I sat on a chair small enough that I could perch my chin on my knees, and snuck a glance at the other parents in the circle. They looked as uncomfortable and bored as I felt, which I found comforting. The head of the preschool finished lambasting the horrors of coloring books, princess merchandise and superheros and then asked us for questions. A mother near me raised her hand. These chairs put us all back into school-mode. “Kayla’s mom, yes?” asked the teacher
“Yes” said the woman who would now forever be known in my mind as Kayla’s mom “What do you put in lunchboxes?”
My heart sank into my stomach. Lunch. I was in charge of lunch now! I hadn’t thought about that.
The teacher replied “A sandwich should be fine. We have fruit at snacktimes. Parents sign up to bring it in.”
As far as I knew, my daughter had never had a sandwich in her three years of life. For some reason I can’t explain even to myself, I abhor them. I don’t much like bread, I don’t like cold meals, and while my love for mayonnaise knows no bounds, I find lunchmeat as appealing as cardboard. I think I have sandwich trauma. Which leaves me with the question: if not a sandwich, what goes in the lunchbox? The sandwich is the American way!
The teacher woke me from my sulk “As we all know, BPA in plastics can be released when we microwave containers, which upsets hormonal balances in growing bodies. We’re happy to heat up meals, but please place anything you wanted warmed up into Pyrex containers.” This gave me my hint to the secret of the lunchbox: non-cold food. Non-sandwich food! Just as Jimmy Buffet noticed its 5 o’clock somewhere, I knew it was dinnertime somewhere. I would treat lunch like dinner. It’s a solved problem.
When I make my daughter a dinner, I aim for variety. Her tastes change from day to day; a favorite yesterday is not interesting today. Plus, I’m trying to get her to eat as many different things as possible while she’s young enough to be moderately amiable at the table. Recent studies had shown that children start fearing new foods around two, when they become mobile. It’s a reasonable survival strategy in a world that harbors nightshade and oleander. So the trick is to lay down a wide variety of things she can consider food while adventure was still in her blood (or at least, she still trusted mamma not to poison her). You can’t have neophobia when nothing is new.
Variety is the enemy of scurvy as well as boredom. As long as you feed the little ones some protein for growth, some carbohydrates to fuel those mad toddler laps around the living room, and a ton of vegetables and fruit, you get a healthy kid. So I compose a lunch box of representatives of the food groups, with vegetables taking center stage. To avoid the reheating business entirely, I would make hot things in the morning and pack up it tight, knowing it would probably be the perfect barely-warm temperature Amelie prefers.
Her teachers have made the occasional comment, especially the day I put lamb stew in her lunch box, but the feeling I’ve gotten is they are expressing is jealousy rather than concerns about nonconformity. And some days her box comes home barely touched. Harriet Worobey, a childhood nutrition expert, warns parents against giving up too soon. She says may take more than ten attempts to introduce a new food, so I just keep packing it in. Honestly, it makes the week’s planning easier, knowing there will be asparagus in the box every day this week.
Lazy Glazed Carrots
This is a trick I figured out when I noticed the raw snack carrots were not going to get used up before they went white from the dry environment in the refrigerator. Rather than toss them in the backyard for the squirrels, I dredged a grandmother’s recipe from the depths of my memory, and now it’s a regular lunchbox staple. I’ll start them on the back of the stove before Amelie wakes up, and they’ll be sweet and soft by the time I’m ready to pack the lunch box up.
1 cup carrots, either the raw snack kind or regular ones cut into 1 inch x ¼ inch sticks.
Throw the carrots, water and butter into a frying pan. Bring heat to boil, then reduce to medium-low. Check in 20 minutes for doneness, if carrots are soft turn up heat to reduce the water and get a sweet carmalization on the carrots (when carrots get a slight brownness, we call that caramelization. As in caramel. It’s the natural sugars in the vegetable coming together.) If the carrots are still hard and the water is low, you can add more water and let them be for another ten minutes or so.
Then only danger is letting them blacken when the water is all gone, and this is quite likely if you are busy fighting over whether or not your little one is willing to wear a sweater. So before getting them dressed, do turn the heat down to the lowest setting while you do battle.
I often pair these with a cheese stick, a whole-wheat tortilla and sliced hot dog (nitrate free of course).
Box-of-crayons Broccoli
In the fall, the farmer’s market has broccoli and cauliflower in the colors of the rainbow, and you can easily buy small quantities of each so you can have a lunchbox with yellow, while, green and purple mixed. Whole foods and other health-food stores often carry these varieties as well. Don’t be surprised if your little one eats only one color day after day, even though the taste is not much different. Susan B Roberts, nutritionist at Tufts University, suggests the rule of 15—putting food in the table 15 times to see if a child will accept it. Cook a small variety each day to offer them (they taste fine one day later, but on the third day no self-respecting gourmet —no matter how short— will touch them.) I steam them until a fork goes in easily, toss with a small pat of butter and salt lightly. Adding a little fat — like butter—to vegetables can release the fat-soluble nutrients, plus they eat twice as much.
Pupusas
Amelie’s favorite lunch item comes from her El Salvadorian nanny, Ofelia. Pupusas are a little like stuffed quesadillas, and very tasty hot off the grill (or found in a lunchbox still warm few hours later. )
2 cups masa harina (you can get at any Hispanic grocery store, and sometimes at regular ones in the “ethnic” isle. As well, some health food stores like Whole foods sell it in bulk. It’s corn flour tortillas are made of.)
Place toddler on counter. In a large bowl, mix masa harina and water, letting toddler stir as long as they can. Now, knead well—another great job for your kid. Be sure to give the dough a little extra kneads to make sure it is fully blended, then let it rest ten minutes.
Roll the dough into a log, and cut into 8 equal portions. Roll each portion into a ball. Again, this is great fun if you are three years old. Press your thumb into the ball to make a whole, and then allow your kid to put about 1 tablespoon of filling in. Fold the dough over the hole completely enclose the filling, and press it with your palms to from a disc. If you have a tortilla press, you can use that to further flatten, or you can slap the disc in your hands, back and forth, until it about 1/4 inch thick.
Heat in an ungreased skilled for about 2 minutes on each side, until lightly browned and blistered.
Uncooked puposas can be kept, separated with wax paper, in your refrigerator or freezer, so you can cook them freshly in the morning.
Fillings: traditionally the Pupusas Revueltos, which Ofelia makes, have cheese, beans and shredded pork. But you can stuff it with whatever occurs to you, just like making a quesadilla. Try cheese and leftover broccoli, a little bacon and beans, or chopped tomatoes and a little bacon. Let the fridge be your inspiration.
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