Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Cooking travails of a mom

Many of you must be going through this travail day in and day out. Yep I am talking about packing lunch and snack box for our children every day. The box is just about 15 inches by say 3 inches. But the content that goes into it sure will make our ISRO scientists think that rocket science is child's play than planning on what goes into the box.

Every night me and my mother-in-law sit to discuss this serious matter. Thank god we have two heads working to try and plan the menu. There are certain criteria that we have to consider before we decide on what to make. One, it must be deliciously innovative. So we cannot have the regular idli, dosa, utappam or upma. It is so not happening!

Second it should be tasty of course. Even here taste means not anything spicy for my litte one but medium spicy for my older one. So that leaves me preparing two different dishes.

Third the content should not be liquidy. So our good old dhal, sambar, rasam are out of question. Otherwise I have my kids complaining that the whole of break time was busily spent in cleaning than eating.

Yes I know some of you might say try tupperware or 'lock and lock'. They are supposed to be leak proof. Absolutely true. But I tried out one such box and the clasp broke within a week. Rs.450 down the drain in a week. The other box I have makes me do a tug of war to close and open it. But then, good old steel lunch boxes are passe you see.

So, what options am I left with? Sandwhiches? No not every day. Parathas of different varieties? Oh so boring. Mama they say "what about pizzas and burgers?" No not refined flour every day is my answer. What about veggies and greens? How will you get your vitamins is my argument and the look on their face is as though they are looking at alien from outerspace. And I have the answer for this immediately from both, and with great finality "if you give us that we will bring back the box as it is, then don't complain we have not finished".

Well what am I left with? Back to square one. Sitting and trying to put together new recipes. The problem could be because there are so many options these days. What happened to good old rice broth and veggies that we used to have when we used to go to school? Surely our moms had an easier time with us I guess.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Absolutely, the lunch time of say 30 mins maximum in a day for kids, but it is a work of 2 or 3 hours for moms like you and me,
cheers
Work from home