Grilled cheese, at home.

Kate
1. Guacamole from Mr. Salsa,
2. Quesadilla from Mr. Salsa,
3. Asparagus roll at Katachi.

Me
1. Penne broccoli at Basil Leaf,
2. San Francisco roll at Katachi,
3. Bun from Hai Yen.

We learned a few things, we all really like Katachi, and Mr. Salsa, although none as much as Kate, and with the exception of the bone in filet, we all like really cheap food. Maybe we need to branch out a bit, try something new, although old habits are hard to break. With all the food I cook, the hours I spend in the kitchen, the only thing coming from that kitchen that was even mentioned, grilled cheese. Jack made an slight reference to vinaigrette but jumped in with the filet, knocking me off his list effortlessly.

Next up, favorite dining experiences, worldwide.

Where's the Beef?

Food is my freak spot with the children. Some mothers stress about schedules and napping, some about schools, introducing flash cards at a very young age, and some about clothes and appearances but for me, it's all about food. Their baby food was all homemade, not something I saw as crazy, but apparently yes, to some, madness. Pureed squash was served with pureed apples, pureed potatoes with pureed green beans, all seasoned, garlic added early, as was basil and mint. Not once have I prepared a separate meal for the children, they eat with us every night, unless we are going out. They are not fed early, they are not fed in the kitchen, they sit at the dining room table, as they have since they were able to sit, and enjoy meals with their family.

We eat in actual restaurants. Mary and Kate have no idea what McDonalds is, they have never had fast food, save Chipotle, one of their favorite lunch spots. We don't seek out "child friendly" places, they go where we go and they eat what we eat. They have no idea that chickens have fingers, peanut butter has jelly and that macaroni and cheese comes out of a blue box. My mother in law discovered they had never had jello, "what do you feed them when they are sick?". Nothing.

We've recently discovered that Kate likes meat, loves meat, horrifying to me but not at all a shock as she is in every sense, her father's daughter. Mary prefers rolling up to the potato bar with me, seeking out the starch at every meal. Kate eats bites from Jack's Vietnamese pho, beef broth full of tripe and tendons and other unthinkables. She nibbles at his carne asada, dances when he orders steak frites and smiles like no other when bacon is on her plate at Arnold's. Sunday we went to our friend Joe's place to watch the Super Bowl. Joe is Italian. His mother made pasta with meatballs, arancini (with meat filling) and Italian beef. Kate nearly fell over when we walked in. While I sought out the carrots and broccoli, Jack prepared a plate for Kate, a pile of Italian beef and a few tomatoes. She dutifully took it over to the table, crawled up in her chair and began to feast. I casually leaned in and said "you know love, you don't have to finish that". When her father joined us she announced to him, "I was told not to finish this".

Subtle, but none the less, tattling. She followed up that plate of beef with gelato, and even if Kate had been born and raised in Arizona, breathing her every breath as a Cardinals fan, she would have still been the happiest little girl in the city.