* Sunbasket is one of those services for people who want the experience of cooking but who are short on time or inspiration. Once a week the sunbasketeer receives a huge box full of recyclable (sorta) packaging and cute packets or bunches of wholefood organickey ingredients that are perfectly portioned to the recipes allotted to each basket. Basketeers make the food, recycle all the packaging, feel good about themselves, and rinse and repeat.
This seems to be how a typical Sunbasket with a Toddler Evening looks:
Brief preface: this was after coming back from the hospital fairly late in the day following Daddy's big surgery. Daddy and Gramma Lisa were off to Haggen's to fill a prescription. I thought we'd better get some food on the table pronto and that they would enjoy having something waiting for them when they returned. Start the clock!! Vroom vroom.
Chaya yells APPLE as I slice into a mango (diligently attempting to "halve" and then cut 1/2 inch strips before forgetting their specific instructions and going with my tried and true slash and dash cutting techniques). I tell Chaya I don't have an apple. This is a mango. She begins reaching into the cutting board and demanding some, but throws it on the floor when she discovers it is neither (1) actually an apple, nor (2) the delicious dried (and heavily sweetened) mango she used to love before mommy stopped buying them.
A minute passes. Chaya yells "CHAYA" and gestures haughtily at the scallions I am now cutting. I used to let her chew on them while teething, so figure why not. She eats a little. I scoop up the remaining mango and scallion from the floor.
Looking at the clock, I realize that there's little chance of getting a pot of water boiling and then cooking rice before dinner, so I decide to ad lib a bit and use the rice cooker for the little bag of Sunbasket rice.
Chaya discovers a pack of gum. She gleefully follows me around the kitchen sticking each stick individually into my pocket as I ping pong between the rice cooker and the ten places I swear I saw the measuring cup recently. No water is spilled on the head of toddlers, but I avoid tripping over said-toddler only by the grace of god.
Booms the tiny tyrant: "Momma hold my hand!!!" I ask her to wait, as I'm carrying a bowl of lime juice and honey, and desperately looking for the alleppo peppers that supposedly came with this mix.
Chaya drags a chair from the dining room table towards the kitchen. It snags on the linoleum and she begins to howl bitter recriminations while the chair threatens to tip on top of her. I gently guide the chair back into the war zone, and she continues pushing it towards the stove. Interception while flailing around a cod (that is salted and oiled but not covered in miso maple syrup whatever, since that too has mysteriously disappeared)
Chaya demands "EGG! Open the fridge! Egg!" I give her a hardboiled egg. She runs through the living room brandishing said egg. She returns seconds later with the top broken off and presents it to me. While I'm attempting to flip a fish, she demands I open the rest of the egg. I peel the egg. She yells WHITE EGG victoriously, and then bites off the top. YOLK OUT! She lays both egg white and yolk on the range and turns around towards the fridge, gesturing passionately. She yells EGG! I explain that she does not get another egg until she's eaten the first one. She refuses to allow me to throw it out, but doesn't eat it either. Instead she repeats EGG in a variety of different whines and imperatives.
I run to the living room and sweep up the egg mush created earlier. On my way back to the kitchen, I attempt to clear space at the table to fill with plates and silverware.
Chaya pushes the chair to the fridge and starts mashing buttons until the water starts spraying out of the dispenser. Fortunately, I have anticipated the moment, and always cups underneath the dispenser nozzle. As I move sizzling fish off the stove, Chaya extricates the cup of water and waves it over her head. I intervene with a gasp and place the cup on the counter. I do not actually knock it over the next minute, but it's close.
The rice cooker goes off. I ignore it. Chaya yells BEEP. I guiltily ignore her too as I flounder about with cod, salad, and the "ok seriously what is Chaya gonna eat (she hates most fish and there really isn't enough rice for her and everyone else given the allotment), how about some yakitori rice from the freezer leftover section... sure, she'll throw it around and then demand CHEESE probably but hey something in the bowl" Chaya leaps up to the chair and insists on being the one - the ONLY one - to close the microwave. I finally manage to get her food in the microwave. As I'm leaning over to clean a fishy mess, Chaya bangs the microwave into my head. I mutter an impressive stream of euphemistic imprecations and say something like "Chaya, hon'... mommy hurt her head." Understatement!
Chaya grows bored and grabs my hand, attempting to take me to the living room. I apologize for the tenth time and explain I need to mix the salad.
Chaya yells CHAYA EAT!
I give her some salad. She spits it out. I give her some mango. She says "not a fan." EGG she howls. I offer her the prior egg. She howls some more. She says something about crackers. Or rice. Now it's rice.
The rice! Oh crap. I release the steam and check on the rice, which has been on "keep warm" for the last 10 minutes. It's kind of a gooey gelatinous mess, but technically still rice. I stop the rice cooker and ladle the rice onto plates. It's past toddler dinner time and I haven't heard from Andrew or his mom recently. They're at Haggen's waiting for prescription drugs and/or buying cookie ingredients and/or planning to go out to dinner and catch us later. Whichever. Hangry toddler must eat. I am not quite sure what to do with the fish or rice. The rice is a lost enough cause, so I let it get cold. The fish I keep fairly insulated in a pyrex container under wrap. I throw several armfuls of dishes into the sink, since they are a little too gooey or burnt for the dishwasher straight out.
I start to lay out my food and toddler yells FISH. I assume she wants a fishstick since she usually hates fish other than fishtsticks. She howls as I go towards the bag of fishstick and yells FISH... so I give her my cod. She eats it - to my surprise - and demands more, yelling FISH SWISH SWISH SWISH!.
I pick off all the cod from my salad and put it on a plate, which I put at the table. Chaya descends upon it like a vulture coming upon her first carrion of the month.
Taking my opportunity, I throw together some more food on my plate, store the cod as best I can and sort of sit down to eat. And as we muddle through our plain cod and sticky rice mush, I think perhaps Sunbasket is not exactly for us at this time.*
*Of course to redeem your free gift, you have to sign up for a subscription. AND you have to cancel the next week's order before you've even received your first box. I naturally forgot to cancel before the next week's automatic renewal. Holy moley! Ok the food was good (I think - 2/3 of the ingredients were things that set off reflux for me... the cod was good and the garlic and onions on everything else smelled divine), but $80 for three meals (for nominally two people, except for said dietary limits and Andrew's appetite means mostly for one)? Dude I don't spend that much when I eat out!
Benightedly, I may try a few of the other competing meal services, since they are all flocking into my Facebook feed with discounted offers now. I usually cook in advance during naptimes and just set the timer or reheat in a microwave before dinnertime, but perhaps we'll gradually improve on our adventures in cookery. Perhaps.
Stay updated on that one.
In other culinary toddler news, Chaya has taken to sprinkling sumac (a spice I use to substitute in for lemon and citrusey notes) on her eggs in the morning. I had left some in a salt shaker for my own use and she's become obsessed with it. I have to say (1) way healthier than that much salt, which would be the alternative considering her obsession with the shaker stemmed from watching Andrew salt his eggs (more tenderly than she might) in the mornings, (2) surprisingly delicious on eggs.
In exchange, she's basically given up on all other manifestations of fiber, vegetables etc. Her drothers would be to eat white flour crackers, cheese, egg whites, chocolate and cookies from now on... unfortunately she's inherited the digestive systems of my side of the family. Andrew's family seems to have pretty fast guts, if you will. They can definitely get away with (and probably do better with) more refined grains, higher animal proteins, sugars and butters and other things that would leave me clamoring for a bottle of Miralax. My family thrives on obscene amounts of plant based fiber, which Andrew may sometimes suffer the brunt of when I get a little too "this is how I like to eat." Anyways, it means we do our best to sneak fiber somehow into her preferences (at least she likes okra at the moment, to continue her strange toddlerness) and miralax into her "pink water" (toddler vitamin water because no she seriously will just intentionally dehydrate herself into a state of massive discomfort if you dare to offer her plain water).
And now for the medical update/how-did-we-get-here
Last Thursday, Andrew got himself some collarbone surgery! He's back in a sling for a while and has found a cycling replacement for the Ski to Sea, which is a truly bittersweet thing to say. It was a weird experience. His mom came up to hang out with him so I could watch Chaya. I didn't really think much of the out-patient surgery in theory. Very safe, ultimately. But I was anxious and distracted all day until he texted me that he was in recovery and "feeling drunk." He's recovering well, but glad for the painkillers they prescribed him.
So it's been a wild and whacky few days in our household. Chaya's parents maybe are not helping Chaya "touch the sky" as often as she'd like. Though mommy can kind of get her onto her shoulders without totally destroying her wrists and tendons (I'm sojourning my medical mysteries through the musculo-skeletal system these days with a menu of things that don't work gud at the moment!).
And Chaya's nursing daddy back to health, because she's considerate like that.
But we have food. We have family. And we have a ton of weird insulating packages that are technically recyclable if you can (1) process them in a few complicated ways, (2) fit them into your overstuffed recycling bin!
Bring on the Sun Baskets... because we've already paid for them anyways.
Note to parents; use tv. Maybe in a few years they can help int he cute ways Sunbasket suggests, but until then... tv...
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