As with many first-world parenting issues, this one should really be no big deal. So why is it many of my parent acquaintances find themselves rummaging through their cupboards at 7 a.m. on a Monday morning, searching for snack crackers through clenched teeth while their offspring whine, “Are you giving me celery sticks AGAIN?”

I remember primary orientation day at school mostly for the terrifying directive given by our son’s friendly and well-organized young teacher: “Please send a healthy lunch and two healthy snacks to school every day in non-disposable containers. We want to reduce waste as much as possible, so no juice boxes or other packaging. And no sweets.”

I quickly realized how spoiled we had become during our kid’s preschool years, with its supplied lunches and snacks; back then, I barely registered what he ate between breakfast and supper since his food needs were being so seamlessly attended to.

It was the dawn of an uncomfortable new era.

Providing daily healthy school lunches and snacks is a real challenge, one parents have to face daily, whether we feel like it or not.

Here are a couple of things I’ve learned about lunches in the months since school began:

1. Picky at home= picky at school: It’s endlessly discouraging to see your kid bringing home uneaten lunches day after day. Our household makes a real effort not to waste food, and to give new foods a good college try before deciding to like them or not—admittedly, a tough sell on occasion. If your kid eats a wide variety of foods at home, he or she will likely do the same at school, so try not to fall into the trap of only feeding them pizza or noodles for supper day after day. Varying the menu at home will mean more options available to you in preparing the daily lunchbox and will also reduce the number of times you hear the dreaded “You’re giving me that AGAIN?” Be patient; it may take a few tries to convince the kids that they really do like curry, or salmon loaf, but the rewards of a broadened palate are worth the initial time and energy investments.

    

2. Make meals that create lunchable leftovers: When my son started school, I bought him a kid-sized Thermos container and folding camp fork and spoon (he loves these) along with the standard-issue plastic sandwich containers and padded lunch box. That Thermos has been my salvation this year, carting innumerable warmed-over stir-fries, soups, and noodly concoctions to school. Now that winter’s here, warm lunches seem like a particularly good idea. If you’re going with soup, aim for the thick and chunky over the watery to keep clothes from absorbing most of the broth.
3. Learn to love the legume: You know what my kid can’t get enough of? The humble bean wrap. What’s it made out of? Refried beans spread onto a soft corn or flour tortilla with a piece of cheese folded inside, then toasted so the cheese will glue the whole thing together. You can also use refried beans as a dip, and pack a healthy lunch using cut up veggies like peppers, cukes and carrots with a few corn chips and a small container of beans. Simple, cheap, nutritious, and easy for kids to handle. You can even buy refried beans in a can, if you’re desperate. See my recipe for the homemade variety below:
4. The lunch muffin: So your kid’s a notorious snacker? How about turning a favorite baked good into a lunch in itself? Savoury muffins are a possible answer: as an example, check out this site for a ham, cheese and pepper (Aussies call it ‘capsicum’) muff recipe, and a few more savoury ideas, too: http://www.kidspot.com.au/kitchen/recipes/savoury-muffins-1742
5. Emergency rations: We all have days when we’re either run down, running late, or tired of running a household take-out service. Anticipating such days, I make provision: I keep a couple of slices of last weekend’s veggie pizza tucked away in the freezer as a lunchbox back up plan and a tin of chunky soup in the cupboard. Or try a camper’s special: buy dehydrated vegetables from the bulk store (or make your own in a dehydrator) and some generic Asian-style noodles, the kind that cook in 3 minutes. If you didn’t get that pot of homemade soup made, simply crush up some noodles in the kid’s Thermos along with a handful of dried veggies, add boiling water and a tablespoon or so of soy sauce and a dash of sesame oil, and voila! Soup will be nicely steeped and the noodles and veggies soft by lunch time. You may need to offer this last item as a lunch option at home once or twice before introducing it into the school lunch rotation (see above, re: food training!) To create positive associations with the new food, serve it at a picnic or on a fun road trip.
6. Fruit and veg prep 101: When choosing fresh veggies and fruit for the lunchbox, aim for the durable over the delicate. When I’m feeling organized, I try to make up a couple of snacks’ worth of veggie sticks to keep in the fridge, in a jar with water so they don’t dry out. Carrots and celery are obvious candidates, but don’t neglect worthy contenders such as raw turnip or rutabaga, kohlrabi, cauliflower, and bell pepper. To vary the orange stick effect, try purple and yellow carrots, now widely available at grocery stores and farmers’ markets. In the fruit world, the melon family is king of the lunchbox: it’s sturdy, tasty, and won’t turn brown when you cut it up. The berry family is also welcome, when we can get them; to avoid buying a million tiny disposable yogurt containers which our school doesn’t appreciate, we buy plain or vanilla yogurt in bulk, and sprinkle it with whatever berries we can get our hands on, or homemade apple or pear sauce.
7. Involve your kid in making his/her own lunch: My five-year-old wields a mean carrot peeler, and can scramble an egg pretty much on his own. Believe me when I say I’m already using these skills to my advantage! Lunch-weary parents everywhere should remember that we won’t be doing this forever; that old “give a man a fish” adage applies to our kids’ life skills, too. Showing them the effort required to pack a healthy lunch each day, and delegating more of the prep to kids as they get older will give them an appreciation for the work required to keep the household army marching on.

With a little bit of coaching and some “out-of-the-lunchbox” thinking on your part, your kid will soon be coming home with empty Tupperware containers and rave reviews for your swell provisioning. Just don’t forget to pack something for yourself on your way out the door to work; if you’re spotted scooting past a Drive-Thru window at lunchtime, you’ll never hear the last of it!

Refried Beans (aka the lunch packer’s salvation!)

Adapted from Molly Katzen’s invaluable Moosewood Cookbook

2 cups dried pinto beans, soaked overnight (or at least 6 hours)

(I’ve also tried this recipe with soldier, kidney, yelloweye and Jacob’s Cattle beans, but I think pinto is the yummiest)

3 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil

2 onions, chopped in very small pieces

One whole head of garlic, minced (or to taste)

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons chili powder

2 teaspoons ground coriander, or coriander seed, or fresh chopped cilantro

2 teaspoons ground cumin, or cumin seed (really nice when you toast it for a couple minutes)

A splash of hot sauce, or cayenne pepper, entirely to your own taste (or leave it out!)

After their soaking, add fresh water to the beans and boil them on the stove until they are nice and soft.

Meanwhile, in a large frying pan, heat oil and add onion, cumin, coriander, chili, hot sauce, and salt, and saute until onions are translucent, about 10 minutes. Halfway through the cooking, add garlic (if you add it too soon, it can sometimes scorch).

Add beans to frying pan and mix well over low heat. Use a fork or potato masher to mush them up—if there’s a bit of liquid left on the beans, I sometimes transfer them to a saucepan and use the hand blender to get them really smooth.

Serve with rice, as bean dip, as filler for bean wrap…the sky’s the limit! These beans keep well in the fridge and also freeze well (hallelujah!)

With my five-year-old’s aversion showing no signs of abating, I decided to write a children’s book about a public toilet that swallowed a swimming pool, to help us all laugh about this dislike of his. It’s called The Big Flush, and I get my first look at its printed self next week!

I am so fortunate to have Lea Embeli as the book’s  illustrator; her watercolours are delightfully whimsical and gorgeous to look at.  

Because I am the publisher as well as the author of this book, (a new adventure for me–my previous books were born the traditional way, at a local publisher) my next few months will be spent getting the book in front of as many sets of eyes as I can. I imagine I’ll be hanging out with more than a few kids who share my son’s feelings about noisy toilets.

I’ll be using Facebook and Instagram to publicize upcoming events related to the launching of The Big Flush, including a “Loudest Toilet” contest, where I’ll post video of some local high volume candidates for folks to vote on.

In the meantime, here’s a cover shot of my new baby! Stay tuned…

When the dishes arrived, W’s eyes lit up and his chubby hand shot out to scoop up a big handful of guacamole, licking it greedily off his fingers. The refried beans met the same fate; his mom barely got a look in. The look of profound satisfaction on his round and beaming face made me realize two things:   1. This kid was going to be a foodie and 2. I might as well give away the books on infant feeding that recommended starting out with the most bland and pre-digested of mashes, and get right to the point. Even in his food choices, W wanted to be treated like an older person, not an invalid with no teeth and a delicate constitution.

Suffering no ill effects from the gastronomic novelty of avocado and refried beans, W progressed rapidly to eating whatever we ate, sieved through the food mill I kept near my plate at mealtimes. As he got older, grew a few teeth, and showed a marked preference for the salty (olives), the sour (lemon wedges scooped unapologetically from my glass of water and devoured), and the mildly spicy (curry? No problem!) I realized that food needn’t be an area where parents need to act like coaches (“C’mon bud! Eat one more carrot…I know you can do it!”)  foreign diplomats negotiating a truce, or short order cooks. What we do need are a few ground rules, and the willingness to apply them.

I love food: growing, cooking, and eating it. Mealtimes for me are a time of gratitude to the earth, the growers, and the food itself for being so damn good. Why spoil all this goodness with the whines and fussiness of a small tyrant who doesn’t share the same appreciation (yet)?

When he was about two years old, W went through a picky period where he refused to eat various foods he had happily consumed only weeks earlier. His health was otherwise excellent, and he showed no allergic reactions to the foods in question: this was definitely just fussiness. He would sit at his place, moving food around on the plate for close to an hour without eating it, leaving his dad and me, our plates long emptied, tapping our toes impatiently and sometimes cajoling him, to no avail.

After an hour-long supper, telling him we wanted him to finish his food in five minutes meant nothing; what two-year-old can tell time? I bought a small hourglass egg timer instead, with brightly coloured sand that poured itself out in five minutes—a measure he could see happening right in front of him. Once the five-minute warning had been officially called and the timer set in motion, it was amazing how fast the last morsels disappeared. If there was still food left on the plate when the sand ran out, the plate left the table for good, often to howls of protest. The tyrant-toddler apparently didn’t like the loss of control this removal represented.

When the whining and wheedling over dinner continue, it’s time to call in the vultures. These large and ravenous creatures (who look a lot like Mom, Dad and whoever else is sitting at the table!) flap their wings and shriek loudly to announce their presence. They indiscriminately grab food off the plates of indignant toddlers and fussy four-year-olds, from the unwanted Brussels sprout to the desirable cheesy noodle. They can also appear at dessert, lifting off with apple crisp, yogurt, and granola bars. Vultures don’t negotiate, and they don’t care how much the fussy eater whines. With their first warning shriek, my kid magically starts eating, fearing the swift disappearance of his favorite foods along with less enjoyable items from his plate. I find their presence at dinner extremely helpful in bypassing intractable kid-parent power struggles with goofy humour. Vultures have helped me keep my cool during times when, if I were not role-playing a bird of prey, I would have lost it as a human.

Still, there are times when even a flock of hungry vultures can’t help a bad situation. During the worst phase of W’s six-month fussy period—he would have been about three years old at the time—he one night refused to eat even a bite of dinner. I issued a warning: if he couldn’t eat at least a bit of what I had prepared, there wouldn’t be another dinner option. I had resolved that I would not be a short-order cook in my own kitchen. He again refused to eat. Calmly, I stood up from the table and removed his plate. In its place, I put a big glass of milk. He looked stunned.

“Drink up,” I said.

“Where’s my supper?” he asked.

“You weren’t eating,  so I took it away. Maybe you’re not hungry tonight because of that big snack you ate this afternoon.”

He started to scream with outrage. “I want my supper!”

“Sorry,” I said. “Dad and I waited and waited, and you didn’t eat it. Drink your milk.”

By this point, he wasn’t listening, in the throes of a full meltdown.

With some difficulty, I picked him up off the floor and carried him upstairs while he thrashed and fumed. I could feel his anger and disbelief that I would dare what I was now attempting. It was an action that I felt I needed to take once, to make it clear we meant business.

Once in his room, he calmed down enough to drink the glass of milk, though we had to endure about 25 minutes of blood-curdling howls that sent my husband to the garage for his construction ear muffs. “Let’s just give him his supper,” he said. I refused. Of course I didn’t enjoy hearing him so upset; still, I sensed that this evening’s lesson would not be lost on our bright boy and that we would not have to endure many more repeat performances.

I was right. The next day, W ate his dinner in a reasonable time with no complaints. I am happy to report that we have not had any further displays of extreme fussiness at the table, with the exception of cooked mushrooms and, oddly, melted cheese. The vultures still make their appearance occasionally, but we’ve been able to put away the timer. My recovered fusspot now usually tries new food with a spirit of curiosity and the expectation that all food is yummy. I tell him how easy it will be to travel to new places and experience new cultures via his plate.

And I really can’t ever get enough of his often-repeated, “I love your food, Mommy!”