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Cooking with Kids: It's About Time

Posted by Matthew Amster-Burton, July 30, 2007 at 12:15 PM

Having a kid in the house has changed dinnertime. Not so much what I cook—the actual time dinner is served. It went from a ballpark figure to an ironclad contract. Before my daughter, Iris, came along, my wife, Laurie, and I would sometimes have dinner somewhere between 5:30 and 8 p.m., maybe later if I was trying something fancy.

Now, dinner is at 6 p.m., the same way Christmas is on December 25. Iris's bath starts at 7. I can delay dinner until 6:15 if I run into unexpected kitchen obstacles, but if it looks like it's going to go later than that, it's time to switch to scrambled eggs or frozen potstickers. Not every kid has such a lockstep routine, I know, but it's worked well for us.

As I write this, however, Laurie and Iris are visiting family near Portland, Oregon, and I'm visiting friends near Portland, Maine. I have already promised Iris that I'll make her a lobster roll when we get home. The kid is lobster-crazy.

Upon arriving in Maine, I offered to make dinner. I came in with groceries at about 7 p.m. and started working on some taco fillings. I made spice-rubbed grilled chicken and a vegetarian filling of spinach, mushrooms, and crumbled hard cheese. I made a fiery tomatillo salsa and poured some red salsa from a jar. By the time dinner was served, it was 8:30 p.m.

After that I went for a soak in the hot tub, but it didn't feel nearly as luxurious as serving dinner at 8:30.

What do you do differently in the kitchen when the kids are away? Light candles? Make kid-unfriendly meals? Leave knives lying around willy-nilly?

Photograph from iStockPhoto.com

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