Time, that elusive friend

I feel a bit obligated to write a little about time, since one of the most common complaints or excuses for not being able to cook or prepare healthy and diverse meals for one's family is lack of time (not to mention energy and creativity). I've thought about this a great deal, because, as the mother of two young sons, I rarely feel that I have any time for myself. The time I do have free is filled with endless laundry, cooking, cleaning up toys, washing dishes, trying to catch a moment on Facebook, and now writing this blog. And let's face it, I imagine I am not alone when I admit to being very resentful of this every once in a while. I do have an advantage in one area (as do many women my age). I have experienced the time crunch issue from three distinct vantage points:

1. As a married woman with a full-time job (this took up a good twelve years prior to having children)
2. As a married woman with a baby and a full-time job
3. As a married woman with two young children under the age of four who now stays at home with them, balancing childcare, freelance writing and designing, and managing a household 

Yes, I was single once, but I hardly count that in the equation, as I was in grad school and certainly not living any sort of typical lifestyle. We had some great potlucks back then, though! And the coffee was certainly plentiful.

I can easily say that although number two was a bit challenging, being a first time mother and all, the third vantage point has offered me a new appreciation for all those mothers and fathers who have stayed at home before me. It is exhausting! Okay, I admit, and great. But I definitely don't feel that this option has afforded me endless time for planning and preparing the most perfect meals for my family. (And before I go any further, I must confess to cooking maybe two-thirds of the time. My husband is an amazing cook and approaches his time in the kitchen with love and zest. He is definitely the better cook and is the Julia Child to my Rachel Ray — I never thought I would ever compare myself to Rachel Ray, but in the "time and preparation" category, I guess the analogy works. This, I know, is a key to our sanity. Before I stayed home after the birth of Nooa, and even up through Nooa's first six months of life, Nalin did most of the cooking, even with his full-time job and new parenthood status times two.)

One constant in all these vantage points, however, was our commitment to good food. We certainly didn't start out perfectly (and are far from perfect today). Like many others, we ate out too often when we were both working, spending way too much on take out and expensive meals with friends. One thing we did not do, however, was heat up a lot of prepared or frozen foods. Perhaps I was always a bit wary of all of the sodium, preservatives, and strange list of ingredients on many of these processed foods. And when Nalin first came to the states from India, he ended up in southwest Missouri, where, in the early 90s, there were few if any options for Asian cuisine outside of the fast food cashew chicken joints on nearly every corner (if you haven't heard of cashew chicken, check out this great article in the New York Times). He learned that if he wanted to eat Indian food, he had to cook it for himself. He would hitch rides with friends and drive three hours north to St. Louis to get spices and pickles at the Indian grocery stores, and he slowly and methodically attempted to recreate the dishes he grew up eating at his mother's table. As we started dating, cooking was an essential part of our relationship. We were both fairly broke, so we would try to eat at home as much as possible. I guess you could say that cooking became synonymous with courtship. Going forward another 15 years of our relationship with cooking would fill this blog space up pretty quickly, so perhaps I'll save some stories for other posts.

I wish I could say that there is an easy and immediate answer to this problem of finding time, but honestly, from my experience, committing to changing the way your family feels about food seems to come down to three important values:

1. Make cooking a priority above other things. And by cooking, I don't mean overly complicated and time-consuming dishes. Almost everything I cook usually takes less than a half-hour to prepare and then cooks by itself for another half-hour or so. And in this blog I will continue to give some ideas for quick meals and things to prepare ahead of time to have handy. Mark Bittman in an article on babble.com entitled 5 Tips for Family Dinner has some succinct (albeit unsparing at times) ideas for how to make the time to cook for our families.
2. Buy (or grow!) good food and learn to read labels. We love going to the farmers market every week during the summer and early fall and tend to make it a family outing (the kids love the fresh berries, smoothies, baked goods, cheese, you name it). Most recently, we have invested in a finding local farms where we can get eggs and natural or organic meats all year round. And you can keep that meat in your freezer for three months. We try to keep staples like rice, lentils, pastas, canned tuna, coconut milk, chutneys, Thai curry paste, and spices in our pantry, so that there is always something around to eat, even with the fridge is empty. There is no doubt that having a well-stocked pantry and fridge helps in time management. We have lived in small, medium, and large cities and have always found good farmers markets wherever we go. And although there is much talk of the increase in organic options in grocery stores and Wal-Marts throughout the country, those options certainly aren't always available or affordable for everyone. This is when reading labels comes in handy. If you can find more natural foods without preservatives, hormones, antibiotics, added colorings or artificial flavors, and high fructose corn syrup, you are going a long way to making better choices for your family. Choices that will taste better as well. My sister is in the process of expanding her garden this year, which also brings home the idea of growing more food together as families. And you don't always need a backyard to do it! There is a nice article on gardening with kids on babble.com as well.  
3. Diversify. Diversify. Diversify. One thing I learned early on in our marriage was that Nalin was not a fan of sandwiches. And what's easier or faster than sandwiches? Instead, I often take that leftover rice, some fresh veggies, a little soy sauce, and an egg from the fridge and make fried rice in a matter of minutes. Or, we scour the fridge for items to make an easy stir-fry or a quick Thai curry with coconut milk and some frozen shrimp and peas. Flour tortillas with some fresh chopped spinach, grated cheese, and some deli meat make great wraps or quesadillas. And our favorite simple meals are often Mexican (okay, so it helps to have some great Mexican grocery stores here in Chicago), since they are simple, fresh, and amazingly tasty. As I think I alluded to in a previous posting, guacamole is a favorite food of our sons. I remember years ago visiting my friend Joyce in St. Paul who whipped up a simple couscous with grapes, nuts, olives, and a few veggies. It took her only minutes, and it was so wonderful. I often recall that meal when I am searching for quick and easy options that defy tradition. I truly believe that the more you challenge your palette and your family's palette, the more receptive everyone becomes.

There is so much more to say on this subject, but I will end this for now. I look forward to revisiting this topic, though, even as a reminder to myself that the time we spend on food for our families is nothing but an act of love.