On Friday evening, we were on our way for tacos, when all hell broke loose in the car. It was 5:30 pm. My 7-year-old son had just finished an intense 90-minute soccer practice. During this time his sister had been kicking the ball around with a few teammates. It was the end of another 90 degree day. Both kids were hot, sweaty, and my son’s knees were black from turf dirt.  They were hungry.  They were tired.   It was no surprise what happened next: yelling, fighting, tears, complete and utter irrationality.

Normally, this is not the state in which I take kids out to eat. In fact, taking tired, hungry, cranky kids out goes against everything I’ve ever written here about kids and restaurants, summed up here.

But let me back up. The kids are growing like weeds. These days Finn reminds me of a baby giraffe. He’s all lanky arms and spiking legs and careens around on his bike, or skates, or on the field in a headlong way, as if shot from a catapult, always on the verge of falling.  Ella is an athlete.  She spends long, intense hours at the soccer field and in the pool.  To see her in her soccer gear or swimsuit is to see a girl totally at home in her body and its strength. It’s awesome, and we tell her this every day.   It’s become clear to her father and me that her body craves this kind of  physical outlet just as much as her mind craves the novels she schemes to stay up too late reading. Even Finn, whose sports are less serious will gear up  for roller hockey and skate in the car port on days we’re at home.  All this means one thing:  they need more food.  A lot more food.  A few weeks ago we made the direct link between between the kids’ moods and their blood sugar levels.

There are distinct danger times: right after school, right before lunch, right before dinner.   Snacks have become urgent, no-compromise affairs.  I’ve been tempted to show up at school with those little glucose packs cyclists carry.  Instead, I’ve become an efficiency expert, whipping up smoothies with milk and fresh fruit or peanut butter, slicing cheese, cutting fruit, freezing yogurt, rolling salami, pouring milk, handing over crackers, defrosting edamame, portioning nuts. Protein has become essential for both of  them, pre- and post- practice, and calcium is especially important for Ella in these pre-adolescent years–as it is for all girl athletes.

So that night on the way to tacos (or not) I had two choices: take them home and find something to cook, or soldier on and hope for the best.  The first option was not so appealing to any of us. My kitchen was clean.  I had nothing prepped. We love tacos. What they needed was food. Fast. So against my better instincts, I drove straight past our house and up the hill to the taqueria, all the while scheming about what healthy, sustaining thing I could get into them fast.  Because it was hot, and perhaps because the taste of fresh lime and seafood is still lingering from our San Diego extravaganza, my food brain conjured one word :  ceviche.

Before we entered, tears were dry, kids were calm, and they had been read the riot act in my scariest mom voice.

Inside, they commandeered the table where they could watch the MLS game (another benefit of taco night out). I stood in line. ordered for all of us, and asked for the ceviche to be brought right away.  I had no reason to think they would love it.  But I also had no reason to think they wouldn’t.  It was cool and fresh and full of  citrus and tender white fish.  I knew it wouldn’t completely stuff them before their dinners, and I knew it would complement whatever they ended up ordering.   I also told them they had no choice in the matter, and so two minutes later, while we waited for carne asada, and tacos al pastor, and a quesadilla, the kids confronted a gorgeous pile of white fish ceviche with fresh avocado and a mountain of fresh chips.  Finn dug in first, and then there was no turning back. Not for him, not for Ella, and not for the mood of the night.   As quick as they could load a chip, the mood of the night turned.  They polished off the ceviche until only scraps of fish were left.  Dinner came and they didn’t stop eating.  We went home happy and ate ice cream.

The lesson here?  Food is fuel.    If you’re lucky, sometimes it’s more.

Post-ceviche bliss

I have some fond memories of childhood road trip restaurant breaks. Most often, it was a stop, on the way to my grandparents’ house, at The Red Rooster (cheeseburger deluxe, fries and a root beer float); sometimes, I went with my grandfather when he drove my grandma to a weekend retreat, and we’d stop at Friendly’s along the way (fried clam roll for him, grilled cheese for me, shared fries and a chocolate fribble).

These days we’re keeping up The Red Rooster tradition in my family (happily, it’s about halfway between JFK and my parents’ house now) and our drive to Santa Barbara usually involves a quick stop at The Madonna Inn. The boys love the amazing grotto bathroom, and somehow manage to resist pieces of cake bigger than their heads in favor of a cookie or chocolate from the sweets counter. We get a treat, run around the parking lot for a few minutes, and then continue on our way.

This time, we stopped at the Madonna Inn for lunch. It’s an ornate room — floral carpet, red leather seats, pink cloth napkins, carved wooden walls — and the menu is enormous. The kids, a little overwhelmed, ordered breakfast for lunch and were perfectly happy; I ate an egg salad sandwich which tasted just fine. The service is lovely and the atmosphere — maybe from all that pink? — is really warm and friendly. It’s a kind of kitschy place but it made us all very happy, and we were on our way in under an hour, feeling much more relaxed than if we’d eaten in the car.

On our drive back home, Tony used TripAdvisor to find a restaurant in Paso Robles, Panolivo, which I discovered, later, is a favorite of a local writer friend (always nice to have that confirmation). The boys ate giant salads, Tony had an excellent house-made veggie burger and a glass of wine, I had salad and a delicious hummus plate. We talked and lingered and picked up pastry on the way out the door.

I’m sure we won’t always stop and sit down to eat when we’re making road trips, but, like our gradual move away from kid’s menus, this is a development that’s definitely improving our family food life.

When Lisa told me about her family’s road trip plans, I was envious (the sun! the stars! the Missions! the meals!) and then, instantly, dubious on the one point she was nervous about herself: the meals. Two weeks of restaurant meals. Forty-two restaurant meals. With two kids. At (among other places) several theme parks.

I wished her well and waited to hear the report.

Happily, the family survived well and Lisa’s writing about how to handle two solid weeks of restaurant meals with kids, covering everything from breakfast to theme park meals to the kids’ take on all of it. All of which has made me realize an exciting recent restaurant development in our family: we are saying goodbye to the kid’s menu.

Let me back up. We eat out a fair amount. Tony and I ate out regularly before we married (we both did growing up, too), and it was important to us to cultivate good restaurant habits in our kids. So we were strategic about it. Ben’s first restaurant meal, I have to admit, was at Chevy’s; he was about 7 weeks old and gazed at the balloons while I drank a margarita. Success! His first fancy restaurant meal, months later, was at Lulu, a place we chose partly for its delicious menu but also for its volume: we figured a crying baby wouldn’t be heard over the din. We needn’t have worried; he was old enough to sit in a high chair and gnaw happily on baguette, while we enjoyed several courses.

We continue to be thoughtful about eating out and follow the same practices as Lisa’s family. We eat out at fancy places to celebrate, sometimes, (both kids have eaten at plenty of places that don’t offer high chairs or kid’s menus) but more often we walk to one of the many local spots in the neighborhood where we can afford (both in terms of environment and price) to experiment. So if, as happened once when Ben was a toddler, there’s a meltdown between ordering and the food arriving, it’s no big deal to flag down the waiter and get dinner to go. Luckily, it’s been a long time since such an evening has gone awry; more often, we eat and chat and it feels quite a bit like home, just a little more special. But the kids’ preference, always, is to eat at home: it’s more relaxed, they don’t have to wait for their food, they like our cooking.

This summer, we’ve traveled a bit but managed — by booking hotel rooms with kitchenettes or staying with family — to keep the restaurant meals to a minimum (on our visit to Seattle this June, just the second restaurant night made Eli mournful). Tony researched spots that looked good — Italian and Asian restaurants tend to offer a good variety for our choosy, vegetarian kids — and we’ve been eating well. I’ve been remembering the mom I used to be, who would sweep the fragile glassware into the middle of the table, far from a toddler’s grasping reach, or who would set the high chair far from the tempting tablecloth. I’m grateful for older kids who (mostly) sit politely and use the kid’s menu now (mostly) just for drawing.

Kid’s menus certainly offer a welcome landing spot, a sign — as surely as highchairs and lidded cups — that the restaurant welcomes kids, and we’ve been grateful for them. But honestly, the kid’s menu has never offered a great selection for my kids; of the standard burger-fish sticks-chicken fingers-pizza-pasta quintet, most are either too meaty or too cheesy for my kids. So we have always looked beyond it, and are now really moving away from it. Eli will just eat a big salad (particularly Caesar, the gateway salad) if there’s nothing else on the menu he likes, though still often augments with pasta or grilled cheese. Ben, however, is making some new choices. Recently at our favorite local place, he passed up his beloved pasta “shoulders” (a toddler malapropism of his we have all adopted) in favor of a new dish: soba with grilled tofu and greens. It’s the kind of dish he eats all the time at home but would never order out. He’s also not shy about ordering exactly what he wants. He’ll scan the menu and assemble himself a meal from side dishes, he’ll order a salad without that cheese or with that other salad’s dressing (I know special orders can be a nightmare for a kitchen staff, and we always check that they don’t mind). At our most recent meal out, I noted how the water goblets stood a little unsteadily on thick placemats atop the marble table, turned down the waiter’s offer of plastic, lidded kid’s cups, relaxed and ordered a glass of wine. They are growing up and I am enjoying it.

How do you choose a restaurant in a strange town?

Sometimes we’ve relied on suggestions from friends who have come before. Sometimes we have a destination restaurant we’ve read about in a paper or magazine. Sometimes we just wing it, selecting a restaurant based on location, menu, and my gut. But we’ve also come to rely increasingly on Yelp as one of our tools. I trust my friends who Yelp. The “nearby” feature is helpful when you need food fast or want to walk.  And we’ve found that if we choose a meal based on our gut, our research, and Yelp comments we generally have a hit.  I especially have grown to trust a string of comments praising a particular dish. Things like: “don’t miss the shaking beef” or make sure you try the “li hing mui margarita.”  And if you know a little about local food traditions, you generally know things like burger shacks are a good bet on Kauai; and Mexican is a go-to in San Diego. So, when we travel, we tend to opt for places that have a strong sense of place, are linked to the community, or are known to do something really well. For instance, I’m inclined to avoid Italian unless it’s a place like this that cures there own salumis.

But in Southern California, my husband’s birthplace, we are all about the fish tacos, which I have to admit after all these years, are just better down south than anywhere else on earth. And so based on Yelp and some strategic scouting by me and the kids, we found ourselves at Miguel’s Cocina on Coronado, just a stone’s throw from our hotel.   It’s a spacious place, and generally mobbed. But it’s tucked in an alley off the street, and you can put in your name, take a buzzer, then grab an outstanding margarita from the outdoor bar, and snack on a bottomless bin of chips and salsa on the benches. It’s sort of lovely.

The food is pretty great all around, but what you need to know about Miguel’s is the Jalapeno Cream Sauce. This is the hands down our favorite food thing from vacation. It comes to the table complimentary with your chips and salsa. It ‘s a warm, creamy dipping sauce with a hint of heat. The kids didn’t touch it while Kory and I ate and ate and stared at each other in disbelief. Then, when they finally did try it they both said the same thing: “That is the best. thing. ever.” And it is. Trust me. It’s the ultimate comfort food. The best appetizer for family dinner, and I’m pretty sure will be a huge smash at parties. This is the kind of thing that made all those restaurant meals worth it.  The recipe is crazy. But just make it and believe.

Miguel’s Cocina Jalapeno Cream Sauce

Ingredients

• 2 cups whipping cream
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon chicken broth
• 2 tablespoons clarified butter
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 jalapeno pepper, minced
• 1 tablespoon jalapeno juice, from bottled jalapeno
• 1 ounce monterey jack cheese, shredded
• 1 ounce cheddar cheese, shredded

1. Heat whipping cream in a heavy saucepan over high heat. Stir in sour cream when it’s ready to boil. After sour cream dissolves, reduce heat to medium.
2. Stir in chicken broth and jalapeno sauce and simmer.
3. Meanwhile, make a roux by heating butter and flour. Whisk until mixture turns a pale gold.
4. Increase heat on cream mixture until almost boiling and then add roux. Whisk briskly and constantly until roux is incorporated. Continue whisking until sauce has thickened. It should be about the consistency of a cheese sauce. It will take a longish time.
5. Remove from heat, stir in minced jalapeno and the cheeses.
6. Served with tortilla chips.

Try them with a classic margarita, made simply with your best tequila, fresh lime juice & agave nectar.

It’s no secret that food at theme parks, generally speaking, sucks, is lousy.  The food lowpoint of our vacation was not, however, what any of us ate or didn’t eat, but the moment when we were standing in the brunch line at our hotel, which was full of great, fresh food, and my husband saw a young boy waiting for his turn at the colorful tray of melons only to have his father push him along, saying, “What are you doing? You don’t need any fruit. Come down here.” And they made there way down to the bacon and sausage and biscuits and gravy–all of which are fine things to eat, but I wish that boy had gotten to choose.

We were all starved for fresh, whole fruits and vegetables. And while the food in Disneyland is pretty awful, they do have carts filled with fresh fruit, including watermelon, wedges of pineapple, and containers of cut mangos. We ate a lot of mango while we inside the Magic Kingdom. But we also quickly discovered that (sit-down restaurants aside) the grab-and-go/cafeteria style food is much, much better at California Adventure, so we tried to eat there as much as we could. Plus, they serve wine and beer, which is always a good addition to a meal when you need a little extra downtime.  Or a boost of courage for, say, Tower of Terror. There’s a new set of restaurants way out on Paradise Pier that serves really good flatbread pizza, fresh salads, and a whole range of grilled mediterranean skewers.  There’s also a lot more ethnic food (Mexican & asian inspired rice bowls) all around the park, and an infusion of California wine country sensibility–which also leans toward fresher, leaner, more seasonal meals.

We made it through all the parks (Legoland, Seaworld)  by eating less meat, seeking out cold fruit instead of ice cream, finding simple salads(lots and lots of Caesar’s), avoiding sweetened drinks, and substituting fruit for fries. Because we were on the road so much, and the choices were generally less fresh than we’re used to, even the kids didn’t complain. Of course we got ice cream & fries and candy and treats, too. It was vacation, after all.  We just didn’t make these choices every day at every meal.

The best surprise of all was a lovely al fresco dinner at Ariel’s Grotto in California Adventure (I know. I know.) It wasn’t a character dinner, and the kids have long since traded princessphilia for the adrenaline of the fastest rides they can find, but they dinner came with preferred seating for the night show, which we wanted to see.  The service was excellent, the margaritas sweetened with agave, and the food was really good.  Our appetizer was served family style: a tower of salumes, salads, and olives which the kids also dug into.  My main course ravioli was the best thing I’d eaten in 3 days. Kory’s meal was equally satisfying. And the kids had “meatball lollipops”: lovely little meatballs on skewers atop a plate of spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce.

Dinner. Before the kids attacked the fruit.

What I loved most was the kids’ appetizer, which was ingeneous and a standard part of their meal.  I loved the assumption that the kids could have a first course. It acknowledged the parents’  right to relax over a meal and assumed kids are capable of dining right along with them. I especially loved the cute little green apple jelly.

Watermelon, cheese, and a green apple gelatin

What the kids loved most was probably the family style dessert, which wasn’t great, but was really fun to look at.   Especially the white chocolate film strip.

Happy kids. Happy meal. And for this night, certainly, one of the happier places on earth.

The force was with them even though they hadn’t eaten breakfast

Our kids, like many, take breakfast seriously. They eat shortly after waking up and are used to a fair amount of variety: porridge, eggs many ways, waffles, pancakes, cereal, sweet rice, granola….lots of whole, fresh fruit.

Since we were staying in hotels on our trip, eating right away–even coffee right away–was not so possible. I suppose I could have kept breakfast fixings in the room, but we were moving around a lot and I didn’t want one more thing to tote and pack and, probably, waste.    At several hotels we had a breakfast package, and if you’re traveling with kids, I would highly recommend these.  Hotel breakfasts had variety, were easy to get to, and meant we could get on with our day without any effort. On these days, which was maybe a third or half of the time, we had a solid breakfast. Other days, not so much.  As opposed to the breakfast-included package, purchasing breakfast food a la carte at our hotels proved prohibitively expensive. We loved adored our hotel, but $40 for 2 coffees, 3 bagels, 2 waters and 1 fruit cup is absurd.  Breakfast quickly became the least important meal of the day. It was all about the grab & go.  We made sure to find something decent and relatively healthy for the kids, but really, we bought just enough to tide them over to lunch.  We found this place on Coronado, which was a great place to grab & go on our way to wherever we happened to be going for the day. We relied on bagels, smoothies, and one fine day, a totally delicious bacon burrito and french toast.

We learned that California Adventure has far superior coffee and breakfast options in the early AM than does Disneyland.  Our most egregious meal failure was the day we arrived at the Disneyland gate for the 7 am, hotel-guest only hour, without having eaten.  Anything. Not even coffee for the adults, which frankly might be more important than food for the kids. Especially at Disneyland. In our defense, we had assumed we’d be able to grab food at the park (since we had done this the day prior at CA). Also in our defense, we all rode Star Tours and Space Mountain before 8 am, and got FastPasses for both.  We avoided a near meltdown with pizza at 10 AM.

Some days, you gotta do what you gotta do.

The best breakfast of all–food and fun wise, was the character-themed Critter breakfast at our Disney hotel.  This of course, was a surprise to me, but not to my Disney loving family. My husband, who worked many character breakfasts (as Pluto, for instance) in his 6 years employed at the park, was full of fun stories about what was really going on around us, and was able to speak to Chip and Dale and all the rest in some secret language unknown to the rest of us mortals. Our kids don’t give a hoot about princesses, but what’s not to love about enourmous, cuddly stuffed animals come to life and wandering through a pretty swell arts and crafts/mission style restaurant?  There was kots of fresh fruit, grits, bagels, cream cheese, capers, lox, eggs to order, Mickey-shaped waffles. And the husband knew enough to have a mimosa waiting for me. Which was swell.

So the moral here is: it was good to lighten up temporarily about that most important meal.

And if you have a choice, definitely eat with the animals.

Up next: Surviving the theme park food. (Or maybe not so much.)

We’ve just returned from our annual family vacation, which this year involved a long an epic road trip from the Bay Area to San Diego, one of the most southern parts of our state.  Our initial destination was ComicCon in San Diego, which was a blast & included a preview of the upcoming Phineas and Ferb Movie,which is terrfic, if you like that sort of thing, which we do.  But the trip quickly morphed into a week at the Coronado beach, a 3-day visit at Disneyland, an excursion to Hearst Castle, and something Caroline came to call Mission-polooza: a visit to every California mission between our home and our destination.  I will not be writing about that part of the trip here.  (You can check my personal blog for follow-up and fallout on that score.)  But what is of interest to LTE readers is that for the first time ever, we stayed in hotels for the duration of our trip, which was a new experience for us.

For me, this meant a lot things: no cleaning, no sweeping, no making beds, no tidying up at the end of the day. Of course it also meant no marketing and no cooking. No farmers market. No prep. No meal planning.  Honestly, it was a terrific break, but I was nervous about many meal-related things including:

• Cost
• Getting the kids ready and out of the hotel for dinner.  Every night.
• Table manners
• Stamina–the day in, day out energy it takes to dine in restaurants
• Finding enough variety in the food to keep us feeling energetic and healthy
• Theme park food

We were right to worry about some of these things. Variety, for instance: we eat so much seasonal produce that by the end Finn was picking the cucumbers out of his dad’s water in search of fresh vegetables. And I may never again eat another Caesar salad, because at many of the theme parks we visited, this is the closest thing you can get to fresh vegetables.  I also discovered that left to their own devices and an unstoppable tidal wave of kids’ menus, even my accommodating and not-picky eaters will choose chicken tenders or pizza or burgers.  My daughter, who never ate a chicken finger in her life ordered these twice in our last three days.  It’s true she got the side of fruit salad, too, but it just goes to show the deeply subconscious appeal of the kids’ menu–even for a kid who doesn’t really eat like a kid.  And finally, it is costly to eat out all the time, so we were right to budget high for this part of our vacation.

But other things proved not to be problems. In retrospect, it’s not that surprising. In some sense, we’ve been training our kids from the time they were toddlers to eat out in restaurants, so the stamina, the manners, the getting ready, all these things were taken in stride. It surprised us. We stuck to our tried and true rules, and they worked for us through many different kinds of meals: in a car, at a pool, at a taqueria, in a fancy restaurant, in a lodge….Frankly, it was an enormous relief because in the weeks leading up to the trip we were not at all sure that the kids would make it through every meal without incident.  But they did, and at the last meal, a lovely little place in Carmel, we celebrated and we toasted them. While they ate pizza and a burger.

Up next: managing breakfast on the road.

I didn’t really want to do anything for Mother’s Day, which I feel pretty ambivalent about. Aside from an exciting, early morning soccer game for Ella, I had no plans, and I wanted to keep it that way. I thought a nap might be in order.  Later, I just didn’t feel like cooking dinner.  I didn’t feel like takeout. Nor did I feel like having my husband cook dinner and make a mess in the kitchen–even a little mess.   To his credit, Kory took it upon himself to make a reservation at a local restaurant that we hadn’t been to for a meal. I’d had drinks and snacks there with some friends but had never seen the menu. I was a little skeptical, but too tired to make a big deal. So we dressed up and went out to an early dinner.

My first impression: not so positive. It’s one of those places with the kind of faux Tuscan decor that’s just sort of cheesy and nondescript: murals of villas and sunflower fields, faux arches, earthy colors.  The menu was less than inspired and sort of expensive. They served mostly standard Italian American fare,and the kids menu looked like this:

So, we weren’t expecting much.

The restaurant was very quiet. There were white linen tablecloths, pretty little candles, nice flatware and glassware on the table. But  they brought the kids a big box of crayons and some paper which happily entertained them while we ordered and waited.

I had a really good glass of Prosecco, which makes almost anything better than okay, and when the server brought the Casear salad, to our great surprise, both kids dug in. Finn shared with me, Ella shared with her dad, and was even persuaded to eat several of the anchovies.

It was incredibly calm–at our table, but also in the restaurant more generally. There were several elderly couples around us, but across the way was  a family with two teenagers, dressed casually in hoodies and jeans, tucking into filet mignon, having what seemed to be a really pleasant time.

When they brought the pasta, you could tell right away it was impeccably fresh. Ella’s pesto was bright green, as if it had just been mixed. Finn’s marinara was bursting with flavor, and my bolognese was perfect.   The portions were just the right size. So in spite of the fact that the kinds menu looked like the worst kind of generic pandering to kids, they got to choose their pasta shape and the sauce, and both were beautifully prepared–simple, fresh, delicious–and served in elegant bowls. The kids loved it. I loved it.

At some point, a family with a baby and a 5 year old in complete butterfly face paint and a lovely party dress sat  next to us. They had a conversation with the grandparents on their other side. The little girl listened intently to some story Kory was telling Ella and Finn, then joined the conversation at our table.  By this time, the restaurant was packed with a really diverse group of people, and maybe it was the second glass of prosecco that got to me, but I prefer to think that there was something magical at hand. The general quality of the food, the welcoming atmosphere, the young and old, moms, dads, kids of all ages, grandparents, the mix of elegance with a deep family-friendly attitude. Yes, it was pricey, but I can’t help but think that helps to maintain a certain mood of dignity and respect.

And things went so swimmingly, we even let the sit next to each other and tuck into a pretty great ice cream sundae. At home, this would easily have devolved into disaster.  But they knew better.

Not every family dinner can be so lovely and calm, but when things go as well as they did on this night, I remember the basic tenants we’ve been working on since Ella was a year old: be open to new experiences; teach your children appropriate restaurant behavior; a little bit of fancy dress does wonders to calm the beast and raise expectations; go to dinner when your children are hungry, even if this means a 5 PM reservation.

Last summer Ella’s grandparents took her to see a regional production of Annie and then out to dinner at a fondue restaurant.  She loved the show. (Annie was a very close runner-up for the Halloween costume even though, in the end, Hermione won out.) But the restaurant?  Well, we’ve heard about that restaurant at least once a week for the past 6 months. Before Fondue, she had never of the stuff.  After, it was nearly all she could talk about  (in terms of food).  We heard each course recited ad infinitum, with every detail of service, and in as much descriptive power as she could muster. Over, and over, and over.  “Can I tell you what we ate, Mom?” “Do you want to know what they have at the Fondue Restaurant?”  We humored her, but it’s not a cheap restaurant, so we didn’t rush back.

But  recently she had something to celebrate, so we did take her back.

In the hours leading up to the event, she was so excited she willingly put on a new dress, and knee high athletic socks, and cute denim flats. Without being asked, and long before the last minute. Her brother was another story.  Finn grudingly put on his grey jeans and a shirt with a collar. And then, when he figured out we were actually going to the Fondue Restaurant, the real fun started. He whined, he cried, he lay on the ground and refused to put on his shoes. He rolled around like a Weeble.  “Why, why, why?!” he moaned. “I don’t want to go the THAT restaurant…”  The tears fell.   He doesn’t tantrum, but he is really good at weeping.

So, we did what we always do when a child threatens to ruin our plans.

We told him we had no choice, that we expected good behavior, and we put him in the car.  I was nervous, of course.  One can never be too sure of one’s kids.

By the time we got to the restaurant, Finn was carsick and Ella was so happy she nearly skipped into the restaurant. The host led us upstairs to a comfortable booth, and there, resting against the melting pot, was a card for E. signed by all the servers. Super cheesy, yes, but very sweet and sort of perfect for an 8-year old girl’s celebration.  At that little surprise, Finn started to come around. They were offered a mini box of colored pencils and a booklet with tic tac toe grids, which also distracted him long enough not to complain.

And then, the server offered them Italian sodas, of which they eagerly partook, and things started to look up.

Ella ordered (she’d had the menu in her head for months, remember), and there was something lovely watching her confidently put in the order for all of us (except for the wine).

And then– the server arrived with a tray of ingredients and made the cheese fondue in the pot in the middle of the table.  Finn was riveted. For really, what kid doesn’t like to see things melt and simmer and bubble and transform right in front of him?  There was bread, and apples, and long dangerous looking forks, and lots of things to spear with them.

One bite, two bites, and soon Finn was happily eating away, too.

“Hey,” he said, “You know this is MUCH better than I thought it would be.” He nodded and smiled and kept dipping and eating. “This is really good. I didn’t KNOW this was like this. I LOVE this. Thanks, Ella!”

And so.

We simmered all kinds of meats and shrimp and potstickers and vegetables in broth, and Finn was as charmed as Ella was blissed out.

Then there was the chocolate fondue with cheesecake, rice krispie treats, pound cake, brownies, and strawberry dippers…(don’t even ask).

Really, I’ve had better fondue.  The restaurant is sort of expensive. But as my husband noted, this place has it dialed in. The manager came over to congratulate Ella.  It has just enough fancy to impress the family but it’s not too formal.  And there is not much more communal fun than a fondue pot. There’s something magical about melting cheese, and simmering broth, and sharing all the little parts of a meal in a very active, ongoing way.  The night was easily one of our most fun family dinners–and for Kory and I it wasn’t because the food was top  notch. The kids, of course, would disagree. They think fondue, at this place, is the best thing in the world, and I’m not going to disabuse them of that notion. I hope they grow up and remember this place as an occasion, as something new and different, as something we did together to celebrate.  If they love mediocre fondue, and choose this place for their celebrations,  I’ll give it to them every time.  It’s better than a happy meal. Or Macys. We all came together to celebrate Ella, but we celebrated just being together, too.

Also: There was a great big blue flame.  And really, what more is there to be said about why fondue is a fun family dinner?

When Tony and I were dating, we used to eat pretty frequently at a nearby restaurant, Eos. It’s got a lovely Asian-influenced menu, with plenty of fish and vegetarian choices for us. We used to order broadly off the menu until we realized that we really love the shitake mushroom dumplings the best, and so pretty much just made our meal of salads (they do a really nice Thai herb chopped salad) and dumplings.

Fast forward a couple years, to when Ben was a baby, and he and I took off to Virginia to hang out with my sister and her family. Tony, left to his own devices for a week, made a project of trying to recreate the dumplings. He ate at Eos, and then made a dumpling attempt at home, and then ate there again another night before refining the recipe some more. The recipe he developed will never quite be as rich and buttery as what they serve at Eos, because that would take a pound more butter than we can put in one dish (this is one of the reasons we eat in restaurants, isn’t it? Because they will use all the butter and cream that we can’t bring ourselves to), but it’s still pretty delicious, and we don’t make it nearly often enough. But with family gathered for Christmas, and kids willing to pitch in to fill dumplings, we made a huge batch.

The recipe scales up or down easily depending on how much you want to make.

12-16 oz. fresh shitake mushrooms
1 bunch baby bok choy
2-3 shallots
2-3 cloves of garlic
1 small knob of fresh ginger (about a tablespoon, grated)
olive or vegetable oil
a dash of soy sauce
a dash of rice vinegar

Very finely dice the vegetables, shallots, and garlic, and saute with the ginger over medium-high heat with a good slug of oil. When the mixture is nicely browned, and the mushrooms have given off most of their juice, add a dash of soy sauce and a dash of rice vinegar. You can pause at this point and refrigerate the filling until you are ready to fill the dumplings.

Use whatever dumpling wrappers you can find at your grocery – we usually use the round gyoza wrappers rather than the square wonton wrappers, though it shouldn’t matter too much; we haven’t ever attempted making the wrappers ourselves.

Put about a teaspoon of filling in the center of each wrapper. Moisten the edges with water and press shut, then crimp the edges a bit with your fingers. Keep the dumplings moist until you steam them by putting them on a plate or tray under a dish towel wrung out with cool water.

Steam the dumplings 3-4 minutes, until the wrappers go translucent, and then serve with the sauce.

For the sauce
2-3 cups vegetable stock
soy sauce
sherry
2 tablespoons butter

Bring the stock to a boil and cook until reduced to one cup. Add the soy sauce and sherry a tablespoon at a time, to taste. Stir in the butter until the sauce is smooth and velvety. Keep warm until ready to serve.