Apple Picking And Eating!

Kids love fresh apples. At least that's what I observed on Saturday when we were picking apples at Chudleigh's in Milton, Ontario. Chudleigh's is a stereotypical entertainment farm: straw maze, farm animals, playground, bakery, gift shop, hay rides, BBQ, and 100 acres of apples. My sisters (Sophia and Michelle) and their families visit Chudleigh's every fall as soon as the Honey Crisp apples are ready to pick. The kids love horsing around on the hay bales, seeing the animals, and eating grilled corn-on-the-cob. But most of all, I think they love to pick and eat the apples. Matthew (7 years old) and Olivia (4 years old) couldn't stop eating the Honey Crisp apples. It seemed like for every one they picked, they ate two. Caroline preferred the smaller Empire apples, which she could hold with two hands. As I picked apples, I listened to the conversations taking place around me. I heard small voices say, "Daddy, can I have another one?" and "I love these apples!" And when I looked around, I saw kids and their families munching away on apples. Anyone who has taken a child to a farm or garden to pick their own apple or peach or carrot (...or just about anything) knows that children will eat fresh fruits and vegetables. It's the out-of-season, mealy, flavorless stuff that they don't like. We can't take fresh fruits over the border so we left our bag of Empire apples with Michelle....to add to the 20 lbs of Honey Crisp apples that she picked.

We'll take Caroline apple picking again sometime this month. Clearview Orchard has several varieties of apples ready for picking. They are located at 1051 Barry Road in Haslett (517-655-1454). Like Chudleigh's Clearview Orchards is more than apples. They also have caramel apples horse-drawn wagon rides, and a pumpkin patch.

Caroline's Lunchbox Menu, September 30: Breakfast - watermelon, apple muffin; Lunch - cheese quesadilla, carrots (Anne's home garden) and zucchini (Owosso Organics); Snacks - multigrain bread, sunflower butter, Empire apple (Chudleigh's...uh, we brought back a couple of apples)

Childcare Center Menu, September 30: Breakfast - honeydew, wehat bagels, cream cheese; Lunch - chicken fajitas, grapes; Snacks - baked sweet potato, wheat crackers

Meal Time Accoutrements

Since starting my new job earlier this month, Geoff has been taking on the lion's share of getting Caroline to and from her childcare center. I try to help by writing Caroline's menus and packing her food. We use a variety of meal time accoutrements to help us stay organized. For hot breakfast and lunch items, we use Thermos food jars. Thermos sells FUNtainers (food jars with designs) but we went with the plain old stainless steel style. The food jar works well and keeps Caroline's hot cereal, rice, pasta, and other hot foods steaming for hours. On a side note, Thermos also sells a fabulous guarantee spill-proof coffee mug. The food jars and coffee mug can be purchased on the Thermos website. We pack salads, vegetables, and other cold lunch items in her Laptop Lunchbox. This bento-style lunchbox is plastic, lead-free, and comes with five removable containers (two with lids), including one that can be used for salad dressing, utensils, and a user's guide. We bought three of the lunchboxes last year when Obentec was having a sale on mismatched compartments. We love them and use them everyday. There have been some problems with quality though. We've had several cracked lids and all of our utensils broke. Obentec has great customer service and replaced the lids right away. They replaced one set of the utensils but after the replacements also broke, I didn't bother with additional replacements. I pack the rest of Caroline's food - snacks like muffins, fruit, and yogurt - in 1/2 pint Ball or Mason glass jars with plastic, reusable lids.

Caroline's Lunchbox Menu, September 25: Breakfast - watermelon (Greenman Produce), apple bread (Rasch Farms apples); Lunch - cheese and summer squash quesadilla (Owosso Organics summer squash), corn-on-the-cob (Titus Farm), banana; Snacks - cucumbers (Cinzori Farms), 100% whole grain bread, sunflower butter

Childcare Center Menu, September 25: Breakfast - cantaloupe, pumpkin bread; Lunch - cheese and bean enchiladas, corn, beans, grapes; Snacks - smiley fries, cucumbers

September 24th Menu

Caroline's Lunchbox Menu, September 24: Breakfast - ten grain hot cereal, banana, raisins; Lunch - whole wheat rotini pasta with pesto, cherry tomatoes (home garden), watermelon (Greenman Produce), zucchini (Owosso Organics), broccoli, cheddar cauliflower (Cinzori Farms); Snacks - string cheese, corn muffin, Honey Crisp apple (Rasch Farms)

Childcare Center Menu, September 24: Breakfast - oatmeal, bananas, raisins; Lunch - chicken lo mein with red and yellow peppers, kiwi; Snacks - cheese breadsticks, pizza sauce, apples

Schuler's Quiche

Caroline loves the spinach/basil/feta quiche from The Chapbook Cafe at Schuler Books and Music. It's creamy and packed with spinach. And if you buy it before 11:00 am, it comes with a mini muffin and a side of fresh fruit. Schuler's is a locally owned and operated bookstore with two locations: Meridian Mall (Okemos) and Eastwood Towne Center (Lansing). Geoff and I love bookstores so we usually make a trip to one of the two locations on the weekend. Quiche was on the menu today but instead of making a quiche from scratch, I opted to buy a slice from Schuler's. At $5.25 a slice, it makes for a relatively expensive toddler's lunch but since Caroline always eats every bite, it's worth it.

Caroline's Lunchbox Menu, September 23: Breakfast - corn muffin, pear (Threadgould Gardens); Lunch - spinach/basil/feta quiche (The Chapbook Cafe), broccoli (Cinzori Farms), watermelon (Greenman Produce); Snacks - whole milk plain yogurt, Honey Crisp apple (Rasch Farms)

Childcare Center Menu, September 23: Breakfast - pineapple and corn muffins; Lunch - broccoli and cheese quiche, salad, honeydew; Snacks - yogurt dip, apples

From Bad To Worse

We are moving to Ann Arbor in a couple of weeks so we have been looking for a new childcare center. As much as I complain about the food served at Caroline's current childcare center, it is not as bad as some of the centers I have visited in Ann Arbor. Last week, I visited a center in downtown Ann Arbor and...to put it nicely, was disgusted. Besides the unprofessional attitudes among the staff (including the director), I was appalled by the condition of the toddler room. There was paint peeling off of the wall, there were no books to speak of, and the kitchen was in the toddler classroom. The rotating lunch menu - an optional meal that families can purchase for $3 per lunch - was cooked by the director and went something like this: Wednesdays - turkey hot dogs/Sun Chips/baked beans, Thursdays - Dominos pizza/Sun Chips, Fridays - chicken nuggets, mac n' cheese, fruit or vegetable. And we wonder why one in every four preschoolers in this country is either overweight or at risk of becoming overweight and why children have such poor dietary habits.

Caroline's Lunchbox Menu, September 22: Breakfast - O's, watermelon, cantaloupe; Lunch - zucchini, cauliflower, broccoli (Cinzori Farms), banana, rice with dill, chard, feta cheese; Snacks - whole grain crackers, carrot dip

Childcare Center Menu, September 22: Breakfast - orange juice, Cheerios, Life, Rice Krispies; Lunch - ground turkey and rice with tomatoes, California vegetables, bananas; Snacks - guacamole, taco shells

September 19th Menu

I lost tomorrow's menu so I am just going to have to wing it.

Caroline's Lunchbox Menu, September 19: Breakfast - cantaloupe (Greenman Produce),pumpkin carrot muffin; Lunch - egg salad (Flying Goat Farm eggs), 100% whole grain bread, tomatoes (home garden), corn-on-the-cob (Titus Farm); Snacks - hummus, whole grain crackers, pear (Kismet Farm)

Sharing Food With Friends

These days, our garden is overflowing with cherry tomatoes. Caroline is learning how to share and is practicing by sharing the tomatoes. We pick them in the morning (or sometimes in the evening) and she takes a big bucketful of them to share with her classmates that day. The kids love them and gobble them right up. Who needs brownies, cookies, and other sweets when you can have vine-ripened cherry tomatoes? When Caroline comes home from school, she says, "I sharing totatoes, Mama." This morning, my friend Anne brought over a beautiful bunch of carrots - tiny ones, long ones, short ones, and fat ones. Caroline took half the bunch to the childcare center this morning to share with her friends. She proudly grabbed them by their tops - I kept them on since many children have never seen carrots with their greens still attached - and took them into her classroom.

Update: Caroline's friends loved the carrots. When I asked one of her teachers if the kids liked the carrots, she said, "I can't believe it, but they ate them. They loved them...Do they really just grow like that?"

Caroline's Lunchbox Menu, September 18: Breakfast -100% whole grain toast, sunflower butter, Flaming Fury peach (Clearview Orchards); Lunch - marinated baked tofu, rice, zucchini (Owosso Organics), pear (Kismet Farm); Snacks - trail mix (Michigan dried cherries, O's, sunflower seeds), cantaloupe (Greenman Produce)

Food Mistakes In The News

I just finished reading an on-line version of the article, 6 Food Mistakes Parents Make, published in Sunday's New York Times. My friend Lori sent it yesterday but I only got around to reading it this evening. In short, the 6 food mistakes are (1) sending children out of the kitchen, (2) pressuring them to take a bite, (3) keeping 'good stuff' out of reach, (4) dieting in front of your children, (5) serving boring vegetables, (6) giving up too soon. One line in particular caught my eye. "Although obesity dominates the national discussion on childhood health, many parents are also worried that their child’s preferred diet of nuggets and noodles could lead to a nutritional deficit." This is a good article but it made no mention of the role of childcare centers in reinforcing the nugget and noodle diet. I realize that the article is focused on the mistakes that parents make. But when your child eats at a childcare center three times a day, five days a week, their role in cultivating children's dietary habits can't be ignored. Chicken nuggets, fish sticks, Ritz "cheese" crackers, cookies, brownies, pie, cake...these are all things that are regularly served at the childcare center. When children are eating these foods, it means that they are missing opportunities to improve their diets by eating one of their favorite healthful snacks or to maybe trying a new fruit or vegetable. For about a month or so early in the spring, the cook was menuing more fruits and vegetables and fewer processed and sweet foods. But when there is no oversight of the food program - the food and nutrition committee no longer exists - its easy go back to the same old, same old.

Caroline's Lunchbox Menu, September 17: Breakfast - ten grain hot cereal, currants, banana; Lunch - cheese and zucchini (Owosso Organics) quesadilla, carrots, cantaloupe (Greenman Produce); Snacks - Flaming Fury peach muffin (Clearview Orchards peach), cucumber (Owosso Organics)

Childcare Center Menu, September 17: Breakfast - cream of what, bananas, raisins; Lunch - veggie tacos, grapes; Snacks - pumpkin pie, cucumbers

Feeling Overwhelmed

I am officially feeling overwhelmed by food. It is canning season and it seems like our boiling water canner has been on non-stop since last weekend. We've canned peaches, pears, and corn in the last couple of weeks and now we're canning tomatoes. I am grumpy tonight because Geoff and I have been canning tomatoes since last night and almost half of every batch (about 3 quarts) isn't sealing. Every batch needs to be processed for 85 minutes so it is maddening when I pull out a batch and 3 quarts have tomato juice spewing out of them. The quarts that don't seal have to be eaten, frozen, or reprocessed (for another 85 minutes). We bought the tomatoes - two bushels - on Saturday from Titus Farm for $15 per half bushel, or $30 per bushel. We have half a bushel left to process. Even though I am stewing now, I know that in the middle of winter, I will be glad that we went through the trouble to can our own tomatoes. Store-bought canned tomatoes tend to have added ingredients like salt, sugar, etc. and some of them leave a metallic after taste in my mouth. Each quart of our home-canned tomatoes have a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice (an extra measure to prevent them from spoiling) and nothing else. And they taste like tomatoes.

Caroline's Lunchbox Menu, September 15: Breakfast - peach (Clearview Orchards), O's; Lunch - mac n' cheese with chard and cabbage, broccoli (Cinzori Farms), banana; Snacks - plain yogurt, watermelon, corn bread (Titus Farm corn)

Childcare Center Menu, September 15: Breakfast - Orange juice, Cheerios, Rice Krispies, Golden Grahams; Lunch - macaroni and cheese, broccoli, banana; Snacks - pudding, crackers

Chocolate Chip Cookies and Celery?

Caroline loves cookies. We went to my friend Mary's house for tea this afternoon and the first, second, and third things that Caroline wanted to eat were the cookies. She had one cookie but after that, I felt like that was enough. After whining for more cookies for a few minutes and realizing that I was not going to give in, she moved on to the rice crackers and cantaloupe. Chocolate chip cookies and celery are on the menu tomorrow for afternoon snack. I don't know very many two-year-old children who would choose celery over a chocolate chip cookie. In fact, I don't know very many children - or adults for that matter (including me) - who even like celery unless it is served with ranch dressing or used to add crunch to a salmon, egg, or tuna salad sandwich. But I digress. I am sure that Caroline will want one of those chocolate chip cookies tomorrow. And my guess is that if I observed her through the one-way mirror tomorrow during lunch, I would see Caroline munching on one. It's not that I don't think children should eat cookies. I just don't think cookies are appropriate snacks to serve at a childcare center. Children get plenty of opportunities to eat cookies outside of school. What their small bodies need are nutritious foods that are packed with vitamins and minerals. I'll pack a pumpkin carrot muffin in Caroline's lunch tomorrow. I hope she eats it but I won't be surprised if it makes its way back home in her lunchbox untouched.

Caroline's Lunchbox Menu, September 12: Breakfast - peach (Clearview Orchards), French toast sticks (Zingerman's bread and Flying Goat Farm eggs); Lunch - salmon salad, 100% whole grain bread, cucumbers (home garden), watermelon (Greenman Produce); Snacks - pumpkin carrot muffin, pear (Kismet Farm)

Childcare Center Menu, September 12: Breakfast - applesauce, French toast sticks; Lunch - tuna fish pitas, cucumbers, watermelon; Snacks - chocolate chip cookies, celery