Ever since my friend Liz told me about that documentary Race to Nowhere, I have been panting like a dog at a dinner table waiting for news of a screening in my community. For those of you not familiar with the movie, it was made by a first-time filmmaker, Vicki Abeles, who takes a look at what kind of toll all… Read more »
It’s hard to wait for Christmas. Why? Because it might just be the only thing in the world kids are forced to wait for. Herewith, a timeline chronicling the demise of excitement, suspense and the simple pleasure of looking forward to something. (First published in Cookie; Text by me; illustrations by Brian Rea.)
In the console between the front seats of our family vee-hicle is a stack of the CDs we keep on hand to entertain the kids while driving. Most rotate through after a few months, or get thrown out, either because we – the parents – get so incredibly sick of them (see: Thriller, Free to Be), or because they – the kids… Read more »
…to have family dinner: When my kids are 16 and 15 (instead of 8 and 7) and we are dealing with friendship dramas, SATs, sexting episodes, and God only knows what else (Parents of teen-agers: please refrain from telling me what else) dinner will be so firmly established as my family’s 6:30 Magnetic North, that my kids’ hormone-raging, eye-rolling, parent-resenting… Read more »
I think it’s so awesome when readers come up to me and say “I love your blog. You sound like you have the greatest life.” This conclusion is based on the fact that I regularly…eat porcupine meatballs? That’s a joke, but it’s also kind of serious. I need to back up for a second. My first job out of college… Read more »
Last week I forced myself to put together an iPhoto album from my massive file of summer vacation pictures. I try to do this once a season and enlist the girls help with caption-writing — the final product could rival a John Irving novel for how many exclamation points they make me use — and usually this is all I need… Read more »
Last year, after hearing the news in a filled-to-capacity conference room on the 8th floor of the Conde Nast building that Cookie was folding, I went back to my office to begin the painful task of dismantling my bulletin board. The board (which I also called “my brain”) filled an entire wall in my office and was covered with about… Read more »
I’m not so good with remembering the everyday details of my life. I can’t tell you the name of my eighth grade math teacher, or my freshman year dorm room number, or my cholesterol reading from my last checkup, or even who I had lunch with last Thursday (without checking my calendar first). Just last week, I’m not proud to… Read more »
When we renovated our kitchen a few years ago I was so psyched to build in my “Command Central,” a desk with a bulletin board to keep track of schedules, birthday parties, class lists, and emergency numbers. And of course, the crown jewel of Command Central would be my MacBook laptop — right there at my fingertips whenever I needed… Read more »
There’s a girl, all 42 inches of her stretched out on the family room couch, reading a comic book. There’s a dad or a mom, standing over her, failing to get her get her attention. “Phoebe.” No response. “Phoebe?” Not a muscle moves. “Phoebe. Come on. It’s time for dinner.” Crickets. “Phoebe! Put the book down. Time to eat!” The… Read more »
I’ve been a runner for over two decades now. That doesn’t mean I’ve been a runner consistently for two decades. Or that I’ve run marathons or get up early to run the Central Park loop every morning like my best friend and mother of three (including twins) has done for most of her adult life. Since I was a teenager,… Read more »
From The Cricket in the Thicket, by Aileen Fisher (1963), a book given to me by my best friend’s mom, Rosa*, when Abby was born. It was my friend’s favorite book when she was little. Shall we all work on our nodding and cooing? *Yes! Rosa of Rosa’s Mud Cake!
For the next installment in DALS’s How I Buy Meat series, we hear from Alexandra Zissu, author of The Conscious Kitchen, and the “Ask an Organic Mom” columnist at TheDailyGreen.com. The goal of the HIBM series is to share exact meat-buying strategies and philosophies from food industry insiders, environmentalists, public health officials, etc. who also happen to be parents. Last… Read more »
Is it clear yet how I feel about the dinner table? I think it’s kind of a big deal. And I don’t mean that it’s a big deal in the way all those studies tell us it is. Because for every study claiming that kids who eat with their parents do better in school and are less likely to be… Read more »
Last week on my Babble blog I asked readers what they thought of Michael Ruhlman’s HuffPo rant about parents being too “busy” to cook for their kids. Actually, that was only a subset of the rant. Most of Ruhlman’s anger was directed at food editors, cookbook authors, and Food Network stars (even Jamie!) for giving rise to the 30-minute-meal industrial complex…thereby… Read more »
Short of actually feeding you and your family a meal at my kitchen table, I can’t imagine there is anything more satisfying than hearing about the successes you’ve all had using recipes and advice from DALS. Last night my neighbor Bonnie left a message for me — there was unmistakable triumph in her voice as she described the dredging stations… Read more »
Welcome! I’m Jenny, author of Dinner: A Love Story and The Weekday Vegetarians More
