What's The Point of This Salad?

Claire: [00:00:00] The effort of trying to come up with a lunch that he will eat is simply not worth it to me. So we will just buy him this box of shit that I'm sure takes more time to open than time it takes to eat.

Quinn: Welcome to Not Right Now, the podcast about parenting through all of this,

Claire: We'll be talking about slash crashing out over topics like screen time and vaccines,

Quinn: Banned books, and maybe just stop leaving your books on the car floor. Dammit. It's not an advice show.

Claire: It's a you're not alone and you're also not crazy for screaming in the shower kind of show. I'm Claire Zulkey from Evil Witches.

Quinn: And I'm Quinn Emmett from Important, Not Important.

Claire: You can find details on anything we talk about in the show notes or at our website, not right now dot show.

Quinn: Dot show. And if you like what you hear today, please share it with a parent who needs it or who might laugh and tell their kids to be quiet. And then drop us a nice little five star review.

Claire: And reminder, you can send questions or feedback to [00:01:00] questions at not right now dot show.

Did you already go ahead and delete Disney from your apps?

Quinn: I think I did, I think I did. I'm pretty sure, there's so many devices to delete things on. It's exhausting. So, the kids did say, well, is this Disney? And I was like, yes. Is this Disney? Yes. And I'm like, great. There's 400 fucking other things you can do. 'cause they're cowards.

Claire: Well, did I tell you how I can't boycott Target currently? I dunno if I told you this story. I told it in other places.

Quinn: Can’t?

Claire: Can't. I got close to scammed out of a thousand dollars a couple weeks ago by someone pretending to be the owner of the newspaper that I do my newsletter for. And they were like I wanna buy some gift cards for the editors 'cause they've been doing such a great job.

Quinn: Oh, you told me, but explain this. Tell me what actually happened here.

Claire: Okay, you can put this on the pod 'cause people need to know about this even though I'm so embarrassed about it.

So [00:02:00] I got an email from a very random email address saying, hi, it's Mary. I need you to help me buy some gift cards for the people at the Round Table. 'cause they've been doing such a great job. But it has to be a secret.

Quinn: Now pause. Is all of that like real information?

Claire: Here's what I did. I Googled the Mary and there's a woman named Mary who owns the newspaper.

Quinn: Okay. Was there a Round Table?

Claire: Round Table is the name of the newspaper. She didn't even say the Round Table, she just said, 'cause everyone's doing such a great job. And this woman I Googled is a big muckety muck, like her name's in a lot of buildings at Northwestern University. And so the world that I live in, I'm not unused to having a very rich person kind of treat me like shit and assume it'll work out, you know? And as a parent, you know, for sure. I mean at least I know it is so typical to get an email from saying, Hey, we're gathering a gift card for so and so 'cause whatever the fuck, you know, and you're like, sure. Like one just came through, I don't even know what it is, but we're gathering money for someone 'cause of something, and [00:03:00] so I was like. Okay, sounds good. I'll do this. And Steve was involved 'cause we were all doing like, we built it into the day to go to Target and buy these gift cards. And Steve was like, this sounds like a scam. And I was like, no, just like this rich lady. Like whatever Mary, she's texting me at this point. And I was at the Target having purchased four gift cards of $250 a piece and finally when this person said, now scratch off the cards and send me the pictures, that's when I was like, finally, I guess Steve is right. So anyway, I have a thousand dollars now it's closer down to $800, but I have a thousand dollars of Target gift cards that you cannot return the money on.

You can't do that. And $250 is way too much to just give to someone, no matter how good the teacher or the cleaning person is. I don't have a $250 tip in me. And so yeah. So I have to shop down these Target gift cards. So that is the hell I've created for myself. So anyway.

Quinn: Not to compare you to a boomer specifically, but just how [00:04:00] widespread and how specific this stuff really is getting and how much your information's available for it. Like I have told essentially everyone in my life, if you get something that makes you hesitate for half a second, just forward it to me.

Because it's wild man. I mean, whether it's representing companies or people or whatever, everyone is taken advantage of every day.

Claire: This is not even the first time this has happened to me. There was another time I was cooking, so super distracted and I got a call and on my phone it showed up as Citibank, and I was just too gullible to think that anyone besides Citibank would have the number labeled Citibank on the phone.

And again, we came really close to like losing a shit ton of money. All we had to do was completely close our bank accounts and open new bank accounts. And you know, there's this mix of being so ashamed, but also being like, I don't know what to fucking tell you. They were just really good at it.

Quinn: I don't know what to tell you. And now with the AI, like the ability to replicate everybody's voices in the AI shit, like you gotta have safe words.

Claire: Yes. Yes indeed. So anyway, yeah, I'm doing a lot of shopping at Target lately and I keep going by the [00:05:00] winter section to hope, I was like, this will be the year that I'm way stocked up on winter gloves 'cause I have to be here anyway, but they still don't have them. So, I'll let everyone know when it's time to get your winter gear.

Quinn: Please do. Please. That's great. Thank you so much. I saw a picture on your Instagram to pivot slightly. It looked like you were successfully toilet papered. Is that right?

Claire: Yeah, so it was homecoming, which is so funny 'cause it's like, where are you going? No one's going anywhere. We've been home. But you can sign up to have the cheerleaders toilet paper your house. So you have to confirm that you're fine with this, I presume, so that it doesn't happen while you're outta town or that you know, you're taken by surprise and shoot someone.

So yeah, we were in the house and these girls, we heard all this giggling and the boys didn't notice for many minutes, which is like typical, you know, and then I hear them like close to the window and I don't know what to do. So I like kind of shamefully closed the shutters 'cause I was like, I don't know.

So, yeah, they did a beautiful job hanging it from the tall trees. They tied a little bit around the front [00:06:00] door and they left a poster for our son Paul. Never fear, Puzz is here, hear is spelled HEAR. And what I believe I know is that Huzz is like short for like crush, you know, cutie, husband, basically, and so I think Paul is P plus Huzz. So, he turned it over and didn't wanna look at it after we looked at it for a moment. So like successful I would say. But other moms who have boys with more rizz, took pictures with the cheerleaders after the toilet papering.

Quinn: Yeah. As you do.

Claire: Well we just closed up shop and let it happen. And still a lot of it is on the outside right now, but yeah. So I don't know. It was kind of cool. I'm not, you know. Did you ever get that kind of thing when you were?

Quinn: I did the toilet paper ring, but this was like the nineties. There was no permission slips to be signed anywhere. It was like middle of the night before a swim meet or a game or whatever it is, and you're just under cars dressed in black, trashing things, which probably wouldn't go so well today.

Claire: No, I remember forking people, which is like [00:07:00] worse.

Quinn: Excuse me, what is forking?

Claire: You'd get a box of plastic forks and stick them all in their front yard so that there's no washing away with toilet paper. You have to go out there and remove them. So, even worse for the planet.

Quinn: Perfect. Okay, great. Great. Paul did have a good moment at the homecoming game though? Tell me.

Claire: Yeah, I don't know what he did. I can't follow live football in front of me. Like I need like a TV announcer to tell me what's going on. But he did something and he came off the field. I don't know what he did, but all of these coaches were like slapping him on the helmet and I was standing with my dad and I was like, I'm glad you were there to see that. And I said, it's so funny how much of sports is just like, hoping to get a slap, you know, a slap on the

ass or a slap on the head, or a slap on the pad, you know? But I was like, good. He did a thing, he did a thing on this day.

Quinn: He did a thing. That's great. That's great. He'll remember that forever. How is it possible for a dad of a preteen girl to not have heard of Snapchat?

Claire: Okay, so the other half of the weekend, we were co-hosting a progressive [00:08:00] dinner, which is dinner that takes place at three different locations. And part of it was at our good friend's house and they had the perfect timing, and you guys should plan on this as well, because they had just finished redoing their kitchen.

Like they literally had told the designers you guys need to fucking wrap it up like by 12 o'clock today. 'cause everyone's coming over at four o'clock this evening. So make sure you like, host something right when your house is done so you can show it off before, you know, it gets damaged. So we had all these parents over and it was kind of funny 'cause like I heard this one side of one story is that the kids actually went to go help volunteer set up and all the girls shuffled the boys off and fired them, like to take over and on the one hand I was kind of upset I was like, is this like the gender thing where girls think that boys can't do anything and the girls take over and don't teach the boys how to enable themselves. And then a mom friend of mine who was there, she's like, actually the girls did do that.

And then they were like fucking up the whole thing and had to be like, rearranged anyway. So I was like, love the confidence, you know, love the taking over with absolutely no you know, no game[00:09:00] plan. But anyway. So we're talking to all these parents and there's a parent of two boys and one of them, their older kid got caught taking gummies, THC gummies, which is an interesting side bookend to this other conversation where we were talking about Snapchat. Like at a table of 10 people.

So one of the dads, he has a daughter in sixth grade and he claims to have never heard of Snapchat ever, period. Which I find so confounding. 'cause I thought I'd heard of Snapchat since before I even had kids. Like it's been around for a second, right?

Quinn: It has been around for a minute for sure. Yeah.

Claire: Do you fuck with Snapchat? Have you ever?

Quinn: I don't, I mean, I feel like I installed it at the very beginning to see what it was, immediately didn't understand anything about how it worked and removed it. Yeah. But I'm fully aware of what it is as an entity and a company and how people use the snap map and all that shit. It's crazy.

Claire: Well, I just, first of all, I just found it really strange that someone with a, especially with a kid the age that which you would be handling that has allegedly never heard of that.

Quinn: How have you never even heard of it?[00:10:00]

Claire: I dunno, you know, you realize how people are different on like how online or not other people are.

Like I mentioned the phrase trad wife as well, and someone was like, I just heard that phrase like two days ago. And then other one's like, what's a trad wife? And then you feel insane and stupid because you're like, this only sort of exists online and these are people who only do this for the internet.

And on the one hand you're like, they're very conservative and traditional, but also they like are dying for the algorithm to, you know, pay them back, pay them in mind. So you're trying to explain this, but anyway, long story short the parents with the kids who were taking the gummies, it sounded almost at the end, we were talking about Snapchat and it sounded like they were by far think that Snapchat is more dangerous than weed gummies, which I mean, these things are not relatable. But the dad was like, Snapchat is for porn, it's for nudes and dick pics like at its heart.

Quinn: The dad who didn't know what Snapchat was?

Claire: This is another dad. So I apologize. This story's kind of getting off the rails.

Quinn: No, it's perfect. Look, [00:11:00] anything is for nudes and dick pics, right? Carrier pigeons and like the fires of Gondor are for nudes and dick pics. So I'm sure Snapchat is as well. But I don't know, man, it's yeah. On the list of shit that's dangerous online that kids can get into. I think being radicalized on YouTube or Roblox, being touched digitally is probably a little worse?

Claire: But you can use Snapchat for that.

Quinn: Totally, I'm sure. I'm sure.

Claire: I had another conversation with a friend whose son was wrapped up in someone else's catfishing, and it involved dick pics and of course everyone's underage and it just unlocked a new sub-basement, of you know, and that's not a subbasement, my standards are, it's good to get perspective and be like, I think that as a parent, one of my goals is to have the fewest amount of law enforcement or people who work with law to be involved in my family.

That is how, you know, that is a new goal. Anyway, it just was interesting because the Snapchat of it all is that there's a lot of people whose schools communicate or their activities [00:12:00] communicate with Snapchat, which sounds really fucked up. And like yeah, what happened to an email? So it just made me think about how my kids don't have that yet, and then we're gonna be giving them their phone starting next year and be like, here's the abyss, you know.

Quinn: Can never get it back.

Claire: Yeah, exactly. So, sorry that was such a long, rambling story.

Quinn: No but that's the long rambling. 'cause you're just constantly, it's a deluge constantly where you're going, oh. And then, yeah, I guess we're gonna give him a phone and wait, the school is using this. Like, how does that even work? Does the school have an account or is it the teacher? And do you get to, I mean.

Claire: Yeah. it was very, and then my son, who I'm sure is not nearly as innocent as I like to think he is, but in my brain, he's like a baby. But he was like, I'm excited to use Snapchat 'cause it has all these funny filters on it. And that made me like, so I don't know why. I just wanna be like, you little sweet, stupid baby.

Quinn: Filters of his dick?

Claire: Yeah. Basically. So, yeah, I don't know. There's a lot to discuss over the weekend, and just interesting to hear the things that we can worry about and not worry about. I don't know [00:13:00] how many social media drug interactions have come up for you with your kids of late if you're, if that's in the conversation.

Quinn: No, I think again, I'm sure at this point, and it is such like a mind fuck, right? Where it eventually was like if your child hadn't heard it directly from you, they didn't know it existed. And now I'm sure I know the tip of the iceberg at best of what they have encountered and encounter on a daily basis.

Again, like their phones are banned. Well, my kids don't have 'em, but they're banned bell to bell. You can still have 'em on the buses, and I'm sure there's just kids who are like, got the fucking TikTok dances or whatever, and if all they're watching is the dances. I mean, okay. I guess, like some of them. Not all of them, but there's gotta be worse than that. God, I dunno, it's such a losing battle.

Claire: Yeah, it's very scary and yeah, I mean, where else do we even go with this? It is, you just wait and see and then jump in the second that you hear about it. I don't know how much you wanna talk about this. Did you ever get in trouble for internet shenanigans? You know, in [00:14:00] any form. I guess let's just say leave it open, when like the earlier years or your first bit of independence while having a computer?

Quinn: Not as much internet shenanigans. I mean, general shenanigans for sure. I mean, it was so relatively tame when we were growing up from Prodigy to Instant Messenger. Like obviously I would change my away message to whatever the culture was of the, you know, person I was attempting to date you know, changed the song lyric to whatever that emo band was, maybe that.

But otherwise you know, sure, Napster, Limewire, like all that shit, which turns out was illegal, but everyone did it. Yeah not too much, honestly. You know, I was so hooked into my, into sports and girls and like my Gameboy and music that I didn't really see. I'm sure if I had been presented with one, I would've found a lane there to get to shenanigans but not as [00:15:00] much. And, but now it's like, how do you not?

Claire: Remind me. Where are you in the birth order?

Quinn: Second.

Claire: Oh, okay. So did you feel like your younger brothers had more access to, you know, big boy things?

Quinn: Not as much. I mean, we were pretty cracked down about it. It was like you get a half an hour of telephone or TV or computer. And most of the time that got taken away 'cause I was a fucking idiot. Anyways. So, yeah, not a ton of opportunities for that stuff.

And also I played you know, my online still was PlayStation Two, Sega, not connected sports games, like NHL 96. My best friend and I still talk about specific plays we made on that. You know, and it was just like, you could pick a skinny player or medium player or fat player.

They can go left and right and that was it, man. That was my online interacting. I think I just you know, it was so different. At least my group, our age in that we were already so invested in so many other [00:16:00] things when that started to come around that we used it for the communication purposes and the music certainly, but we had a lot else going on, you know, where these kids are flat out born into it.

Claire: Yeah, I always had a very, and I still do like a healthy fight or flight, and I don't like danger and feeling scared. So I was always sort of good about tiptoeing up to the edge, but not wanting to go further. So I will bravely confess that some of my first online forays were America Online XFiles chat rooms.

Quinn: Oh, yeah.

Claire: Yeah, and I am pretty sure some of the people, the men I was talking to were not children.

And I remember things getting, it's just the kinda thing where we were like, my parents had no idea and I'm sure there's some chats that got, I don't know what, spicy, perhaps, but thank God that I was never like, what's your address? Let's go out, you know? Or here's my phone number, here's my information.

Things like that. You know, at this fundraising dinner, we were talking about the dad who had never heard of Snapchat. He kept telling [00:17:00] me stories about all the trouble he got into as a kid, but how he was still a good kid. And my husband was saying that too. And I was like, you guys are just, you're saying that you were good. You clearly were bad. Like, why are you like, you were white. Maybe that's what it was like. To my mind, you're not a good kid at all. But that's, you know, in retrospect. But I wish that for my kids, to know when to be scared enough to be like, let's not get in this car. So this conversation with the THC startup, because we had THC drinks available at the fundraiser and I offered to my friend and then I felt stupid 'cause she was like, what's a THC drink? And you're like, I don’t know, I felt like you took your dick out at a party where everyone had their clothes on, you know?

Quinn: And not everybody's heard of dicks yet.

Claire: Yeah, exactly. But she told me she caught her son having taken weed gummies. And I was saying like,

Quinn: Were they hers?

Claire: No. But I was like, how could you tell? She's like, oh, just like stoned as fuck, like right in front of your face. And I was saying, at least to my mind, I was pretty good at hiding it. And I hope that my kids, again, are smart enough to [00:18:00] know. I don't know. We'll see. I guess we'll find out. I'm like, I hope you get in trouble in a way that is not devastating and involves like a lot of extra support and professionals and money and things like that. But I guess we'll find out.

Quinn: There's always gonna be shit like, I'd rather him fall out of a fucking tree or get lost in the woods or do stuff like that. It's you know, again, like my dad he was like, all right, you're gonna drink. You're doing it here. Gimme the keys, throw up off the back deck. You know?

Not to condone it, but to wrangle it, I guess in a way. And I dunno, I hope it's the same thing with gummies or something like that. I don't know. At least it's present somewhat.

Claire: Do your kids know about your gummies? Have you shown them to them this is what they're for and don't touch.

Quinn: It's a great question. I'm not sure about that. Maybe Dana has, it's not like you have a crazy stash. You get like an auto subscription from one company and they're, you know, pretty high up. But again, like I come back to like, how still but especially when we were growing up as well, like prevalent and dominating and [00:19:00] accessible every version of alcohol was in a family's home. You know, it's not locked up. Right. Maybe the parents have a special cabinet for their special stuff, but it's available all the time. People are using it all the time. It's advertised in everything, everywhere. It is, you know, it's all a thing.

And so, yes, of course kids shouldn't have access to gummies for sure. But I'm like, well, let's hold on a minute. You know, we could, we probably learned some lessons from how we've conducted ourselves thus far with these things.

Claire: Did you ever get arrested, ever?

Quinn: No, not that I remember.

Claire: I think you would probably find, you could probably find out somehow.

Quinn: My brother was a few times.

Claire: Oh, really?

Quinn: Yeah. Just like for the dumbest shit. He had one where, you know they would go in like high school seniors. He tries to wander in like into a William Mary house party or something. And I remember one where it may have been when he had come back from college or something, but he, they were all drinking downtown and they were gonna go, it must have been while they were in college.

And they had a buddy at William Mary, and they were going to drive back to the, like the [00:20:00] soccer house or whatever, you know, to all crash. Half a mile, three quarters of a mile. And at some point he was like, you know what? I'm not driving, I'm not getting in a car with people who are driving, I'm doing it right this time and starts walking and a hundred yards later gets arrested for being drunk in public.

And he's like, are you fucking kidding me? What? And I think that is probably one of his more gentle scenarios. But yeah, I don't know, man. Yeah, again, like I was so busy, like with sports stuff or trying to get girls to watch Armageddon with me.

Claire: Did you make out to Armageddon with someone? I remember making out, a guy put on Alien for me.

Quinn: Oh, fascinating.

Claire: Yeah, we turned away. 'cause I don't like creepy, scary movies like that, but that was one of those.

Quinn: Yeah. No Armageddon was a good one. Yeah, that streak 96 to 99. There were some classics in there for sure. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, they're gonna do dumb shit. Again, like you said, hopefully it's not expensive and[00:21:00] like career altering, but also at the same time, I was saying at this fundraiser last night, I was talking to somebody, I'm like, there don't appear to be rules anymore.

Claire: Yeah.

Quinn: For most things. You know, like 10 years ago you're like, careful what you say online 'cause they might not hire you or you could never run for office. I'm like, none of that matters. None. You one, nobody cares. Two, you can just say, I didn't do that. It never happened. And they go okay.

Claire: Yeah. Well, I think I told you a couple weeks ago, how much I like the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Show, and the girls are held up to such high expectations, and I'm laughing at watching football already.

Quinn: While the players beat the shit out of their wives.

Claire: One guy got kicked out for spinning on someone before even the first play, and then a college player stomped on the kicker's foot yesterday. I was like, what do we, you know, what is, whatever? But the girls meanwhile got a warning for being too braggadocious on social media, you know, something like that.

Quinn: Jesus Christ, fucking society is incredible.

Claire: Yeah.

Quinn: Are you interested in talking about food today? Because [00:22:00] I've been clearing out our pantry in anticipation of this move in our fridge, and so I get the complaints that we don't have any food, this and this. I'm like, you're fucking ridiculous. But also they're like, yes, I haven't been buying new food for two weeks because one, we're leaving for a few days, which I usually cut it off, and two, we're fucking moving out. So I'm not moving all this shit much less like getting it trapped in storage. So where do you shop the bulk of the time?

Claire: Okay, so I've thought about this a lot actually. We have three or four grocery stores around, everyone has something kind of wrong with it, but primarily Jewel-Osco in Chicago. Jewel I think is Albertson's. We also have a place called Valley International Market. The problem with Valley is that they don't give cash back at the checkout, which you may know sometimes you just need cash. And sometimes I fuck with Trader Joe's, but that's more for goofy, goofy things. So, yeah, main major grocery stores and we are usually stocking up on bread and milk. Very boring. Kids eat a ton of apples, baby carrots. I know baby carrots are so stupid in a waste of [00:23:00] money, but you know, I'll just take it.

But I'm momentarily in between big shops because Steve just got back from a week outta town and I asked him to please be in charge of the next meal. And so we'll see what comes of that. But that's usually my domain and I'm sick of it. So I'm taking like a moment off, but it's usually like the big ramp up of what are we going to eat, what do we have, what do we not have?

Let's think ahead, you know, and it's the whole system process. So, I'm happy to take a brief moment. How about you guys? Are you mostly online or what?

Quinn: Well, yeah, that's what I was gonna ask you next. Are you doing most of this in person? Some of it, none of it?

Claire: Mostly in person anymore. 'cause I just got, so I feel like a sense of shame when you do a grocery shop online and you don't get most of what you want or, you know, you order some basil and then you get like a big piece of furry mold instead, and you're like, I kind of asked for this.

This is what I deserve. So I try to do it. I have no real reason not to do it myself. Like the closest one is like a, everything is five or 10 minute drive away. So it's really hard to justify, you know? How about you?

Quinn: I started doing online when we were in LA 'cause [00:24:00] it's such a nightmare with parking and time and all that stuff that it was genuinely, it was like doing therapy online where you're like, well, instead of two and a half hours outta my day, it's just the 50 minute session. Not that there's not trade-offs there, certainly, but you know, I've also realized, like self-control wise I imagine this could go either way for people, like I have more shopping online than I do in person.

Where I understand some people, and I've heard friends say, but I just click all the buttons. I'm like, eh, I don't get, for some reason that doesn't do it, but I'm going through the aisles like, oh, we could eat that. Maybe they'll eat this, do this. And I find that's can be wasteful and expensive, frankly.

We are mostly these days, so we had a really great smaller sort of regional chain called Earth Fair, which the chain went under once and then it, someone else bought it and it came back out. At least a few of 'em. Pretty healthy-ish, sort of smaller Whole Foods like selection. That's gone now.

So, you know, right now it's kind of split between [00:25:00] like my mother-in-law, she won't go anywhere but Trader Joe's. She'll starve to death and starve the children before she shops somewhere else.

Not even, she's there every day and good for her, but every day. I am mostly Publix for better or worse.

And we have a Fresh Market. Which is another chain, pretty good. They were behind the, they were like sort of fancy and then organic and like actual healthy stuff came around and they kind of took a while to get their shit together. It's pretty good. They're much smaller stores, good produce.

Yeah, if I have time to go to the store, like I do enjoy it and I do like showing the kids like how stores are built and the good aisles and stuff like that. But I dunno, I find it hard to make the time.

Claire: Well, when I was a kid, my meals would just show up 'cause my mom made them basically. Right. And it is very hard to get the machine going 'cause it's I don't do a meal plan, or like a weekly,

Quinn: Yeah, I was gonna ask about that.

Claire: No. I just don't like being locked into. Like I don't like tacos enough to eat them every Tuesday, you know?

And also Taco [00:26:00] Tuesday. Taco Tuesday is such a fucking, it has a cute, fun name like TGIF, but it is so much washing shit because then you've dispensed all the cheese and the lettuce and everything like, so it's actually like a lot more work than I think it implies. And I just want to have the freedom sometimes but what are we making? Like it's usually some kind of meat, you know, like a pasta or James asked for Shepherd's Pie recently, which I will make for him, but it takes a minute.

Yeah. But it takes a minute to make, you know. So I just get very overloaded with investigating what we have, what are we gonna make, go to the store, get it, bring it home, unload it and then put it away and then take it back out, then cook it, then, you know, wash the dishes.

I don't know. So COVID really broke that for me. But also it's one of those things like if you are a professional person and you hate being locked in, there's no way to like outsource it other than to be like, we're ordering in tonight. Like you guys seem, I think you seem like an angel who never orders in. Am I correct in that?

Quinn: Oh, no, we do, we totally do. Especially now that the kids will eat some more stuff. And also I see it as supporting local businesses, which is true [00:27:00] and lazy. But you know, I also see them threatened all the time. I mean, their food costs are outta control and traffic is down, so trying to support them.

So seven days a week you have a vendetta against Taco Tuesday, which is a whole other conversation. There's seven days in the week. How many of those just general days are you like, either from new ingredients you purchase for this purpose or from what you have, how often are you like creating something?

On that day, like how many days a week versus like reheating?

Claire: I am imagining three or four max probably. 'cause the boys on Thursdays, they get their food, like prepared for them for some reason or brought to them after football practice. And then weekends, like I don't cook I don't, I'm just not turning on the oven. So three or four days a week doing something like that, I would say.

Quinn: It seems reasonable. Do you feel like it takes up a reasonable amount of time when you do that, or do you feel like, why am I slaving away at this?

Claire: I mean, I don't, I currently am not a place in my life where I'm like trying to fuck with new things. You know, I'm doing the hits, especially [00:28:00] 'cause if the kids are coming home hungry from football, especially James, I want him to grow. So I'm making things that I know that he will always like, so, you know, pasta thing, like red beans and rice I made the other week. I made a Smitten Kitchen, turkey meatloaf, that was a huge hit, all got eaten up. So it's usually some kind of carb and meat and veg and then, you know, I do a lot of, they eat a lot of fruits and like grapes and apples because I want them to poop as we've discussed, but also a lot of junk food. Like a lot of you know, chips after dinner time kind of thing. I feel like that's what kids do, so I can't, as long as they eat something kind of healthy earlier on, then if you wanna eat garbage later on then go for it.

Quinn: Do you remember coming home? Did you ever come home and just make plates of melted cheese nachos in the microwave?

Claire: Well, we didn't really have a microwave until way too late. Like my favorite things to binge on. There used to be a grocery ordering service called Market Days that like came through this, like through the home, I don't know how this happened, it was like through school, but my mom would get little frozen silver dollar pancakes and you'd microwave them.

And then I learned [00:29:00] that you could put some chocolate chips on them before you put them in the microwave. So I would end up with melted chocolate chip pancakes for myself.

Quinn: Why didn't you guys have a microwave? 'cause it was it gonna give you radiation?

Claire: They were just always late on everything. Like we were late to having a touchtone phone. They didn't get cable until after I went to college. Like they were just late adopters with everything, which is kind of interesting except for the computer.

Quinn: On purpose?

Claire: Maybe. They also didn't have a lot of like junk food in the house 'cause they wanted to have us be healthy eaters, which just inspired me to find junk food where I could and like rebel.

So they would stock up on chocolate chip granola bars, which to this day I can't really let myself around because if I open one then, it's like Thin Mints like they are, yeah, they, it's so, fucked. It's a Rice Krispie treat with chocolate chips in it. Let's be honest. So, even to this day I'm like, I can't even have them in the house. 'cause like they, they trigger me. So, I also remember fondly, do you remember the days when pasta was healthy? When that was like a vegetarian thing, you know, and [00:30:00] I used to fix myself.

Quinn: It's vegetarian. You're like,

Claire: Yeah, like pasta primavera, not Primavera. Alfredo. I used to make myself like a pot of white rice and eat that as a snack because it was like, I thought it was, I mean, whatever sometimes when you're hungry, some rice, it slaps, a little salt.

Quinn: A hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Claire: Yeah. So part of my weird backstory is that Steve comes of one of those like almost ARFID people, his father is such an extreme eater that it could be its own separate episode, and I'm positive there's people whose kids have the kind of eating disorder that his dad has, that they get therapy for.

Quinn: I dunno what ARFID is.

Claire: Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. It's an eating disorder characterized by limited food intake, although unlike anorexia or bulimia, it's not motivated by concerns about body shape or weight. It's more about like sensory issues and things like that.

So Steve comes from this like very picky background and not only picky, but like we will cater to your pickiness. So we've like over [00:31:00] time kind of come to loggerheads over what he will and will not eat. You know, and so he'll say things like, I won't eat, let's say lamb, you know, but you can, but like, what? I'm not gonna go and buy some lamb chops.

Quinn: Make yourself a lamb.

Claire: To make myself like a rack of lamb. So, over time I've kind of learned to downgrade the way that I eat or the way that I prepare food or the ambition for it compared to what my mother did, which is very, like Martha Stewart by and large, you know, like appetizers, like fancy, no labels on the table, which is a thing that she believed in.

So if we were having burgers the ketchup bottle wasn’t on the table, the ketchup was decanted into a little bowl.

Quinn: No shit. Wow. Talk about dishes. Fuck that.

Claire: Yeah, exactly. So I guess maybe that's like limited my idea of cooking. For me, cooking is fun when I want to listen to a good juicy audiobook or podcast and wanna be left alone for a couple hours, you know?

And that's good. I would like the kids to get more involved in the kitchen, but also do I, that's my time kind of.[00:32:00]

Quinn: My space, my time. Yeah. Totally get it.

Claire: How about you? How do you make the time and what's your mentality with it?

Quinn: I haven't been really good about making time to actually create in a frustratingly long time. Probably pairs with my just chaos of this job and life and stuff. It's a bummer 'cause I miss it and I do like it. And I really loved feeding them. I really love just feeding people in general. I find it's a act of love and nourishment until they're like, go fuck yourself. Even though it was their favorite thing on Tuesday, they've gotten so much better about food. I do want to get back to it. I gotta try to make some more time for it. You know, I attempted to plan.

Not meal prep, but like semi meal plan. Went to the farmer's market and you know, great produce and we're sort of at the intersection of tomatoes and dark leafy greens. And so I was like, all right, Dana will fuck with collared greens any minute. I just, you know, I slow cook 'em for forever. Got some good red pepper on there.

They're fantastic with anything. Do that. We got, make a cherry [00:33:00] tomato pasta and I got through that and I get through a couple other things, but I was like, ah, this is, there's the thing I fucking forgot to make. 'cause we caught up with us and I don't know I seem to most consistently take things out of the fridge and put them on the table and go, this is dinner. So it's definitely less prepared than probably your average bear. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it's actual leftovers from prepared things, but a lot of times it's truly here's a pile of vegetables and fruits and things, and a side of pasta and a big bowl of fucking hummus or whatever.

We'll use baby carrots as a delivery system for hummus or cucumbers or whatever it is. And they'll suck that shit up. And hummus is great. Protein, fiber, all the things. And veggies are great. But yeah, I dunno, I would let, I feel like they have gotten so much better about eating, like I need to get back on the train of actually like putting more things in front of them that they may try more.

Claire: It is like a fallacy I guess that preparing [00:34:00] meals is always fun. For me, maybe it's, 'cause again, I just react against my mom who like did host so beautifully and I don't have the same. Like I don't have the same time, I don't have the same values, I don't have the same space. And it's a different era, right? And so there is a part of me that's like, why aren't you having dinner parties? This should be dinner party time. You know? And also I'm like, like first of all, when I quit drinking, that was during COVID too. I was like, you know what? I don't care anymore.

I don't care about like people coming over and being impressed by what I do. You know, I'm over that. And like I think as much as people like would praise you for your beautiful spread. Like I remember once my mom, she was trying out a new salad, ahead of Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving was this big, don't even get me started on Thanksgiving and my issues with Thanksgiving. But she was trying out some new salad and none of us liked it 'cause we were assholes.

And my dad said while we were eating this like pear and fennel salad, he said, what is the point of this salad? [00:35:00]

Quinn: Like existentially or nutritionally?

Claire: In his mind, I think he meant like, is this for something? Are you trying this out for Thanksgiving? But then my mom stayed in the, like we were, we would eat in like the breakfast room and then she would be in the kitchen, and she stood in there for a couple minutes extra. And we joked, I think we said I think she's crying. And then 30 seconds later, we were like, she is fucking crying.

And then my, I just remember, I know, and I remember my brother and me being like go say something. And he was so, he looked so stupid so, you know, pointless. But that stuck in my head, like my whole life. And I will say my husband, he very pointedly every time I make dinner, says, thank you for making dinner. And he makes the kids say thank you. Like no matter what.

Quinn: Instead of making you cry. Leading the way.

Claire: Well, it is like my fear that they would think that I mean, and I do love food and it makes me very happy to see them like what I make, you know, and I am, I consider it when a huge break that my kids don't have like big eating issues that they don't have eating issues and they don't have anxiety issues or two of they [00:36:00] biggest breaks you can get, I think, as a parent. but you know, to be like, that feels as good to me as like turning in a good story or, you know, having a good workout or having a good exchange with a friend. Like it's not, you know, you're turning it all into poop eventually.

Quinn: That's the goal.

Claire: Yeah. Yes. Ideally. So, yeah. One thing that's really interesting is that this lady, the assistant lady that I have hired, she's been giving me nudges on when are good days to go grocery shopping. And that makes me so happy to just get,

Quinn: Fascinating.

Claire: Yeah, to just get a prompt. She's trying to gimme some food ideas. We're not quite there yet.

I think like she's like, here's a slow cooker for a tomato sauce recipe. And I'm like, you know what's also good? Browning some ground beef and throwing a jar of Prego in there. I have yet to be convinced that there's like a big difference. But I need that, I need that a little external boost of here's when your time actually you have the time as opposed to when you think you should just squeeze it in 'cause you can, you know, 'cause of the fallacy of put in some laundry while you're at it, you know, and pick up a little bit while you're at it.

Quinn: Pick up so they can put it back on the ground. I think when we [00:37:00] move back in, in a year I will truly try to do a better job of having a conscious grasp of what we already have in the house. Because I think part of the problem is you look at a recipe and you're like, look at all this shit, but it turns out I probably have 70% of it and need a couple things, like a piece of fish for these specific vegetables or whatever it may be.

So I think it's probably, that part is less of an obstacle, less friction than I imagine it to be. But I've just totally, the cart and the horses have become completely detached. Like people are watching the horses go down the road by themselves.

Claire: Yeah. Well, it gets very tedious. Like I broke chili during COVID. Like we ate it so much that I'm so sick of it. And it's too bad because like you can make that.

Quinn: Chili's fucking great.

Claire: Yeah, it is, but I'm like, oh wow. Beans and some cumin and an onion and some chili powder. Wow. You know, no amount of shredded cheese is gonna make that, you know, wake up for me.

So that's too bad. 'Cause that was something that was really easy to make.

Quinn: I get a really good vegan chili for you.

Claire: Prove it, but also make it for [00:38:00] me and send it to me because is there fake meat by the way, in your vegan shit?

Quinn: There’s not. I mean, you can, but not this one. It's good enough without it, I promise.

Claire: So this is a bean soup.

Quinn: Hold on. Let me ask you this question.

Do you use any sort of app for your recipes?

Claire: No, here's my, I have a, no, I'm so old fashioned. I will see recipes on my computer and I bookmark it, and then I'll print it out and I'll cook it. And if it lives to see another cook, then it makes it into my recipe binder. So that's how I, but I, to me, I'm like, I can't have a screen open while I'm cooking. That's strange to me.

Quinn: No, I get it. I'm gonna start, I think, sharing some vegan recipes with you, and you're gonna find out some of 'em are delicious. There's a lot of beans involved. Beans are great.

Claire: To be clear, I'm not anti vegan anything. I did an interview with a vegan chef for Harvard Magazine, and I made some of her recipes and see that was perfect because it was for work and her recipes take a lot of time. I think that's the secret is if you got really good tofu, you gotta take the time to, you [00:39:00] know, squeeze it and maybe sprinkle it with some powder and fry it, you know?

Quinn: First of all, buy the extra firm super, the super extra firm. Whatever the adjectives are at the beginning, the descriptors buy those ones. And you have, it is so much less work to get the fucking water outta these things. Second tip with tofu, any recipe that says chicken, you can do the same exact thing with tofu, except the marinade won't kill you later when you accidentally touch your mouth with your hands.

It's great. You can do anything with it. I have a chili I'm gonna send you, black bean chili with butternut squash. It's so fucking good..

Claire: Are you hacking? Are you sawing into that squash yourself, or are you buying butternut squash pre hacked?

Quinn: I am yeah, I'm peeling it and cutting it into cubes.

Claire: I'm never gonna fucking do that. Okay.

Quinn: But I get it. I get, look, whatever man. It's fucking not right now. You don't wanna peel that and cut that shit, then buy the big plastic container of it, it's going in the chili. It doesn't fucking matter. None of this shit matters. There's all kinds of good shit in here. There's some Chipotle chilies. There's bulgar. [00:40:00] Bulgar is delicious, filling. Very good for you. There's all kinds of good stuff. Oh man, I got some good stuff in here. Maybe this is what's gonna get me going again. This and living with grandma.

Claire: Are you gonna cook for the grandma's?

Quinn: Yeah. I'll try. I just come home and I'm so tired. This is part of the problem is I just eat peanut butter and jelly half the time. I take stuff outta the fridge and I go, if you need to ask me questions about my day, I'll be here in the corner. Like I try, I dunno. I'm really big on, I make the Sunday morning pancakes. Let Dana really sleep, kids inhale 'em they eat so many of 'em. We'll go through basically two boxes in one morning. Really love those. What are the ones we use? The Kodiak, we use the Kodiak ones. They're really great. Protein supposedly, whatever.

There's not a lot of shit in 'em. They're good. I'm not making this stuff from scratch right now, guys. I'm so sorry. It's not happening, but I just make sure I've always got some good Irish butter. You gotta take it out a little early or it stays cold. And a big hunker of good maple syrup and it's great, you know.

Claire: I can't think of anything that isn't, I don't need the recipe involves letting it come to room [00:41:00] temperature like this, there's nothing that I eat or drink that doesn't happen. Like with, I mean, maybe like a cold glass of water, like I'll treat myself to that.

Quinn: No, I mean, it's not happening in hours ahead of time. I'm saying like, if when I walk in the kitchen and I'm exhausted, I'm like, all right, okay, pancake morning. If I take the butter out then and I start making 'em, it's fine by then. Like it's fine. They're gonna put it between the pancakes. It's great.

That's like my cooking right now. It's very frustrating.

Claire: I feel the same way where I'm like, if I were good, I would have like a list of everything that's in the house and know what to make and not to make, but how do you give things away then at the food drive if you didn't have these like random ass.

Quinn: Exactly. So you hinted at this a little bit, and it's funny, we have some family friends with a husband basically just eats chicken nuggets. How different are you and Steve's eating from the kids? So, you know, remember you'd make like kids meals and then you had the adult stuff.

Have they merged or is he still kind of weird about it? Are you making one meal?

Claire: Oh yeah. We just do one meal and I have dialed down my expectations again, I would probably cook differently if I was married to a different person. Like he doesn't eat eggs. Really? [00:42:00] So no, Shakakusa, how or do you pronounce it? Shakshouka. I would make you know, omelettes or a quiches for sure, but he doesn't wanna fuck with that, so, he doesn't eat, he's just grossed out by it. Nothing with mushrooms. So I would definitely make like beef stroganoff if I could.

Quinn: Mushrooms are so good.

Claire: Yeah, beef bourguignon, I would make that. And he doesn't eat meat with bones in it except for ribs, but that's fine. So, my friend Kevin always gives me shit over how basically I don't make roast chicken, and I'm like, I don't fucking care. So what, I also dunno how to sew, and I don't know.

Quinn: Again, I would like to be a trad wife. I wanna be clear from everything I've heard, it sounds great. I'm not doing most of the things.

Claire: No, I can't sew, I can't carry a baby to term, I can't do most of the things. So anyway, if we're getting a chicken that's coming from the grocery store, pre-cooked, that kind of thing. But yeah, that is again, like a nice level up that we all eat off the same plate. And it's kind of cute. This is something that would like, make you probably throw up. But we went [00:43:00] to, I took the boys to McDonald's. I took Paul to McDonald's and he told me to get the snack wrap because he had already tried one and it was really good.

And the snack wrap, if you're not familiar, is a chicken finger. Chicken finger wrapped in a tortilla with some sauce and a piece of lettuce.

Quinn: America man.

Claire: Yeah. And on the one hand I was like, this is nothing special. But he was so pleased with introducing it to me, you know, and sharing this with me

Quinn: Taking you to the fine dining.

Claire: Yeah. Yeah. I also, we had the same exchange at Taco Bell a couple weeks, like a couple days ago, and he was like, you know, like special treat for the two of us. But no, I think the thing that like broke us into eating all together was in fact chili. Because I would give them like the tiniest, tiniest little baby bowl of chili, but then be like, here's some cheese, here's some chips.

Quinn: Some bread. Yeah.

Claire: You can come together. And so by and large, you know, and there's every meal, like there will be things I don't wanna eat as much of, eat more of the salad, whatever. But you know, there's a, it's [00:44:00] not too bad. I'm not making any like side quests or anything like that's for sure.

Quinn: How and be honest about this you know, either you've noticed or you haven't noticed or you noticed retroactively, maybe have food prices the past couple years affected what you buy at all or what you feed your kids or anything like that.

Claire: No, I mean, but that's, you know, our privilege of course.

Quinn: Sure that's what I mean. Be honest.

Claire: No, not really. I can't think of what we would eat that is, I think the things that are big item that we pay for is organic milk. And I can't even, the only reason we buy organic milk is that I used to work for a dietician journal and my boss, who I think I might've told you, was anorexic to the hilt. And for some reason she would lead really strongly that growing kids to drink organic milk. And she claimed that was why her kids didn't have pimples. I have no idea how much any of this is accurate, but that just stuck with me. So we buy organic milk.

Quinn: Sure. I feel like every family's got one of those.

Claire: Yeah, I don't do anything else organic per se.

You know, I do buy the beef that's like more organic 'cause it's sort of like [00:45:00] packaged in a way that seems easy to grab. But otherwise, you know, or I'll buy the chicken, the eggs that I'm like, well these chickens seem like they probably had a slightly better life than the other ones. But I'm not buying the super expensive ones.

I'm buying the ones who go to you know, a good state school but not necessarily an Ivy League school. Kind of eggs.

Quinn: Sure. No. I think it's probably, I mean, I know quantitatively that my grocery bills are so high and higher because my children are bigger and there's three, and they're eating a lot more than they used to.

And also prices have gone up a lot. So, like you said, you know, we're privileged to be able to take that hit. And we certainly have, but I am, sometimes I'm not aghast at it. Again, I grew up in a family of four kids and we all did every version of active from ballet to swimming to whatever it is and kids eat a fuck ton of food. It helps 'em sleep, it helps 'em grow, it helps 'em have better grades.

But man, it's not fucking cheap, you know? If you have, I know a lot of folks we got in town [00:46:00] recently an Aldi. Those are really popular. So it's really great to have options like those around. But you know, it's wild. I mean, you really do look up and you're just like, God damn, they eat a lot of food. I mean, they eat a lot of food. And again, you try, like you said, you don't wanna deprive them entirely of quote unquote junk food because they will seek that shit out right, in a relatively unhealthy way. We all, I'm sure had versions of that, whether it's drinking or sugar or whatever. Fruit loops.

But you do want to do like mostly healthy-ish stuff that you can control, even if you're not cooking it. But yeah, man, that means you're constantly looking at those receipts going whew, you better eat this motherfucker.

Claire: Yeah. What's something that you always notice the price of? 'cause I can always, I can tell you,, it's bell peppers like, 'cause that's one of our, one of my healthy snacks when they're hungry, I'm like, they'll eat this before they realize, you know? And then, but some days they're like a buck 50 each and other days are like $2 each.

So I'm like, let's see how many peppers. If I'm feeling rich, it's a lot of peppers. And if not, I'm like, we're gonna stick with nothing today and you can eat whatever we have in the house.[00:47:00]

Quinn: Yeah. I mean, frankly, these days it's, you know, we try to do and, you know, it totally depends on our schedule. I get to our farmer's market, which is like 10 yards from here. It opens at 8:00 AM on Saturday morning. I try to get there at 7:45. And they're fine with that. I try to get the produce I can from there.

But we don't always get there you know, we get baseball games or some shit, you know, there's always something and it's not open for part of the winter. So those farmers, first of all, their margins are like non-existent. We do have crop insurance in the US but it is getting crushed.

So I do try to support them. Their prices are still a little lower than anything you buy that's imported right now. It's crazy how high some of that stuff is. So when it is stuff from the store, it's not hard to look at and be like, like you said, man, baby carrots, bell peppers, sweet potatoes stuff like that that are like, god damn.

Yeah. Wow. Especially again, if you're, we don't do, I have a Costco membership. I've never been to a Costco. I've ordered online before. But we are otherwise, at this point, buying in bulk, [00:48:00] just via a different grocery store.

Claire: Oh yeah.

Quinn: Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. I mean, our 12-year-old literally looked around yesterday, he goes, I'm having a breakdown.

There is no food here for me to snack on. And again, I was like, totally empathize. Been there. I get it. Also again, I've been cutting down on food. He was like, I gotta go. And he went over to grandma's and fucking ate something. I don't know. But I get it. But I'm just like, also, sometimes I can't keep up like it used to be I could buy groceries every couple weeks.

Claire: Yeah.

Quinn: Now I'm just like, I can only keep so much in the house. We only fit so much. Where do people put Costco shit?

Claire: As we covered in the last episode, I'm gonna be in charge of the football concession stand this weekend, and so our washer and dryer is groaning with boxes of Takis and chips and Doritos and Ring Pops and Oreos and Famous Amos. Yeah. And by the way, I'm an angel for not breaking into any of those things myself.

I have thought about it, you know, where you're like, I could go and do anything right now. You're like, I could be eating all of those Oreos, but I'm not.

Quinn: Can you remind me what Takis are again? I have an [00:49:00] idea of what they are, the sticks? The little sticks.

Claire: Yeah, it's like a little tortilla chip that's been rolled up, and then it's dipped into a powder that's like spicy and salty and kind of sour at the same time. And Trader Joe's makes a version of it as well.

Quinn: That's not what I thought it was. I meant like it looks like a skewer and it's got like chocolate on it. Kind of.

Claire: No, that's Pocki, I believe.

Quinn: Are you fucking kidding me? Pocki.

Claire: Pocki, P-O-C-K-I is that right? Pocki dessert? Yeah, with Pocki and yes, that's something different. TAKI. And that's more of a that's kind of a bro thing I would say. I'm sure girls do. I don't wanna gender snacks, but, you know, anything that's infuego.

Quinn: Way to go. We almost made it to the end of the fucking conversation before you just destroyed it.

Claire: You know what I think about a lot is when I was in college, I remember this boy reading this essay or a short story that pondered upon when girls enter the age of life when they stop admitting that they like eating hot dogs. And that stuck in my head 'cause I was like, that was so true and such like a sensitive, [00:50:00] sweet observation.

And then you come through, you know, and you're like, not afraid of eating hot dogs again. But anyway. Yeah.

Quinn: Can I ask you, last one just 'cause it's obviously a big piece of mind is how often do your kids get school breakfast or lunch or both, and what is available to, not just what are they choosing, but I guess what is available to them there? 'cause your kids go into a private Catholic school, right? So tell me what, what's on the menu there? I'm gonna look up our school's menu for this week.

Claire: Okay. Ours is very, it's kind of unusual 'cause it's run by the parents association. It's not actually run by the school at all. So, four days a week they contract out with local food vendors who supply the meals that day. So one day is like Bluestone.

Quinn: Wait, how many kids at the school?

Claire: oh God, you know what? I don't even know. Let's say a couple hundred.

Quinn: Okay. But I'm just trying to figure out for the scale of ordering from these places, like what we're dealing with. Okay.

Claire: So one day is like the Asian place, one day is the burger place. One day is the hotdog place. The other day is like whatever. So they order ahead of time. They do their own order. So you might [00:51:00] get pizza one day. Yeah. So, one day a week you have to provide your own lunch. And that is a bridge too far for me in terms of, I just can't fucking deal with that.

Quinn: So you're not making lunches anymore?

Claire: No, we are still doing Lunchables, which is really, no, Paul makes his own lunch. He's older now and he kind of cares. James, I just, we, the effort of trying to come up with a lunch that he will eat is simply not worth it to me.

So we will just buy him this box of shit that I'm sure it takes well, more time to open than time it takes to eat. And now they also have a special snack time at school, which is new this year, which I didn't care about until I realized that it's taking out of the recess time and the kids hate it. And so that sucks for them. But that's not my problem. That's for them to deal with. So, that is their lunch usually.

Quinn: Is breakfast offered or available at all?

Claire: No. Yeah, so they eat at home. Usually James had to force him to eat 'cause he is busy, locked into some kind of ADHD thing. Paul will feed himself, but yeah, one thing I tried to [00:52:00] do that I thought was smart, James would always complain about how the jugs of milk we bought were too heavy.

And I was like, I will wise up and buy smaller containers of milk. So he can't complain about that. But he's just lazy. It's not about him being too weak. He just doesn't want to, so then we fight about it and force him to eat.

Quinn: Yeah. That's all gonna work out great. Is lunch, included, all those lunches included in tuition?

Claire: No.

Quinn: Oh, interesting. Okay. Interesting.

Claire: Yeah, we pay every month for that.

Quinn: How much of the school do you think does that?

Claire: I would say probably two thirds, maybe. I just completely made that number up out of the, out of thin air. But yeah, saying it with confidence.

Quinn: That's okay. This is my podcast where we don't fact check things.

Claire: How about you guys?

Quinn: Yeah, so, so let's see. So, Virginia and our school district, they do a really good job of in our school district, at least right now breakfast and lunch are free, which is great because lunch debt, anybody who's sports lunch debt can fucking get electrified as far as I'm concerned. So here's what's available for breakfast.

When you get there, if you hadn't eaten, there's no [00:53:00] questions asked, you can go on your way to your classroom. Let's see today, breakfast, yogurt and gram combo, cereal combo, breakfast express with some, I think, I believe is some sort of eggs and such. Pop-Tart and cereal, assorted fruit juices and milk.

And it looks like that is pretty standard. Looks like one day there's breakfast, sausage, pizza, or pancakes. And then looks like on Fridays there's a hot breakfast special of the day. It doesn't say what that is. I would love to know. So that is what's available for breakfast. Again, free, super important.

Let's look at lunch here, which I know chooses more every day. And then I'll get into what my kids do. So, entrees choose one, managers choice or steak and gravy with dinner rolls, we don't do that 'cause we don't do red meat. So, it's what it is. Fruit, sort of fruit juice, milk variety, vegetables, mashed potatoes with gravy and or sweet green peas.

The next day is chicken fajitas or quesadilla with salsa and or pizza, [00:54:00] vegetables, cucumber and tomato salad with legumes, which is great. Wednesday, Asian chicken with veggie rice or flatbed sandwich, various vegetables. Looks like Thursday is Domino's day. And also the chef's salad choice, baby carrots.

And looks like Friday's alternate between fish sticks. Hot dog, quesadilla, corn dog, nuggets, fish sticks and again, sweet potato fries, fresh garden salad. So, you know, it's freely available. It's calories. Is it the worst stuff? No. Is it the best stuff? No. You know, schools, school districts and you know, states don't really have the budgets for a lot of that stuff right now. And also it's fight, you know, buying this stuff in bulk when it’s complicated.

Claire: I remember when our kids were in daycare, the daycare place would very carefully talk to us about like where they source their food from. And even then I was like, I don't really care that much.

Quinn: Yeah. I mean, there's a really great God, I don't remember what it was called but even before my kids were in school in LA you know, [00:55:00] that chef Jamie Oliver he went and tried to make LA school lunches healthier. I think, I'm gonna get this wrong, but I'm fairly sure the food lunch budget at least, and this was probably 10 years ago, lunch budget for L-A-U-S-D schools is something like $6 billion.

Like it's, it, the amount of procurement is outta control, you know, which it has to be. And I don't mean outta control and it's an outta control. I mean, in the sense that like it's just the volume that no one else has to deal with. And obviously there's bulk purchasing where you can get some benefits there, but there's ones that aren't.

And basically he totally failed because of the politics involved in the buying and the distribution of something like that is so crazy. So, yeah it's hard. And again, those prices are growing up as well no matter where they're sourcing it from, but we, I used to really love making their lunches as an act of love.

Claire: Did you do a note for everyone?

Quinn: Oh yeah, a hundred percent.

Claire: How did you have the juice to come up with three different things to say every day?

Quinn: Here's the thing I burned [00:56:00] myself. There was no long game to it. I was like, this is me. This is what I'm doing. I was proud of 'em. I got nothing. I'm a shell.

And I'm a shell partly because they were like, I don't like this, I don't like that. Eventually. And then I was like, well, would you like to make it sometimes?

And they'd run outta time. They're much better now about making their own stuff. Probably 'cause they can see to the back of the fridge and see more of the stuff. They're more cognitively aware of what we have and what we usually have. What we would prefer them to put in their lunch before they put other shit in.

They're aware that, for instance Dana was like, yes, sure, I will buy like the whatever, 40 pack of pop chips, whatever they're called. But she was like, you dumb motherfuckers go through these in two days. I'm not buying again for a long time. So it is up to you. Ate 'em in three days. And she was like, tough. That's it. Like you have, if you want these consistently for your lunches, you have to make them available consistently for your lunches. I dunno what to tell you. So there's a little fuck around and find out to it, but they do a pretty good job. But now even, you know, they're so hungry they'll make a lunch and then also make a lunchbox [00:57:00] full of snacks. It's crazy.

Claire: Yeah, no, they paused more into that. Now I have a fantasy about, there's a place in Chicago called the Chopping Block that is like a cooking school. And they have a class on knife skills that is really good that you can learn how to dice and cut an onion. And I have this fantasy that before he goes to college, we’ll go do that and he'll learn how to actually like cut produce.

And yeah, well, again, I always think about, especially when people have, it's not always daughters. It often is daughters, let's just face it. But when people talk about their extremely competent kitchen children, I am jealous.

Quinn: It's not guys, it's not sons. Come on.

Claire: I know one kid, I know one boy who had a column in the school paper last year called In the Kitchen with Beckett.

Beckett, not listening, but loved that kid. He's just so sincere and adventurous to the way that I wouldn't do. He'll be like, here's how you blind bake. I'm like, bitch, I don't own a pie pan, let alone you know, one in which to, whatever. So, I do think about how great it be to have a competent kid who like to cook and provide, but again, to me that is like my [00:58:00] time.

Sort of like my, as long as I'm in the right head space and I don't mind doing the steps and listen to something juicy, you know, but you know, it's just one of those things like, oh, so today, by the way, the kids are having ramen and I paid $238 for their entire month of hot foods.

Quinn: Each or total?

Claire: Total

Quinn: Okay, so they go to school like 20 days in the week divided by 2, 1 19. 19 divided by 20, so about six bucks a meal.

Claire: Sure. Sounds about right. Yeah.

Quinn: That's not terrible. It could be worse.

Claire: Yeah, no, the food thing it's funny, I wonder if the kids having a professional writer for a mom means that I can't give it away for free. I can't, I'm not up here trying to like write, I used to have a routine where I would write a letter to the boys every year on their birthday and reflect back on blah, blah, blah, what you did.

I'm so proud of you. Love you. Here's what I want. And I didn't do it for James this year. 'cause I was like, I am so tired. No one gives a shit about this. I'm doing this for myself to make myself feel like I'm doing something. What are we doing here? You know? So [00:59:00] Steve every morning makes James like a really sweet, funny, cool cartoon encouraging him to take his pill. And when he's not there, I just put it out with a cup of water. I don't have it.

Quinn: You put out a cup of water. Come on now.

Claire: Yeah. I'm not making him like raw dog it down. But otherwise I don't have, you need to.

Quinn: By the way, I just watched, there's a Shrinking, I've started watching Shrinking. It's so fucking good, by the way. It's amazing. And it's first season or something. And Harrison Ford keeps saying something about raw dogging and they're like, please stop.

Yeah. It's pretty fantastic. So, well, great. I think that's really reasonable. Yeah, man, food's hard. It's expensive. It changes, hopefully it changes for the better. We've got a lot of food issues in this country in a lot of different ways.

Claire: I have two questions. one when Dana is in town and reliably around, what does she, if she's cooking, what does she typically make?

Quinn: She's not very much, she really likes to do it, but has no gas. So she, will make whatever, will eat whatever we got, usually.

Or she sometimes does a food delivery service that is really not cheap, but is really healthy stuff [01:00:00] but otherwise, you know, what everybody eats.

Claire: My question, if your kids say, one of them was like, if one of 'em had a wild hair and one of they want said they wanted a burger or like a pepperoni pizza, would they like acquire that on their own? Or is this never, literally never come up where they were like tempted by?

Quinn: I think there's probably a difference on the digestive track between those two. So I think pepperoni pizza, I'm sure they have half the time when they're at their friend's house and stuff. I don't get for 'em. Like it's delicious and it is not great. You know, protein carcinogens.

Yep. Burgers. I think they would shit themselves. I mean, they've basically never had like proper red meat. So I can't imagine like best wishes, like that's not great at your friend's fucking sleepover. I'm sure they've tried or whatever, but I don't, I mean, it's just, it's less being deprived and I think it's so different than it was 20 years ago. There's so many other options. There's so much other stuff out there.

Claire: I could in another world be a vegetarian if I had like the right support, basically. And there was a period of time where Paul, right [01:01:00] when we sat down to dinner, would talk about not wanting to hurt animals. And I would be like, that's fine. You cannot say this after I've just fucking made dinner.

Quinn: Totally get that for sure. We can talk about this all day. Not right now, when I just put all this time and money into it.

Claire: Not right now. Yeah. We went so far as to buy him a couple of vegetarian cookbooks to choose meals that he would want to eat. And he just got completely disorientated. Like he just got way more interested in eating burgers and no disrespect. I have a friend whose son is vegetarian and has held the line but yeah, it's just not happening for us.

Quinn: Yeah, they'll have chicken sometimes, stuff like that.

Claire: Oh, really?

Quinn: I think there's a good question as far as like trauma with kids and growing up and such where there are some really visual resources about how their animal food is produced. And it really, for anyone, once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

Claire: Oh, yeah. I don't wanna see it. Did you know my parents used to go to the slaughterhouse when they were growing up in Chicago as a kid's school trip as a field trip. They, and [01:02:00] that was, yeah. And that didn't change any minds.

Quinn: No, but it's also like a hundred times worse now 'cause it's so industrialized. It's crazy. So yeah, I think they would immediately never touch an animal again. Because it is fucking brutal. And you know, I can put those resources out there.

Claire: No. We're okay.

Quinn: Not for you, God dammit. Obviously you don't give a fuck. I’m saying if other people are interested.

Claire: No, I think it's funny. I love it when they like grind up all those baby male chicks. 'cause who needs 'em?

Quinn: Something like 20 billion male checks a year. I mean, that's pretty fitting. Yeah. Fucking idiots.

Claire: We can do better.

Quinn: Uhhuh. We can do better.

Claire: Did you guys eat anything good this weekend? Tell me, wrap it up with something yummy.

Quinn: We've been so packing that yesterday, I ordered them pizza for lunch. And last night we had the little fundraisers, so we just had like platters from Publix I think, of, you know, the wraps or whatever the fuck they were. I made pancakes yesterday [01:03:00] morning, Saturday birthday parties. It was a cluster fuck of a weekend.

There were no like meals. We had stuff Friday night. We had stuff Saturday night. Yeah, there was not a lot. Like the closest thing was pancakes basically.

Claire: Okay. All right. I had a really good Banh mi Vietnamese sandwich. I like was, there's a place in Evanston that I went to order from. They don't order, they don't deliver. So I found another one. And we used to live by a lot of Vietnamese restaurants in Chicago and I hadn't had one in so long. It was so good. You know, when the bread is like so crispy and soft and falling apart, and like the mint and the crunchy daikon and, oh, it was really good.

Quinn: There's a local place. That's great. That makes a good tofu. It's delicious. You would hate it.

Claire: I do eat tofu. I'm fine with it. It's a lot of work. I feel like tofu is, there's no fast tofu home cooked meals.

Quinn: I will send you a really easy one. It's not fast, but it's very low maintenance. Keep it in the fridge all week.

Claire: The lady, for people who are doubters, the woman, oh my God, what is her name? Big Vegan is the [01:04:00] name of her cookbook. Nisha Vora is her name, but she, in that cookbook, which is really good. She had a recipe for shaved tofu. So it is, it really looks like graded chicken, like ground chicken.

Quinn: Yeah. Again, anything you do with chicken, you can do with tofu. Cooking might be a little different, but it absorbs marinades almost better, sauces, all that kinda shit. It's great.

Claire: There's a dish I make sometimes when I am having tummy issues. That's just like a roasted boiled chicken thigh with peppers. And James, there's, you know how certain things become lexicon in your house, even though there's no rhyme or reason to it. He, well, I was making that once and he said, mom, that smells like the monkey house at the zoo, but not in a bad way. So now whenever I make that.

Quinn: In a what way, James?

Claire: I say I'm making monkey house chicken. He's like oh good. I love it.

Quinn: Great. Yeah. No, it's truly it, again, like you live with really weird roommates for, in a very concerted way for a long time, so that if someone from the outside walked in to an everyday of your life, they'd be like, what the fuck are these people talking [01:05:00] about? It's great.

Claire: Now if anything I have taught that I'm proud of is that they eat their food, they take their plate to the sink, you know, like they are more or less know how to sort of act around a dinner table ish. But you know, your mileage may vary.