The Balanced Kitchen

Time for food. Time for Life.

Embracing the Imperfect: The power and productiveness of accepting reality

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This is our dead week without school, camps, or travel plans and it was supposed to be a fun and highly productive week full of adventures with my boys and major things getting crossed off my to-do list. I had a vision: we were going to explore new playgrounds and go for bike rides, we were going to go to museums, and the boys were going to help me with some house projects I have been longing to do. I was going to be a supermom and we were going to have an amazing time!

And then my 8-year-old got sick. For two days he didn’t leave the couch, which led my 5-year-old to get squirrely and crabby, and my plans for our perfect week to go up in smoke. Normally this kind of week would have made me grumpy, stressed, and anxious to get out of the house but I was shocked to find that, for the most part, I was able to just accept the reality that was my home-bound life.

So this morning, instead of going for a bike ride, we ended up at a local coffee shop, board games in hand, to eat a late breakfast of chocolate croissants and juice. Gone were my mealtimes and generally healthy food choices. Gone was my hope for some exercise and time outside with the boys. But when I stopped to notice, it was more than ok, it was actually fun. I didn’t feel anxious about the calories consumed, the sugar ingested, the lack of fruit or vegetables, or the fact that nothing was getting crossed off my list, instead I just embraced the reality of what was possible and enjoyed the time we were having….

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15 Quick and Easy Ways to Protein-Pack Breakfast

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When I was seven my parents got called into a parent-teacher conference because I was having trouble in the late mornings at school. During recess I would fight with the boys (literal kicking matches—I won a lot) and would also get frustrated during lessons when I didn’t feel like I understood. My parents couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Nothing was happening at home, I wasn’t complaining about school, why was I acting out?

Then one evening my mom heard a story on NPR about the importance of protein for brain function but also for staving off hunger and a light bulb went off in her head: I was hungry! The next morning she made sure that I had protein in my breakfast and, like magic, the problems disappeared! From then on, she was adamant that I have some sort of protein every morning.

So imagine my chagrin a couple of weeks ago when I started getting messages from my 7-year-old’s math teacher wondering why my normally helpful, engaged kid was suddenly having trouble. Had something happened at home? She asked. Were there problems with friends? We had long talks and strategy sessions with him but to no avail.

And then one morning it hit me: he was hungry. In the weeks leading up to the change he had been going through a breakfast strike where he would only eat a tiny bit of his breakfast each morning and in my attempt to respect his listening to his hunger cues, I had tried to be flexible about it. But now it was clear: the kid wasn’t eating enough….

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7 Tips to Help You Actually Enjoy Thanksgiving

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Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. I love the coming together of family (whether actual or adopted), the sharing of foods, and the practice of expressing gratitude. Since marrying into a Brazilian family I have also loved seeing the different cultural interpretations that families bring to the table—tropical fruits in place of cranberry sauce, salad instead of green bean casserole (don’t miss that), and Brazilian desserts as well as pumpkin pie.

But for many of us Thanksgiving can also be overwhelming. It is a lot of work to produce so much food. There is a lot of pressure to have it be the perfect day. And that is where I think we need to shift our expectations. For me, the importance of Thanksgiving is in the coming together of people, it is in the sharing of plenty, and it is in the expression of gratitude for all that we have, which feels especially poignant to me this year as we are witnessing so much misery around the world.

As we prepare for Thanksgiving this year, this time of year to give thanks, I wanted to advocate for all of us to be kind to ourselves and to take the stress out of the day, so that we can truly focus on the important aspects of this holiday.

So here are my tips for ways to make Thanksgiving a little more relaxed and pleasurable, so that you can stay present and enjoy the day for what it is meant to be….

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The Truth About Family Dinners: What it looks like in our house and simple guidelines that helped to make it better

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We all know the benefits of family dinners— less picky eating, lower risk of obesity and eating disorders, higher academic achievement, lower risk of teen pregnancy and substance abuse, the list goes on and on. And we all have that idyllic idea of what it should look like—perfect table manners, no tension, everyone together, beautifully prepared meals.

The reality, though, can be very different. People can feel frantic, tired, and stressed. Family members can arrive late. Someone refuses to eat the meal in front of him or her. The presentation of the meal is haphazard. Or family dinners just aren’t even happening.

The truth is that family dinners can be a challenge, but they are a challenge worth having.

From my own childhood I have memories of long family dinners with wonderful food and tons of laughter from a seemingly endless stream of puns (yes, I come from a very verbal family), but I also have memories of tears, slamming doors, and meals I found unappetizing. The truth is, that is what family dinners are. They are a chance for us to be our best selves and our worst selves. It is an opportunity for everyone in the family to be themselves as they are in that moment, and to still be loved at the end of it.

A lot of my clients feel really guilty about what their family dinners looks like. People stressed, less-than-perfect food on the table, or not everyone eating together. And what I tell them, and myself, is that it is ok. We are doing the best we can and making due with what we’ve got.

So in an effort to help to take some of the angst out of the concept of family dinner I thought I would share what our family dinners look like at this stage in our family life….

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4 Cooking Projects to Do with Your Kids, Plus Watermelon Water

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I am in the midst of three (3!) weeks with the kids home without summer camp, which means that I am doing that juggling act many of us experience at some point during the summer when we are trying to get work done and also provide fun and engaging activities for our kids (although I am definitely also a believer in free time when kids entertain themselves and even get bored!). Our plans for these weeks include some house projects (cleaning and reorganizing the playroom!), some fun out-of-the-house activities, and cooking projects to stock of the freezer for camp lunches.

As I have written about before, cooking with kids is great for many reasons including decreasing picky eating, introducing new foods, helping them to understand where their food comes from, giving them confidence, and introducing them to math concepts, but it is also a lot of fun, especially when they can get their hands dirty!

If cooking with your kids is a daunting thought, try one of these recipes to get you started. They are favorites in our house!…

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Playing Hooky as a Family: The healing power of a break

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For years my favorite movie of all time was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I loved the idea that you could steal a day away like that. That you could have a day where there were no rules or obligations, just fun. Then, in the spring of my senior year of high school, I got “spring fever” in a big way. I hung out on the front lawn of the school, found any excuse to have fun, and, yes, even skipped some classes. It was wonderful! And each spring, as the weather gets warmer, I feel a little itch to relive that spring. I have fantasies of dropping everything and playing hooky for a day. Well this year, my husband and I made it happen and it was AWESOME!…

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Surviving Holiday Gatherings with a Picky Eater

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The family is gathering around the table for Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone is set up for a beautiful meal full of tastes, abundant food offerings, and gratitude. But then there is your child who is scowling, or maybe even refusing to come to the table. You feel embarrassed, perhaps angry, you are worried that your in-laws or your own family will judge your child or even you. The tension mounts… This is not going to end well.

As we all know, family gatherings can be both wonderful and intensely stressful. As you prepare for the season’s festivities, it can be helpful, both for you and for your child, if you do a little bit of thinking about ways to preemptively manage the tensions at the table. Here are my suggestions:

1)   Put yourself in your child’s shoes. All of that food that is either unknown or unappealing to your child is likely to feel overwhelming and even scary. Your kiddo is very aware of the expectation that s/he should eat it all and that pressure probably feels pretty intense. Another way to approach this, think back to when you were a kid. I bet there was at least one dish that you thought was disgusting, but felt pressured to eat. How did that feel when you were little? Just by understanding a little bit about how your child perceives the situation, you may find you have a bit more compassion, patience, and flexibility in the moment.

2)   Get on the same page as your partner. Talk about your concerns ahead of time and make sure that the two of you can be a team in your approach, both in terms of how you communicate with your child and how you communicate with any family members who might contribute to tense dynamics. Come to terms with the fact that this is very likely not going to be the meal where your child suddenly eats everything.

3)   Talk with your child ahead of time. Discuss the fact that there may be unfamiliar or unappealing foods on the table, and that is ok. Talk about expectations of polite behavior—“No thank you” instead of “I don’t like that!” and staying at the table while everyone is eating together are probably good starting points. And come up with a game plan together for how to approach the meal. What foods is s/he willing to eat? How will you handle desserts (for ideas on this, check out this great piece by Caron Gremont of First Bites)? Is s/he willing to do one bite tries of one or two new foods?

4)   Talk with anyone else you think you should talk to. Let your in-laws, parents, siblings, whoever know that in the interest of having a pleasant meal, it would be really helpful if pressure to try new foods was not put on your child during the festivities.

5)   Remember to relax. The more tense you are, the more tense your child will be, which increases the likelihood of a meltdown.

Then, relax, and enjoy the time with family and friends, because, in the end, that is what this is really all about.

Generational Cooking

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Each August the boys and I come out to Colorado to spend a number of weeks with my parents (I know, I know I am insanely lucky). I love this time for many reasons, but one of the highlights is always the cooking. I have always loved cooking with my mom.  She is the one who kick-started my passion for trying new recipes, experimenting in the kitchen, and cooking for others. And now that my kids are in on the fun, these moments shared in the kitchen have come to mean so much more. …

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New Year, New Approach: Mindfulness

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2013 was an amazing year of change for my family and me. It was a whirlwind of activity from starting kindergarten to finishing my training to launching a new business and blog. It was wonderful, challenging, frenzied, and exciting.

In the final days of the year, as I was trying to think about my hopes and dreams for the coming year, one of the things that I kept coming back to was the question: as a health coach, where do you need to do more work? What will help you to more authentically walk the talk? And the answer that stuck was: Mindfulness….

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