Cereal for Dinner
If it weren’t for my children, I might still be eating cereal for dinner.
I was on a panel at the food media company Infatuation this week and the moderator asked panelists, each of us a food entrepreneur, how we were carrying family food traditions into the dishes we serve our customers.
I quickly responded, “We don’t. My mother boiled tortellini for my dinner and called it a day.” The audience laughed, but in all honesty, seeing my mother cook was not part of my childhood.
L - R: Nina Reeder, Senior Editor, The Infatuation, Atlanta; Yours Truly; Nicole Nicholas, Co-Owners, Aunts Et Uncle; and Zewiditu Jewel, President of The Brown Collective and Cloudy Donut Co.
As a young college student in this big expensive city, feeding myself was always hard because I didn’t know how to do it. The preparation of food always felt allusive, which created an expensive dependence on ordering take out. I only kicked that habit the year before Nico was born. I was getting tired of rotating meals between our go-to restaurants and I was spending $1K+ a month on just a few meals a week.
Anyone can follow a recipe. That’s how I’ve learned to cook over the last seven years, but being able to assess ingredients on hand from the fridge and pantry and put a meal together takes an understanding of cooking that I am only now coming into as a parent of three who remains vigilant about her grocery budget.
I shared with the Infatuation staffers that I make an effort to cook dinner so my children can see what it looks like to feed oneself. The kids help me here and there. Ila (the eldest) is trying her hand at cooking some easy dishes alone, but they all have a ways to go. I’m not expecting them to be culinary whizzes at this age, but I know that by seeing me meal plan, chop, sautee, and delight in the dishes I make after they are prepared, I am planting seeds into their little brains about how to take care of yourself.
Taken at the last session of our most recent SHMOM group. One Mom named Molly Rosner made mugs from her hand drawings for all of us as a parting gift and couple of other moms bought bubbles to toast the future! It was such a beautiful last session.
And that’s the thing about parenting, our kids are always watching us, taking note, and figuring out what's possible for their futures. My mother did an excellent job modeling what being a professionally ambitious woman who was never afraid to shine. She did not, however, extend the same gifts in the cooking department.
Our actions inform our kids’ futures and make their goals easier or harder to attain. Our hopes for their futures only go so far if we are not walking the walk of whatever it is we are hoping for them.
If you’re an aspirational home chef or just a parent hoping for more reprieve in the cooking department, join SHMOM Alumna and current Facilitator Chefleen’s mailing list so you can be the first to know about her meal prep course that will bring ease to the dinner portion of your week.
If you’re looking to break some patterns and push the boundaries of what’s possible for you as your child’s first role model, I’d love to work with you. Drop me a line.
And, finally, if you know any new mom’s Uptown who would benefit from being in community with other mothers, our next SHMOM group begins on March 14th! We’ve been running this group for the last six years and so many mothers count their fellow group participants as some of their closest friends. I could write a whole email about the power of a non-judgmental mom’s group, and maybe I will. But for now, know that SHMOM’s is a great place to begin your motherhood journey. Share this registration link with a friend.
Oh, and you check out the recipes for some of our favorite dishes in my email from a few weeks ago. Have a great week ahead!
With love,
Petrushka