Pressure Cooker

Color-blocked bento boxes? Bunny-shaped sandwiches? There are a lot of books that claim to have solutions to the tedium of packing school lunch. But are they realistic?  Jane and Liz tested them out–so you don’t have to. We review four new books and dig up the tips and tricks that actually make packing lunch less tedious and maybe–maybe?--even fun.

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OMG! Prices are insanely high. What foods have jumped the most and which are still affordable? Jane and Liz talk about what’s up and what’s down, when rising food prices might slow, then challenge the amazing chef Edward Lee to share creatively cheap weeknight lunches and dinners that kids will gobble up. (Hint: our favorite is a warm, honey-butter sweet potato.)

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So many recipes out there are billed as  “fast” or “easy.” But are those labels deserved?  The shopping. The chopping. The cooking. The cleaning. It leaves a parent wondering: Is it just me, or is none of this, actually, easy? On this week’s episode, Liz and Jane talk to Caroline Chambers, author of the popular newsletter What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking, to take on the myth of easy weeknight cooking: What it gets wrong, and how to break up with 15-minute recipes that actually take you an hour.  

Caroline Chambers’ go-to peanut sauce for noodles, dumplings, or just about anything:

Whisk together 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1/3 cup soy sauce, 3 tablespoons rice vinegar, 1 tablespoon sriracha and 1 tablespoon honey. It’s going to seem very difficult to stir together but I promise it’ll come together eventually — just keep stirring! If your nut butter is really dry, it will be easier to mix it together in a blender. Adjust seasoning to taste. Seriously! Taste it! Need more salt? Soy sauce! Need more heat? Sriracha! Not creamy enough? More peanut butter!

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After the cheesy gut bombs of the Reagan era, we’ve arrived at the “hopey changey” era of school lunch. Michelle Obama put school lunch on the front page and ushered in upgraded nutrition standards. But the battles didn’t end there. In this episode, Jane and Liz unwrap the future of school food with concrete tips on how parents can make a difference.

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For those unfamiliar with the inner workings of the school lunch program, it is puzzling, even maddening: Why is it so hard to offer tasty, nutritious food at school? In this episode, Jane and Liz dig into the history of the school lunch program to unveil how we got to where we are today. It’s a surprisingly twisted tale involving desperate farmers, skittish military generals, shortsighted bean counters, pizza lobbyists, and a network of underground caves…filled with cheese. 

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On this episode, Liz and Jane talk to Jennifer Anderson, the guru behind Kids Eat in Color, an Instagram account that has become a go-to for literally millions of parents. Anderson is a nutritionist and a mom who is successfully changing the conversation about how to feed kids with tips and tricks for persuading kids to try new foods, right-sized portions, saving money, and how to talk about a balanced diet. 

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Hearts. Dinosaurs. Baby Yoda. SpongeBob. The Great American Food System makes chicken nuggets in all these shapes and more. And why not? Our kids eat loads of them. Last year, American families spent more than $200 million on frozen nuggets in novelty shapes. In this episode, Jane and Liz talk to Scott Friedman, whose family invented the dinosaur chicken nugget, and explore why dino nuggets—and all sorts of fun-shaped foods—might deserve a little more respect.

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“It takes a village,” as the saying goes. Well, here’s the ugly flip side of that concept: an episode all about the conflicts that bubble up when other people get involved in feeding our kids. Jane and Liz enlist the help of Carolyn Hax, the Washington Post’s legendary advice columnist, to help solve listeners’ issues with interfering, overbearing, and lackadaisical relatives who make feeding our kids more stressful than it should be.

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Half of all parents of young children say they have at least one picky eater in their household: a state of affairs that strikes many moms and dads stuck serving up the same half dozen foods on repeat as highly unnatural. With the help of Jennifer Traig, the author of Act Natural: A Cultural History of Misadventures in Parenting, Jane and Liz explore when, and why, picky eating emerged as a common trait among children – and what you can do to stop it. 

This episode is brought to you by Haven's Kitchen. #CookHappy with their fresh sauces 🌈  and walk around your kitchen like a champion.

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Brown University economist Emily Oster has emerged as one of today’s hottest parenting gurus, thanks to her ability to cut through the noise and offer sensible ways to interpret conflicting advice on raising small humans. Oster joins Jane and Liz for a deep dive into the flaws and limitations of the research out there on feeding kids, with the goal of helping parents avoid the whiplash of conflicting trends and headlines.

This episode of Pressure Cooker is brought to you by Haven's Kitchen and its ready-to-use sauces that make dinner fast, easy and delicious. Learn more at havenskitchen.com

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