Buy in Bulk
Lee and Fergus Ponder
Aurora, Illinois
Parents of Jackson, 3, and Lachlan, 1½
The Challenge
Lee strives for organic, unprocessed meals. But with Fergus, a helicopter pilot, working erratic schedules, she doesn't have the time to cook from scratch every day.
Eating together is important to both parents. "My folks were pretty firm with manners at the table," Fergus says. "And I am not sure how I would have learned those things otherwise." Lee sees dinner more as a familial glue. "I want them to know we're a safe place to land."
The Plan
Once every three months, Lee goes on a shopping and cooking spree, preparing meals in freezable containers—roast turkey with vegetables and gravy, stir-fry, stews, lasagna, bread crumb–baked fish, and macaroni-and-cheese "with a can of pumpkin, so it looks like the store-bought stuff but has those extra nutrients." She makes baby food about once a week, pureeing fresh vegetables and rice.
The Dinner
In the morning, she defrosts, and right before dinner, she reheats. But with two toddlers, the main challenge is at the table. "Jack puts up a fight most nights," Lee says. "He doesn't have to eat, but he has to sit and wait for us to finish, and he usually partakes in the discussion. It's amazing how many times he will forget he doesn't want to eat, then stick something in his mouth as he chats with us about our day or the plan for the next day."
Sit Down for a Second Dinner
Theresa Trzaskoma and Nick Turner
Brooklyn
Parents of Wiley, 6, and Malcolm, 4
The Challenge
The kids eat with their nanny before the parents—both lawyers—get home. When she was growing up, Theresa says, "dinner was always at 5:30 or 6, and everyone was there. That's an impossibility for us. But there's a part of me that longs for it."
The Plan
What plan? "I think our main strategy for survival is not forcing ourselves to have dinner look like a specific, sit-around-the-table-at-six event, but somehow still share food and stories at the end of the day," Theresa says. But this a family of foodies, Nick adds, "so a lot of our weekend time together is organized around food destinations and events."
The Dinner
Some days, the parents ask the babysitter not to cook, and the family eats at a neighborhood restaurant. But usually, the kids partake in "second dinner." "It started because Nick would get home around seven and start cooking, and the kids wanted to know what we were eating and share the meal with us." So they pull up a chair and have their before-bed snack, or sample what their parents are eating. "A lot of people have these second dinners," she says of friends with kids. "It's nice—we're just now starting to have real conversations with our kids over food. They'll ask about our day, we'll ask about theirs."
On weekends, they channel their boys' obsession with public transport into food-related field trips into ethnic neighborhoods. "Ethnic restaurants are great places to take kids. There are always big, boisterous families there, so we feel comfortable." No wonder these boys have adventurous appetites—just like their parents.
