Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 1: and speaker.
Speaker 2: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
Speaker 2: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 2: our careers and our families.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 1: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 1: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
Speaker 1: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
Speaker 1: episode is airing in early November of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: And while perhaps much of the news is political related,
Speaker 1: as we all know, this is a fairly non political podcast,
Speaker 1: and so for our United States listeners, you can know
Speaker 1: that it continues with that we are going to be
Speaker 1: discussing a week of meals. So we know from lots
Speaker 1: of listener feedback over the years that anytime we talk
Speaker 1: about meals, I don't know, people get very excited. Meal
Speaker 1: planning is one of those topics where we all feel
Speaker 1: like if we just had the perfect meal plan, life
Speaker 1: would run smoothly, like there would be rainbows and butterflies.
Speaker 1: It would be no problems whatsoever. It's really as simple
Speaker 1: as a meal plan, right, Sarah.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, the meal plan fixes everything. No, but I
Speaker 2: think it's partly just because it's a commonality. Like everybody
Speaker 2: has various challenges, but everyone has the challenge of deciding
Speaker 2: how they're going to feed themselves, perhaps deciding how they
Speaker 2: are going to participate in feeding their family. And it
Speaker 2: is one of those areas where when you hear how
Speaker 2: somebody else does it, even if that sounds completely untenable
Speaker 2: to you as an entire package, you might be like, ooh,
Speaker 2: but that snack sounds delici and I think I'll copy it.
Speaker 2: Like it's an area of ripe for getting inspiration from others.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean, we all eat and we all sleep,
Speaker 1: I mean pretty much. And so these are the commonalities
Speaker 1: of the human experience for all our differences, we do,
Speaker 1: in fact all eat, so we can unite around that
Speaker 1: at least. So we decided to do one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty eight hours of meals. Sarah. Have you you've tracked
Speaker 1: your eating before, haven't you?
Speaker 2: No? I actually do it fairly regularly. It's a habit,
Speaker 2: like I do it on my daily planner. Just how
Speaker 2: I track my media and like to some extent, how
Speaker 2: I spend my time during the day, and I don't
Speaker 2: track any of it perfectly, not the media, not the time,
Speaker 2: and not the food. I certainly don't have any measurements
Speaker 2: at all. It's qualitative descriptions only. But I find that
Speaker 2: it just like helps me see where I'm maybe like
Speaker 2: needing more protein, or like if I haven't eaten a
Speaker 2: vegetable in three days, or I felt terrible on my runs,
Speaker 2: and I can look back and figure out like I
Speaker 2: do have a good amount of cars the day before
Speaker 2: or something like that, And I think there is an
Speaker 2: element of, like you manage what you measure, not that
Speaker 2: I'm measuring, but like just the awareness helps me sometimes
Speaker 2: make better choices. So funnily enough, Laura, like we were
Speaker 2: choosing the days to do this, and you were like,
Speaker 2: we're doing this day, and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: I realized, like, I don't care what day she picks
Speaker 2: because I already kind of like have it, so it
Speaker 2: was very easy for me to report back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we chose the week of September thirty through October
Speaker 1: six to record, which is not right before this is airing,
Speaker 1: and it's not even right before we recorded it. It's
Speaker 1: that I was traveling the week that was before it,
Speaker 1: and so I was going to be eating the vast
Speaker 1: majority of my meals and restaurants, which, as you will
Speaker 1: see from what I'm talking here, is not the norm
Speaker 1: at all. Now, I do travel on occasions, so I
Speaker 1: guess the idea that there is no typical week comes
Speaker 1: up here. But I felt that that would be a
Speaker 1: particularly non typical week and wouldn't really so much of anything.
Speaker 1: But Sarah, you thought we should do one hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty eight hours of all sorts of things we could
Speaker 1: track all sorts of things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Because as I was writing this down, this spawned
Speaker 2: the idea that that would be a fun and very
Speaker 2: on brand series for you since it was one of
Speaker 2: your best selling books, one hundred and sixty eight hours.
Speaker 2: So I was like, okay, one hundred and sixty eight
Speaker 2: hours of our media consumption, one hundred and sixty eight
Speaker 2: hours of sleep, habits, screen habits, movement, connection times, outfits, spending.
Speaker 2: That would be good, that'd be juicy. I don't know,
Speaker 2: Like I would listen to like one hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: eight hour podcast where I got to snoop on what
Speaker 2: others were doing in various categories.
Speaker 1: So see the problem with outfits is that this is audio,
Speaker 1: so we'd have to do that more on the blog
Speaker 1: or as a video format. Perhaps there could be a
Speaker 1: video companion, a video companion to this. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: thinking of that. The spending. I mean, how much of
Speaker 1: your spending is weekly? Though, I mean, I'm feeling a lot.
Speaker 2: It's a snapshot, it's a snapshot in time. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: let me time it so that I'm not like, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding, like buying something ridiculous. But I don't know,
Speaker 2: I would totally actually, So they're Sarah, the blogger who
Speaker 2: writes at Harry Times. So I just interviewed on Best
Speaker 2: Laid Plans. She's been doing a spending series where she
Speaker 2: gets pretty granular with her blog readers, and I find
Speaker 2: it fascinating. She even had a category best purchase of
Speaker 2: the day and worst purchase of the day, which I
Speaker 2: thought was eye opening. And yeah, I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't know that we're necessarily the ones to do this,
Speaker 2: but I mean I always feel like you should create
Speaker 2: the podcast that you would want to listen to.
Speaker 1: And I would.
Speaker 2: Totally listen to that.
Speaker 1: You would totally listen to that. All right, Well, well
Speaker 1: we'll see. I gotta say, I mean, I've been tracking
Speaker 1: my time for nine and a half years, and for
Speaker 1: whatever reason that seems fine to me. I actually did
Speaker 1: not particularly enjoy tracking what I eat. I feel like
Speaker 1: I just do not want.
Speaker 2: To think about it particularly. It's uh, I don't know,
Speaker 2: totally fair. I think tracking different things is very individual.
Speaker 1: Yes, and I track workouts to a degree, well partly
Speaker 1: just because I do it on my timelog, right, but
Speaker 1: I've never recorded what I eat on the timelog, even
Speaker 1: though you would see that I was eating dinner or
Speaker 1: eating lunch or eating breakfast or whatever. But yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: well maybe I we'll do a week of sleep that'll
Speaker 1: come on. That'll be the other common experience. I don't
Speaker 1: think we do a whole podcast out of it.
Speaker 2: Maybe I was gonna say, I don't think that's a
Speaker 2: full episode.
Speaker 1: That would be a segment, and then that's one where
Speaker 1: we do a longer question where I get on my
Speaker 1: soapbox again about something. We'll see if we come up
Speaker 1: with that. But all right, well, let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: get started with Sarah's week of meals. So remember this
Speaker 1: is end of September beginning of October. We'll notice some
Speaker 1: certain themes. So Sarah wakes up right in early Monday morning,
Speaker 1: September thirty, what does she put in her mouth?
Speaker 2: Well, you're gonna be really bored by my record. It
Speaker 2: gets a little a little repetitive. I've spoken about my
Speaker 2: morning routine before, but I run pretty early, and I
Speaker 2: learned from nutritionist extraordinaire Meghan Featherston that a very easy
Speaker 2: pre run fuel is to eat some gram crackers. So
Speaker 2: I've been doing that for like more than a year now,
Speaker 2: and so my day on Monday started with four squares
Speaker 2: of Trader Joe's crams and then I went on my run. Oh,
Speaker 2: I had coffee every day, just assume there is coffee.
Speaker 2: I drink my coffee black, and I put ten grams
Speaker 2: of collagen in there, which also I think was a
Speaker 2: Featherston hack. So I learned everything from her. Okay, So
Speaker 2: that's that's the morning. Then went for my run, came back,
Speaker 2: and my usual breakfast when I'm driving the kids to
Speaker 2: school is to eat a perfect bar in the car
Speaker 2: because it's pretty substantial and very easy to eat in
Speaker 2: the car doesn't make a mess. So I drove the
Speaker 2: kids ate my perfect bar and I must I wrote apple,
Speaker 2: so I must have had an apple afterwards later I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: Let's get credit for the fruit here.
Speaker 2: Yes, give me credit for my for lunch. This was
Speaker 2: a work day, like a patient care day. Every day
Speaker 2: is a workday and during the week for me, but
Speaker 2: only Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are in office workdays. So
Speaker 2: on that day, I heat it up some leftover chili
Speaker 2: and ate some pita chips and string cheese, and then
Speaker 2: for dinner, which I did not cook. So our nanny
Speaker 2: generally does a lot of the prep and the cooking
Speaker 2: of the prep dish meals, which is a like a
Speaker 2: recipe subscription service that I've been using for a million years.
Speaker 2: They do sponsor bestlaid plans, but I mean I would
Speaker 2: one hundred per like I rely on them at this point.
Speaker 2: So anyway, so we had like a beef vegetable and
Speaker 2: rice stir fry, and I ate that like between dance pickups.
Speaker 2: So there's a dance pick up at six and a
Speaker 2: dance pick up at seven, and the studio is about
Speaker 2: ten minutes from our house, so I have like this
Speaker 2: awkward bit of time. So Genevieve and I ate while
Speaker 2: before I went and got Annamo, and then I wrote,
Speaker 2: I usually have a miscellaneous category of random things I
Speaker 2: snack on, either after dinner or throughout the day, and
Speaker 2: I wrote down apples later cookie, which actually our nanny
Speaker 2: had purchased and left on the counter and said to
Speaker 2: eat them, and it was delicious. There's going to be
Speaker 2: a fall flavors vibe here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a question here? Did everyone eat since?
Speaker 1: I mean, when we originally thought about doing this episode,
Speaker 1: we're like, well, let's talk about what our family eats
Speaker 1: over the course of a week. But then you know,
Speaker 1: we realized, like, not all the meals are together. I
Speaker 1: don't really know what my big kids are eating a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, they're sort of in the kitchen
Speaker 1: making their own stuff. But did your whole family eat
Speaker 1: the beef rice and veggie stir fry or yes?
Speaker 2: Was that? And that was actually a very popular one.
Speaker 2: It was made with like ground beef, I think, and
Speaker 2: it was like very soy sauce Asian flavors, which is
Speaker 2: always a win for my kids. So Genevieve and I
Speaker 2: ate it at the same time. Anna all was a dance,
Speaker 2: so I think she ate it after and Cameron, I
Speaker 2: don't remember. He might have been with us, actually I
Speaker 2: think he was.
Speaker 1: And does your husband like eat it when he comes home? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's never home during the week during like when
Speaker 2: we would be eating dinner, like.
Speaker 1: He does eat when he comes home.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm sure he ate the same thing, but he
Speaker 2: probably heat it up. He probably, if I had to guess,
Speaker 2: got home at like seven thirty or something like that
Speaker 2: and had the same thing.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we're going to take a quick ad
Speaker 1: break and then we'll be back with more of this
Speaker 1: week of meals. So we are back talking what we
Speaker 1: ate over the course of a week. So, Sarah, I
Speaker 1: suspect that the second morning also involved Graham crackers.
Speaker 2: Yes, how did you guess? It's going to get really old,
Speaker 2: you guys? So pre run grams and coffee This time
Speaker 2: after my run, I mixed it up with half of
Speaker 2: a Dave's Killer Bread cinnamon raisin bagel, which we buy
Speaker 2: in like bulk because Josh in particular absolutely loves them,
Speaker 2: and I had put sun butter on top. I don't
Speaker 2: know if we were out of peanut butter or I
Speaker 2: just felt like it, who knows, and I had an
Speaker 2: apple with cinnamon, and then then this was like a
Speaker 2: great day. So this was a day, Genevie. You had
Speaker 2: a kind of longer appointment that I had to drop
Speaker 2: her off at so rapped her off and then I
Speaker 2: went to Starbucks and I got a pumpkin spice latte.
Speaker 2: And that's what I texted you, is this our week
Speaker 2: of meals? Because I was so excited that I was
Speaker 2: going to get to share my pumpkins spice latte. And
Speaker 2: I don't normally order these, but it was October first,
Speaker 2: like I had to. And I got it with oat
Speaker 2: milk because for whatever reason, I like my coffee drinks
Speaker 2: at Starbucks with oat milk. Unlike Laura, I don't have
Speaker 2: any like specific dairy issues, but I really like oat milk.
Speaker 2: And I did it with one pump of pumpkin spice
Speaker 2: so that it wasn't like disgustingly sweet, and it was delicious.
Speaker 2: I was very happy with my pumpkin spice latte.
Speaker 1: And then you went to Panera for lunch, and then
Speaker 1: I just continued on my chain store.
Speaker 2: I don't know, like a pattern here, and I picked
Speaker 2: Genevieve up and then I asked for she wanted to go,
Speaker 2: and she wanted to go to Panera, so she got
Speaker 2: her little kids mac and cheese and apple, and I
Speaker 2: had my normal order, which is one of the chicken
Speaker 2: sandwiches that are hot, like half of that, and then
Speaker 2: weirdly enough, I get half the fuji apple salad, but
Speaker 2: no chicken in the salad because I don't like the
Speaker 2: chicken in the salad. So yeah, that's my weird Panera order.
Speaker 2: Love it, I'm boring it, get it like every time.
Speaker 2: And then dinner was another preptish thing, and I ate
Speaker 2: with Cameron and Genevieve again. While Annabel was at gymnastics.
Speaker 2: She probably ate a little bit before and probably a
Speaker 2: little bit after. She'll often sort of split her dinner
Speaker 2: into because gymnastics is five fifteen to eight forty five.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and this was a chicken. It was like
Speaker 2: a salad with like cucumber and feta and chicken in
Speaker 2: a wrap. It was good, interesting, Okay, all right, Oh
Speaker 2: my god, this is longer than I would have thought,
Speaker 2: I know, and Laura and I were like, we.
Speaker 1: Could do faster versions of it at some point, maybe
Speaker 1: we just skipped to dinner.
Speaker 2: Well I'll just summarize the rastas that. Okay, So Wednesday,
Speaker 2: it was another work day. Guess what pre run Grams
Speaker 2: perfect bar on the car. Lunch was a Trader Joe
Speaker 2: salad at my work desk that had like slaw dried
Speaker 2: cranberries and chicken in It's one of my favorites. And
Speaker 2: then I ate a honey Greek yogurt at some point,
Speaker 2: and then we had a family Russis ton of dinner
Speaker 2: because this was like early October. So we drove to
Speaker 2: South Miami and I had a glass of white wine
Speaker 2: and a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't specifically catalog,
Speaker 2: but just like imagine all like meat, vegetables, like salad, apple,
Speaker 2: crisp of vanilla ice cream, like all the things.
Speaker 1: So I was to say your lunch hack there though,
Speaker 1: that you buy these TJ's salads, right, and so that
Speaker 1: is a very quick way to pack your lunch. And
Speaker 1: we might kind of highlight that for people.
Speaker 2: Yes, and my kids actually like some of them as well,
Speaker 2: so sometimes that is one of their lunches too. They
Speaker 2: particularly like the caesar salad. Not very exciting, but I had.
Speaker 1: A big bunch of them on the weekend, put them
Speaker 1: in the fridge.
Speaker 2: You just have to check the expiration date because sometimes
Speaker 2: it's like Wednesday or Thursday in the week, and then
Speaker 2: you have to make sure you have it for lunch
Speaker 2: earlier than that because it's salad and you don't want
Speaker 2: it to be all guilty and disgusting. All right, moving
Speaker 2: on to Thursday, pre run grams again, and then I
Speaker 2: had some honey Crisp apple granola from Trader Joe's with milk. Later, okay,
Speaker 2: somehow I went to Starbucks again, not sure why, but okay,
Speaker 2: Starbucks oat milk cappuccino. Then I had some leftovers from
Speaker 2: Wednesday's dinner for my lunch, that Mediterranean chicken salad with
Speaker 2: a rap and then for dinner it was another prep dish.
Speaker 2: It was like a simple, simple sheet pan like chicken,
Speaker 2: broccoli and potatoes, which my kids will eat as long
Speaker 2: as there's a ton of ketchup on it. I don't
Speaker 2: remember who I actually ate with that day, but probably
Speaker 2: genevieven Cameron actually, because his soccer is super late. And
Speaker 2: then my miscellaneous was pumpkin Trader Joe's JoJo's like their
Speaker 2: Oreo version and the quantity was unspecified, but I wrote
Speaker 2: at least at least too probably more more pumpkin, Yes,
Speaker 2: more pumpkin. It was a very fall week. Okay. On Friday,
Speaker 2: pre run Grams Perfect Bar, while driving dropping off the kids.
Speaker 2: My lunch was social and at the work cafeteria. You
Speaker 2: actually get free food at my work if you're a physician,
Speaker 2: which is weird, and I don't partic of it very
Speaker 2: often because I don't like going to the work cafeteria
Speaker 2: unless I'm going with a friend, and I also don't
Speaker 2: like taking the time to go unless I'm meet someone,
Speaker 2: So usually Fridays are my work cafeteria experiences. And I
Speaker 2: had salmon, some rice, and I know there's at least
Speaker 2: one person who listened to this who was like, I
Speaker 2: was there, I remember, Okay, anyway, whatever, Hi. We had
Speaker 2: some buffalo cauliflower, which is like an excuse to fry cauliflower,
Speaker 2: but it tasted good, and some steam vegetables and then
Speaker 2: my miscellaneous with some salt and vinegar chips that I'm
Speaker 2: sure I took from the cafeteria on my way out,
Speaker 2: and then for dinner, I think pretty much all of us,
Speaker 2: except for Annabellae together because she was a gymnastics and
Speaker 2: we had a turkey burger. Well, I don't know if Josh.
Speaker 2: Josh might have been there, actually turkey burger with sweet
Speaker 2: potato fries. We're getting to the end. On Saturday, I
Speaker 2: was going to go with really long run, but then
Speaker 2: there was a lightning storm, so I like had a
Speaker 2: half a bagel with maple butter. I was thinking this
Speaker 2: is great fuel. And then the run ended up being
Speaker 2: three miles because there was lightning and I gave up,
Speaker 2: so after the run I had the other half of
Speaker 2: the bagel with peanut butter and an apple. Lunch I
Speaker 2: made for everyone at home. We all had eggs, toast
Speaker 2: and string cheese. This is it very not the string
Speaker 2: chees particularly, but making eggs for everybody for lunch on
Speaker 2: Saturday is pretty common because our fridge is usually kind
Speaker 2: of empty. But I know everyone will eat that, so
Speaker 2: we'll do like egg sandwiches whatever. Dinner, we got pizzas
Speaker 2: delivered and I got a spinach and verricata version for
Speaker 2: myself and Josh, and then mushroom for the kids because
Speaker 2: that's what they wanted, and then we had salad from
Speaker 2: the pizza place. My miscellaneous was some cheddar crackers like
Speaker 2: those kids want like I totally pilfered my kids snacks,
Speaker 2: and then Jenny's lemon ice cream which was delicious. And
Speaker 2: then Sunday we're at the end. I had a seventeen
Speaker 2: mile long run, so I did get the run done
Speaker 2: that day. I had my pre run grams, and then
Speaker 2: during the run, I had four jewels because I'm very
Speaker 2: good at ticking gels during my long runs. And then
Speaker 2: I had oatmeal and peanut butter and dried cherries after
Speaker 2: my run. I usually, even though I'm like overheated on
Speaker 2: my runs, I weirdly get cold after and then I
Speaker 2: want something hot, so there you go. Lunch, we went
Speaker 2: to Trader Joe's all together this day. We picked out
Speaker 2: everything pumpkin and then we came home and had it
Speaker 2: for lunch. WHI it was super fun. It's like an
Speaker 2: annual event. We always do it in early October because
Speaker 2: that's when they had the peak of their pumpkin stuff,
Speaker 2: and we had pumpkin samosas, pumpkin ravioli that had pumpkin
Speaker 2: filling in it. I did have some leftover salad from
Speaker 2: the pizza from the night before, and some grapes, but
Speaker 2: it was very fun. And then I made a note
Speaker 2: that I ate some cottage juice before heading to Trader Joe's,
Speaker 2: which makes sense because if I'd run seventeen miles and
Speaker 2: then was getting lunch, I was probably starving. I also
Speaker 2: ate some mixed maple nuts from Trader Joe's that are
Speaker 2: very addicting. And then for dinner, I made a very
Speaker 2: easy like pasta with sausage and butternut squash. Although I'm
Speaker 2: just going to put a side note that I made
Speaker 2: this because we were supposed to have some salad with beef.
Speaker 2: And then I opened the package of the beef and
Speaker 2: it was the worst smell I've ever smelled in my life,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, okay, wow, that happened. So theoretically I
Speaker 2: was going to return it, but then I never got
Speaker 2: around to actually doing that. I still could, though, and yeah,
Speaker 2: so I had to make pasta.
Speaker 1: Pivot when necessary. I guess. Yeah, so you wind up
Speaker 1: cooking like on weekends, then I mean either you ordered
Speaker 1: the pizza one night and then you correct.
Speaker 2: I tend to cook on weekends, and then our Nannie
Speaker 2: cooks during the week. This was like a less leftovers
Speaker 2: dinners than usual usually like, well, when we do practice,
Speaker 2: it's not always with leftovers, but when I don't do preptish,
Speaker 2: often when making like one thing for Monday and Tuesday,
Speaker 2: one thing for Thursday, Wednesday and Thursday, the practice dinners
Speaker 2: tend to be super super simple, like like they're just
Speaker 2: sort of not take terribly much time, so they work
Speaker 2: to just do each night and then Actually, our Nannie's
Speaker 2: very efficient and she will often do everything on Monday
Speaker 2: and then like be done cooking for the week, which
Speaker 2: is funny because I feel like I would fail to
Speaker 2: do that, although she has all day and I do not.
Speaker 2: So there you go.
Speaker 1: Any and so you had a lot of fall flavors.
Speaker 1: I noticed there were a lot of apples that was a.
Speaker 2: Apple seals, pumpkin, pumpkin spice lot days, a lot of
Speaker 2: fall flavors, lots of carbs. Because I run a lot
Speaker 2: of miles, I think that was like a probably mid
Speaker 2: fifty ish miles week. And Trader Joe's and Starbucks I
Speaker 2: should buy stock, and well maybe I have stock. I
Speaker 2: don't know. Are they in like the the like like.
Speaker 1: The private, like the pretty I don't think so, Okay,
Speaker 1: Trader Joe's I thought private, but maybe I'm wrong. I
Speaker 1: hadn't looked it up. So Starbucks is publicly traded.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's probably in my index fund, so I'm
Speaker 2: probably indirectly part of that.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm I turn out to be supporting them a lot.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited. I want to hear your week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it wasn't that interesting, so a few themes
Speaker 1: for me. I guess my equivalent of your Graham crackers
Speaker 1: is the pop tart, So I like the brown sugar
Speaker 1: cinnamon pop tart. They are pretty good. So if I
Speaker 1: need something really really quick for a breakfast type thing,
Speaker 1: I tend to do that. Of course, I'm not always
Speaker 1: running seventeen miles after eating it. But Monday I had
Speaker 1: that pop tart with cut for lunch, leftover steak, rice
Speaker 1: and veggies. I had cooked steak over the weekend, and
Speaker 1: so I wound up eating that for a couple of days. Snack.
Speaker 1: I was at Starbucks while waiting for my husband to
Speaker 1: be done with a medical appointment, so I was having
Speaker 1: to drive him afterwards, so I brought my own peanut
Speaker 1: butter crackers. I eat a lot of peanut butter crackers
Speaker 1: and then had an oat milk latte because Sarah told
Speaker 1: me get the oat milk, and she said cappuccino, but
Speaker 1: I didn't hear the cappuccino part, so I got the
Speaker 1: latte and I guess it was okay. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's fine, but skipping to dinners, which I guess is
Speaker 1: the part that's maybe more interesting. Mondays are usually pasta
Speaker 1: night for us, and I find this is a really
Speaker 1: good like life hack in general, because if you are
Speaker 1: kind of typical Monday through Friday work in school schedule,
Speaker 1: Monday often feels like, oh, you just got into it
Speaker 1: from the weekend. You're shifting gears like you get to
Speaker 1: the end of the day. People are tired, like nobody
Speaker 1: really wants to be thinking about dinner. So knowing that
Speaker 1: it is pasta is helpful because most people seem to
Speaker 1: like pasta, and so even picky eaters can do it
Speaker 1: as they wish they could have it with parmesan and butter.
Speaker 1: People who prefer more exciting things on their pasta can
Speaker 1: have more exciting things on their pasta. I tend to
Speaker 1: make doctor up a jar of sauce like we get
Speaker 1: raos raos. However you say it jar of marinara sauce
Speaker 1: and then mix it with veggies and cook Italian sausage
Speaker 1: and put it in. And so that is Monday night
Speaker 1: dinner basically, And we'll throw that out there as an idea.
Speaker 1: Tuesday was slightly more typical for breakfast. I almost always
Speaker 1: have two fried eggs and coffee.
Speaker 2: Wait, you skipped your snack.
Speaker 1: Oh well, there were pretzels and perhaps some gummy bears.
Speaker 1: Beers are worth mentioning. Okay, gummy bears are also really good.
Speaker 1: You can't leave out the gummy bears. I put them
Speaker 1: high up on the shelf in the pantry because they
Speaker 1: are so sposed to be mine. But of course sometimes
Speaker 1: people are as tall as I am and can find
Speaker 1: them now.
Speaker 2: A lot taller, actually a lot taller.
Speaker 1: As the case. Maybe I saw someone with the gummy
Speaker 1: bears that the other day, and I'm like, excuse me,
Speaker 1: I didn't think those were communal property.
Speaker 2: That's very funny. I'm more of a sour patch kid person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they're okay. I like starbursts a lot.
Speaker 1: I almost never buy them, but those are a fun,
Speaker 1: fun thing. We're gonna take a one more quick ad
Speaker 1: break and then I guess I'll be back with the
Speaker 1: rest of my week. Well, we are back talking our
Speaker 1: week of meals. You could just assume that I ate
Speaker 1: eggs and or a pop tart every morning for the
Speaker 1: rest of this this week, but you know, lunch often leftovers.
Speaker 1: But I'll talk about the dinners. So Tuesday night, we've
Speaker 1: been going back and forth on what we do. Like
Speaker 1: for a while, we were doing always a chicken and
Speaker 1: Asian sauce and rice kind of deal, and then people
Speaker 1: started getting a little tired of that, so we've been
Speaker 1: experimenting with different things. For Tuesday this week, we wound
Speaker 1: up doing fajitas, which is another meal that most people
Speaker 1: will eat in some fashion. We also make caesadillas for
Speaker 1: the children who do not wish to have meat and
Speaker 1: veggies on a tortilla with other stuff. But you know
Speaker 1: that you have your quesadia and you have fruit on
Speaker 1: the side. Those of us who eat normal food will
Speaker 1: eat the fijidas with peppers onions. We have store bought guacamole,
Speaker 1: so that's another really easy dinner that tends to be
Speaker 1: a crowd pleaser. So just throwing that out there as
Speaker 1: another idea of how people can customize.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's yeah, like that fajitas, it has
Speaker 2: moremultiple things that are good, which is a you can
Speaker 2: like vary it pretty easily, like just by swapping an
Speaker 2: ingredient or two. B. It's so customizable and see it's quick.
Speaker 2: So I actually think like as week night like standards
Speaker 2: go in your rotation, like we I have not put
Speaker 2: fajitas in there, and I'm I'm hearing this and I'm
Speaker 2: like that makes so much sense, so good hack.
Speaker 1: And the times I've like had to, I've been making
Speaker 1: my own guacamole, which I haven't done in a long time,
Speaker 1: but when I would, you know, it takes a lot
Speaker 1: of time. But it turns out that some of the
Speaker 1: deli prepared guacamole's from the story, if you get them fresh,
Speaker 1: they're pretty good. They're not like feeling like it's just
Speaker 1: a sad substitute for what homemade or restaurant guacamole would be.
Speaker 1: There actually pretty good. So you know, I do throw
Speaker 1: that out there as a easy dinner Wednesday. Our house
Speaker 1: manager tends to cook for Wednesday night, but we had
Speaker 1: asked that she do chili as a sort of fall flavors.
Speaker 1: Welcome to October kind of thing. So there was chili
Speaker 1: going ou the slow cooker all day. We also had
Speaker 1: corn bread and then avocado on top of the chili.
Speaker 2: I think people also want to know that you went
Speaker 2: to Starbucks, and I need to know about the outlast
Speaker 2: Strawberry bar, Like what is that?
Speaker 1: Okay? So yes, I am not saying everything that I ate,
Speaker 1: but I seem to have strawberry aside lemonade refreshers more
Speaker 1: days than not from Starbucks. And partly that is my
Speaker 1: kids really like them, so if they go, they want it,
Speaker 1: and so then I am paying for it, so I
Speaker 1: want it for myself to Our nanny often likes to
Speaker 1: go as well, and you know she likes Starbucks too,
Speaker 1: and so she'll get the kids something during the day
Speaker 1: and then bring it home. So it's like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: if a strawberry aside lemonade refresher is just appearing on
Speaker 1: my desk at three pm, I'm gonna drink it. So
Speaker 1: it's great. I really really have a habit of that now,
Speaker 1: but it's okay. And then the Outlast Rowberry bars. I
Speaker 1: will throw this out there as another fun little treat
Speaker 1: for those who maybe don't wish to or can't eat
Speaker 1: ice cream, but they're fruit bars. They're frozen fruit bars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so yeah, be cool, but reasonably good as far as
Speaker 1: these things go. Thursday, I did a long run in
Speaker 1: the morning, so I had the pop tart pre eggs
Speaker 1: post no lunch because my breakfast was like at eleven AM.
Speaker 1: But dinner was make your own pizza. This is another
Speaker 1: frequent thing in our house, so we buy frozen dough.
Speaker 1: Frozen pizza dough at the grocery store. A lot of
Speaker 1: places have this in the freezer case. You can look
Speaker 1: around for it, and then you just thought in the fridge.
Speaker 1: Everyone rolls out their own dough and whatever shape they wish.
Speaker 1: So if somebody's excited and wants to do a long,
Speaker 1: thin pizza, somebody wants to do a thicker pizza, somebody
Speaker 1: wants to do I don't know, multiple little pizzas, they
Speaker 1: can do that. And then you put tomato sauce on
Speaker 1: mazzarell cheese for people who like that. I don't put
Speaker 1: the cheese on. I just put top egs on, so pepperoni,
Speaker 1: red peppers again, a lot of red peppers consumed in
Speaker 1: this house. Other people have apples. I believe I started,
Speaker 1: but did not finish a Neshi mini creek ipa with
Speaker 1: that pizza, So that was that was yummy. Friday, actually
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I did. I had it afterwards because
Speaker 1: that's the night I had choir rehearsal, so I would
Speaker 1: have had to have had the beer after choir, not
Speaker 1: with pizza. Okay. Friday was actually Ruth's birthday dinner, so
Speaker 1: she had requested French toast and breakfast for dinner. However,
Speaker 1: she wanted to make the French toast because she wanted
Speaker 1: it done as she wished, so we bought a loaf
Speaker 1: of chala type bread. She made French toast. I did
Speaker 1: scrambled eggs and bacon. We had this with fruit. It
Speaker 1: was good. Saturday was my only restaurant meal of the
Speaker 1: week because I took her and her friends out to
Speaker 1: a local place for brunch, so that was great. I
Speaker 1: had a omelet with salmon and tomato. Oh this stuff
Speaker 1: is great. Yeah. And then Saturday night dinner was we
Speaker 1: still had some of the girls over, so I just
Speaker 1: ordered pizza for them and my kids, and then my
Speaker 1: husband and I had chicken. We're supposed to be chicken wings,
Speaker 1: but apparently nobody has chicken wings right now, I don't know.
Speaker 1: We can't find them in the grocery store. So we
Speaker 1: wound up with like Buffalo chicken strips, which was not
Speaker 1: quite as good, but you know close. Also apples, Nacho's
Speaker 1: football food. We were trying to watch probably some game
Speaker 1: whatever would have been on Saturday, Texas A and M.
Speaker 1: I assume it was Texas A and M. And then
Speaker 1: finally I'm almost at the end here on Sunday. The
Speaker 1: only interesting thing here is that for lunch, I made
Speaker 1: myself oatmeal with apples and peanut butter. This is another
Speaker 1: quick meal if anyone is looking for something you can
Speaker 1: do quick cooking oats. It literally cooks in like three minutes.
Speaker 1: Do one part to two parts water, boil it together,
Speaker 1: and then I put in peanut butter and apples, and.
Speaker 2: Did you cut? That?
Speaker 1: Makes it really good?
Speaker 2: There?
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 2: Did you cook the apples in there?
Speaker 1: I did not actually wind up cooking the apples. I
Speaker 1: have a little bit crunchy, you know, I want some texture.
Speaker 2: I have cooked apples and oatmeal, but beware that you
Speaker 2: have to use less water if you do that, or
Speaker 2: it turns us all the water comes out. And then
Speaker 2: I made like soup by accident, soup by accident, but
Speaker 2: it does turn them into like apple pie like apples,
Speaker 2: so yeah, well that's true.
Speaker 1: Well there wasn't any sugar in the oatmeal, so I'm
Speaker 1: doing the apples as kind of the sweetness. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then the peanut butter as peanut butter, because peanut butter
Speaker 1: is good, but other people might add almonds or something
Speaker 1: to make it crunchy. That would be good too. And
Speaker 1: then we wound up doing fajitas again because you know, hey,
Speaker 1: if it was good on Tuesday, why not on Sunday
Speaker 1: as well? But we often do hamburgers and hot dogs
Speaker 1: on Sunday and we just didn't that night. So I
Speaker 1: don't know themes. I I'm apparently an excellent Starbucks customer.
Speaker 1: I like repeated meals, like probably every week. There'll be
Speaker 1: pasta on Monday. A lot of weeks, there's a make
Speaker 1: your own pizza night. A lot of weeks. There is
Speaker 1: something feita related. A lot of weeks, there is breakfast
Speaker 1: for dinner, but you know it's good, and I do
Speaker 1: wind up starting and not finishing necessarily craft beer a
Speaker 1: number of nights. So if anyone has recommendations for a
Speaker 1: favorite craft beer. I would be open to suggestions.
Speaker 2: I think we all eat the same things all the time.
Speaker 2: I've learned that from my job because like we have
Speaker 2: to look at like logs from like our patients sometimes,
Speaker 2: especially when they're just they're just diagnosed with diabetes and
Speaker 2: they're just doning an insulin. You actually see they'll write
Speaker 2: down what they eat and how much insulnce you can
Speaker 2: help them, and like troubleshoot, like hey, you gave way
Speaker 2: too much and that's for that meal, and you just
Speaker 2: quickly notice and it's actually a relief to the families
Speaker 2: because like you have to learn how to count all
Speaker 2: this stuff. But like maybe kids especially, but I think
Speaker 2: everyone just has their standards. And as I wrote this out,
Speaker 2: I'm like, yep, especially breakfast and lunch. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: just like history repeating itself. But that's okay as long
Speaker 2: as you like it. And then what Laura pointed out
Speaker 2: about how like they had gotten sick of the Asian
Speaker 2: like rice dish. I like the idea of like you know,
Speaker 2: like every few months or every season or when something
Speaker 2: it's old, you can then start to like swap things out.
Speaker 2: But who cares if it's otherwise repetitive, as long as
Speaker 2: it's enough variety that you're getting your nutrients that you need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and well sometimes people are like, well I like
Speaker 1: to have different things. Well so do I. But that's
Speaker 1: how Wednesday night, if you're outsourcing dinner, that's gonna be
Speaker 1: a different thing every time. If somebody like has a
Speaker 1: takeout night once a week, that could be different every week.
Speaker 1: And that's how you could get variety. And then you know,
Speaker 1: you can cook something new or different or exciting on
Speaker 1: the weekends if you wanted, and that would still be
Speaker 1: like three nights a week of variety and then the
Speaker 1: other four. Don't think about it. I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like people can talk themselves into these either or things
Speaker 1: that are just not that helpful. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: also find that people are really just judgmental about what
Speaker 1: other people eat. I guess because it is such a
Speaker 1: universal human experience. I was, you know, I'm back online,
Speaker 1: I'm back on social media, and I was on Instagram
Speaker 1: and some woman was talking about her mac and cheese
Speaker 1: night with her family, and you know, I think she
Speaker 1: thought it sounded like a fun thing, like people have
Speaker 1: mac and cheese and some people put other things in it.
Speaker 1: And some don't and whatever, you have mac and cheese
Speaker 1: with fruit. We have mac and cheese like for the
Speaker 1: kids a lot. But people were just like, you're feeding
Speaker 1: your children poison. It's just like why, like why do
Speaker 1: people spend their precious time on this planet worried that
Speaker 1: some other family is eating mac and cheese Like I
Speaker 1: don't know. It strikes me as a waste of effort. Yeah,
Speaker 1: definitely a waste of effort.
Speaker 2: I mean, I it is true like food invites judgment,
Speaker 2: like if you if you see I'm sure someone listened
Speaker 2: to us right now. I was like ew or like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, they go to chain stores and they're
Speaker 2: not like you know, charts. Yeah, we didn't go to
Speaker 2: the farmer's market every day. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: it's just so individual and maybe I should check myself
Speaker 2: if I saw somebody's food and thought something negative about it,
Speaker 2: to make sure it's like, you know what, this is
Speaker 2: one area where like we can do us. I mean,
Speaker 2: I guess there are sustainability arguments too to be made.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, and maybe you feel better if you
Speaker 1: eat more fruits than veggies, but you know, tend to
Speaker 1: throw them in with most of the stuff. I probably
Speaker 1: could be better about eating fruit earlier in the day,
Speaker 1: but I do generally eat it at dinner veggies with dinners.
Speaker 2: So yeah, Plus we're staying a political on this episode.
Speaker 1: And maybe there's strawberries and the strawberry si ha ha,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. All right, So on to the
Speaker 1: Q and A. We're going food themed here. This listener
Speaker 1: writes what are your favorite go to recipes sources?
Speaker 2: So I mentioned Preptish, but cookbook wise, we have one
Speaker 2: called Dinner Illustrated that I think was from America's Test
Speaker 2: Kitchen and came out maybe a decade ago, and it
Speaker 2: is like my Rider di Ie cookbook, like it just
Speaker 2: it has everything. I could be fine actually if it
Speaker 2: was my only cookbook. There are so many things we
Speaker 2: make in there over and over again. So that's probably
Speaker 2: my favorite. And then I usually have like a few
Speaker 2: others that are out by I have a stack of
Speaker 2: cookbooks by the toaster oven that I can just like
Speaker 2: look at if I'm in the middle in the mood
Speaker 2: to just like figure out dinner for the week from
Speaker 2: a cookbook or something. And so I really like Dinner
Speaker 2: in One by Melissa Clark because everything has one dish,
Speaker 2: so it's like easy and doesn't take up a lot
Speaker 2: of dishwashing efforts. We had a guest named Claire Tansey
Speaker 2: who has a book called Dinner Uncomplicated. I still use
Speaker 2: that book quite a bit. Actually, there's some recipes in
Speaker 2: there the kids really like. And then online I just
Speaker 2: randomly google stuff all the time, just like search for
Speaker 2: whatever the thing is and then see what looks good.
Speaker 2: But the sources that seem to come up a lot
Speaker 2: are simply recipes, often has winners, and then how sweet
Speaker 2: eats is another We have a lot of salads and
Speaker 2: dinner recipes because I think she started as like a
Speaker 2: dessert person, but I never use those recipes, but I
Speaker 2: use her like staple type food.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just gonna quick mention. I mean with obviously,
Speaker 1: dinner creates dishes. Eating creates dishes. We have a new
Speaker 1: routine in our house that we were trying out where
Speaker 1: each child has a night where they do dishes and
Speaker 1: it goes in age order. So Monday Jasper, Tuesday, Sam
Speaker 1: so forth. So theoretically Friday is Henry. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: that's really ever gonna happen, but he can help load
Speaker 1: the dishwasher but you know, the idea is that if
Speaker 1: it was rotating, if it was like shifting week to week,
Speaker 1: we'd never remember it. So we're just gonna say it's
Speaker 1: this night. And so far, you know, it's been okay.
Speaker 1: The older children at least are doing it. And then
Speaker 1: I think Alex does it with help and reminders.
Speaker 2: And no one's arguing that they have a sports practice
Speaker 2: during that time, so they like, can't do it? Are you?
Speaker 1: So far that hasn't really come up.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 1: It may, but then I guess we could swap, but
Speaker 1: it hasn't really happened yet. So we don't actually really
Speaker 1: use cookbooks in our family that much. I mean, we
Speaker 1: have some so many recipes are online these days. We
Speaker 1: have a few old recipes from family things and such
Speaker 1: that are printed up or handcopied and all that. But
Speaker 1: because we were eating relatively similar things on the nights
Speaker 1: that I am cooking, it's not going to be something
Speaker 1: I'd be looking at a recipe for. And even when
Speaker 1: I do something different, so I you know, I like,
Speaker 1: can I get credit for I did salmon over this
Speaker 1: past weekend? Like I cooked salmon and green beans, and
Speaker 1: but all I'm doing is like putting a piece of
Speaker 1: salmon in the oven, like I just put olive oil
Speaker 1: and lemon and salt on it. And you know, green
Speaker 1: beans you just cook with oil and salt. And I
Speaker 1: did a side dish of this doll from like it's
Speaker 1: a lintil dish from the supermarket that you just heat
Speaker 1: it up. So that was the side. Like you don't
Speaker 1: need a cookbook for that. It's all very simple, like
Speaker 1: for a lot of stuff, there's no reason to make
Speaker 1: it more complicated than it is. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: guess that's my takeaway on eating in general. So I
Speaker 1: don't have a rider Die cookbook. Just not my thing
Speaker 1: at the moment.
Speaker 2: I think sometimes the complicated part can actually really backfire
Speaker 2: with kids, Like, yeah, you're like, I wish I had
Speaker 2: just made this really simple. That's actually probably what I
Speaker 2: like about my rider Die cokebook, because it's like everything's
Speaker 2: very basic in it. But I know what you're saying,
Speaker 2: Like sometimes.
Speaker 1: And I mean I kind of feel like this too.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people unnecessarily complicate things with you know. It's like,
Speaker 1: if you have your crowd pleasing meals and they are
Speaker 1: reasonably balanced, you may as well do that. Like people
Speaker 1: are know that's taking the easy way out. So what like,
Speaker 1: the easy way is probably the better way in this
Speaker 1: case versus the kids not eating it and you're creating
Speaker 1: food waste and all that. So anyway, just I'll get
Speaker 1: off my soup box again. All right, Sarah, what is
Speaker 1: your love of the week.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go with these maple weave sandwich cookies
Speaker 2: that I have a funny story about, which is that
Speaker 2: we bought the Trader Joe's and we love them, and
Speaker 2: then my husband came home with a box of similar
Speaker 2: looking cookies from fresh Market that I think really twice
Speaker 2: the price with a fancier box, and we open it up.
Speaker 2: They are clearly clearly the same cookies, Like there's some
Speaker 2: factory churning it out, and then they're putting the Trader
Speaker 2: Joe's box on it and selling it for like three
Speaker 2: forty nine and then the fresh Market box and selling
Speaker 2: it for seven dollars. They're delicious either way, but I
Speaker 2: suggest checking out your local tjs for that option.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, No. Trader Joys is good that way and Costco.
Speaker 1: We do some shopping there. Their Kirkland brand is a
Speaker 1: cheap and often very good. I bet they have them too. Yeah, probably,
Speaker 1: I'll say maybe pop tarts. Pop tarts could be my
Speaker 1: love of the week. They're good. What can I say,
Speaker 1: go well with coffee If he needs quick sugar before
Speaker 1: getting out and running, I can throw that out there
Speaker 1: as an idea. So anyway, well, we've been talking a
Speaker 1: week of meals. We'd love to hear what you are
Speaker 1: eating these days, your staple meals, what your crowd will consume. Happily,
Speaker 1: that doesn't take too much work from you or anyone else.
Speaker 1: Feel free to let us know about that and we'll
Speaker 1: be back next week with more on making work and
Speaker 1: life fit together.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 2: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
Speaker 2: and you can.
Speaker 1: Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
Speaker 1: been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us
Speaker 1: next time for more on making work and life work together.