hi everybody.
ok wowowow. here’s a life update from moi: so, we came back to canada from the jungle, did a quarantine, sent the kids back to school for like 2 seconds, and now we are back in a provincial stay-at-home order because this dang government is fucking up the pandemic response left right and centre! so otis is in zoom school again. luckily felix gets to go to daycare, though!
so, camp mom remains in full swing. lots of screen time, lots of dance parties, lots of “what’s on my butt”, lots of - honestly - whatever i can think of to pass 5 minutes at a time. yesterday we made a castle out of a cardboard box. it has a drawbridge. anyway - i’m retiring from being worried about homeschooling. it’s been a long, shitty year. we are all tired.
one thing that i am newly dedicated to, however, is figuring out how to feed everyone the same thing instead of making kid meals and adult meals. or pushing the easy button and going for nuggets and frozen peas. there’s a time and a place for that trick, of course, and i use it often (we really love a nugget), but i also just really love to cook! and the things i love to cook aren’t always ~kid friendly~ for many reasons. too many colours, textures, spices, they’re new, they look unapproachable. and i get it! but also, i’m over it! i have like 85 cookbooks that are just collecting dust because i let myself get got by the tiny dictators in my house.
and SO i am here to say it is time to take action & try new things! i’m the BOSS! it’s taurus season, after all. like, i’m not trying to be unrealistic - some days there will be nuggets. some days we will have eggs for dinner. and some days i will make dinner from the xi’an famous foods cookbook because i love their spicy cumin lamb & hand pulled noods more than most foods. and god damnit, i’ll figure out how to get my kids to eat (maybe not so) spicy cumin lamb so that i only have to dirty a specific number of dishes.
if you’re a long time subscriber, you may remember that i’ve talked about this before! there’s a gap in the cookbook/food media landscape for this specific pickle. i don’t want to make the ~kid friendly~ food i see - i’m not cutting shit into shapes, i’m not making a “weelicious” bento box. i’m just feeding everyone the same thing and trying to make it appealing for my children so we don’t have a fight about it.
so, that’s that. and here’s the deal. every week for the past 4 weeks i’ve been writing a little menu (like this):
i plan at least 3 meals, a treat or two, and the rest is leftovers or takeout/nuggets/whatever. i have been taking notes, i have been swapping out cookbooks, i have been seeing what works and what doesn’t. it’s all kind of swirling around in my brain right now, and for this edition of the newsletter (since it’s been a minute) i just wanted to give a life update, let you know what i’ve been thinking about and share this thing i’m going to start doing.
SO! introducing: wtf do i feed you?! and see you later the katie needsletter! for the next little while (until i feel like switching things up again) i’ll do my little menu thing, cook from my books, see what works and what doesn’t & let y’all know the results so that you can get ideas of things to feed yourselves and your families. sound good? ok cool.
i’ll leave it here, because this is long and had too many words. i’ll be back next week with the first edition of wtf do i feed you?!
thanks for reading, friends.
xo,
kt