The Food Confessions Of A Stay-At-Home Mom
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We are what we eat, or so the saying goes. The Forward’s Food Diaries asks anonymous Forward readers to record how they ate for an entire week. Reading about what we eat provides an intimate, hilarious, sometimes moving and always revealing glimpse into people’s inner lives and their often fraught relationship with what nourishes them.
Prospective Food Diarists should send a week’s itemized list of what they ate and the times they ate it, along with a description of themselves, their age, career, location, kosher status, weekly food expenses or habits and anything else they feel compelled to add to feder@forward.com with the subject Food Diary. Food Diaries will be published on Wednesdays.
This week we have Lana, a 33 year-old stay at home mom with two kids who lives in Brooklyn and keeps kosher – sometimes.
MONDAY
8:00 AM A bowl of Cheerios and a cup of skim milk. I’m eating breakfast with my kids, so I eat what they eat. Follow that up with two cups of Dunkin Donuts Keurig coffee. That pretty much feels like all I do these days, wandering from room to room in my day pajamas drinking coffee.
9:00 AM Another coffee.
12:30 PM I’m out to lunch with my girlfriends, all a bunch of stay at home mothers. Smoothies and paninis all around. I get mine with eggplant and tahini. Feels sort of Jewish.
4:00 PM I go grocery shopping and buy a cheesecake. Eat two slices. I love cheesecake, maybe more than my kids.
6:00 PM Chicken nuggets and salad. None of the kids eat the salad. I’m too tired to push it. I eat what they eat.
8:00 PM Feel guilty about the bad dinner I had. Drink a gallon of water.
8:30 PM Hubby comes home. Share some cheesecake with him. He bought a burger on the way home.
11:00 PM I go downstairs and dunk the cheesecake in the sink. Then I eat two slices of wet cheesecake. Throw the rest out.
TUESDAY
8:00 AM Wake up starving. More Cheerios, more milk. Banana. My eldest misses the bus so I drive her. Stop for a latte on the way back.
11:00 AM Go back to sleep, wake up at eleven. Drink lots of water. Put on leggings but don’t go to the gym.
1:30 PM Late lunch with friends. Order penne a la vodka. Yikes.
5:00 PM Tuesday is TACO NIGHT. Big night for us all. Add quinoa to tacos to make it healthier.
7:00 PM While I wait for my husband to come home, I wish I hadn’t thrown out the rest of the cheesecake. Hope my kids don’t grow up to be fat.
9:00 PM Veggie burgers with husband. Sprinkle a bay leaf on for an added touch. Glass of red wine.
WEDNESDAY
6:00 AM Get up early, go to the gym. Eat three Nature Valley granola bars in the parking lot. Have a smoothie in the gym lobby. All the other women there are on their way to work. Tired.
8:00 AM Cheerios, milk. I accidentally make one of my girls cry.
10:00 AM Black coffee, the way my father used to drink it. Banana.
1:00 PM Make myself a quiet lunch of soul-healing chicken soup. It takes four hours to cook and it’s calming. My husband will like it. He’s stressed because of work and I don’t cook as much as I should, considering I do nothing all day.
3:00 PM Microwave some eggrolls. They’re better in the oven, but I’m impatient.
3:30 PM Greek yogurt.
5:00 PM Kids don’t want chicken soup. Make ketchup and mustard chicken. Looks fancier than it is.
7:45 PM Husband likes the soup. I offer him an egg roll. Two and a half glasses red wine to finish us off. Will go to gym tomorrow.
11:00 PM Can’t sleep. Too much meat maybe. Is that a thing?
THURSDAY
6:00 PM Definitely not a gym day. Little one slept in my bed last night with nightmares. Must eat healthier.
8:00 AM Make pancakes for kids and me. Lots of syrup and whipped cream. They’re happy so I’m happy.
1:00 PM Order caesar salad for lunch.
4:00 PM Eat the rest of the leftover pancakes.
5:00 PM Spent a while cooking for Shabbat. It’s my favorite time of the week. But because of that, dinner is just boxed mac n’cheese with portobella mushrooms and sushi for the adults. Kids are happy though.
7:00 PM White wine while I wait for husband. We eat our California rolls in silence. I think it’s companionable, but who knows.
FRIDAY
8:00 AM Back to cold cereal and milk.
10:00 AM Latte.
12:10 PM Deli sandwich followed by fruit salad. Split the bill with a friend. Promise to go to the gym tomorrow.
5:55 PM Shabbat dinner. I buy challah, husband makes a steak in the kitchen for both of us. Love it when he cooks. There’s the rest of the chicken soup, chicken nuggets, sauteed vegetables, meatballs and mashed potatoes. We all drink too much Diet Snapple. We’re not big on water in the house. Dessert is boxed brownie mix. I add walnuts to it to make it look homemade.
SATURDAY/SHABBAT
11:00 AM We all wake up late and eat babka in the kitchen. Coffee. Apples.
12:00 PM We have a meal composed of last night’s leftovers, lamb chops and some odds and ends I found in the fridge. Husband makes a fresh salad. Kids eat salad when he makes it. Wish I cooked more.
4:00 PM Potato chip party with kids and their friends.
7:00 PM Toast myself with disgusting bottle of vermouth. Week could’ve been worse.
9:00 PM Creep out of bed to make an apple pie like my grandmother used to. Will serve it for breakfast.
SUNDAY
8:00 AM Apple pie!
9:00 AM First coffee! I’m pleased I’m having it so late.
11:00 AM Grilled cheese and salad for lunch! Kids are hyper.
3:00 PM Wondering what to make for dinner?
4:30 PM Movie night with panko chicken and sweet potato fries.
7:00 PM Husband has wine, I don’t. We have apple pie together. We’re not the healthiest family, but whatever. Can work on that next week.
Shira Feder is a writer for the Forward and is waiting to receive your food diaries at feder@forward.com
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