{"id":287,"date":"2014-09-09T15:58:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T21:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/09\/home-cooked-meals-engaging-with-marcotte.html"},"modified":"2015-03-01T22:19:59","modified_gmt":"2015-03-02T04:19:59","slug":"home-cooked-meals-engaging-with-marcotte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2014\/09\/home-cooked-meals-engaging-with-marcotte.html","title":{"rendered":"Home-cooked meals: engaging with Marcotte"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Look, I know I\u2019m late to the party. \u00a0Everybody\u2019s been busy mocking Amanda Marcotte for her piece<\/a> in Slate calling for everyone to abandon the ideal of home-cooked meals because it\u2019s too hard on the women who usually end up being the cooks of those meals. \u00a0Everyone correctly observes that (a) cooking isn\u2019t that hard if you have a basic understanding and some key go-to recipes and prepare in advance and (b) it\u2019s healthier and cheaper than fast food, even in the worst-case scenario of buying semi-prepared convenience foods from the grocery store.<\/p>\n

But Marcotte doesn\u2019t actually say, \u201ceveryone should go buy fast food instead of cooking at home.\u201d \u00a0And she doesn\u2019t say, \u201cfood stamps should cover the cost of eating out every night so as to not burden poor women.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, she doesn\u2019t actually say what she thinks should replace home-cooked meals at all!<\/p>\n

But she\u2019s not completely crazy. <\/p>\n

(Let\u2019s bracket the \u201cpoor families\u201d issue.)<\/p>\n

A while back, one of the employee benefits that regularly appeared in lists of \u201cWork\/Life Balance\u201d benefits (back in the days when employers competed to recruit the best staff, rather than the approach, in 2014, of \u201cyour benefit is that you have a job, take it or leave it), was take-home meals. \u00a0The idea is that a cafeteria wouldn\u2019t just provide lunch meals, but would offer employees the opportunity to take an entree home to serve to the family after work. \u00a0Maybe you had the salmon for lunch, but for dinner you bring home a family-size container of chicken parmesan, for instance. \u00a0Presto! \u00a0Just as you\u2019ve outsourced your daytime childcare to KinderCare, and you have a lawn service and a housecleaning service, you can just as easily outside your meal production without needing to hire a personal chef, or getting McDonald\u2019s every day. <\/p>\n

But this never really took off. \u00a0According to the executive summary <\/a>of Working Mother\u2019s 100 Best Companies in 2011 (I didn\u2019t see a more recent version online), 43% of the \u201c100 best\u201d employers offer take-home meals, but only 3% of employers in general do so. <\/p>\n

Why not? <\/p>\n

I can imagine a number of reasons. \u00a0Cost, of course \u2014 and the types of entrees that I imagine could be most cost-effectively produced family-style, casseroles and pasta dishes, like the traditional tuna noodle casserole that\u2019s a staple of cafeterias everywhere, have fallen out of favor, with the cafeteria at my workplace, when I venture out of the house, having much more of an emphasis on freshly-prepared items, whether it\u2019s a stir-fry, a choose-your-fixings wrap or sandwich, or cooked-to-order burgers, though there\u2019s still some traditional \u201ccafeteria food\u201d on offer as well. \u00a0The more a \u201ctake-home meal\u201d concept starts to resemble in cost carryout from a full-service restaurant, the less appealing it is to people looking for an alternative to home-cooked meals.<\/p>\n

Besides that, we\u2019re fairly accepting of a one-size-fits-all child daycare center \u2014 or at least recognize that we can\u2019t pick and choose the curriculum at a center, if our budget doesn\u2019t permit a nanny \u2014 but even if \u201ctake-home meals\u201d from our workplace cafeterias offered quality food at a reasonable price, I would expect there wouldn\u2019t be many takers, since we generally want a choice of more than two or three entrees for our evening meals, and many of us have specific dietary restrictions or, at least, strong preferences (low-carb, low-fat, gluten-free, \u201cI don\u2019t like fish,\u201d etc.). <\/p>\n

In fact, Boston Market tried to market itself to families as the place to go for dinner as a family, as a replacement for a home-cooked meal. \u00a0And, for us, in the early 2000s, when we had two small children, we patronized them fairly frequently. \u00a0But they had to scale back their ambitious expansion plans, and the location we went to is now a cell phone store; plus, they\u2019ve raised their prices considerably since then as well \u2014 in other words, there were not as many families looking for \u201chome-cooked\u201d meals as they hoped. <\/p>\n

Besides which, of course, low-income families receive child care subsidies in order to be able to manage the costs \u2014 but not in a million years would we be willing to subsidize carry-out meals, or provide doubled or tripled food stamps. <\/p>\n

So here\u2019s my solution:<\/p>\n

For a family where mom and dad work, and the kiddos are at a school or daycare with a hot lunch during the day, eat the home-cooked family meal at dinnertime. \u00a0But do as the Germans do: \u00a0\u201ceat cold.\u201d \u00a0Germans will typically eat a warm, cooked meal at lunch, whether at home or at a cafeteria, and then, for dinner, get out the bread (hearty, dense German bread), butter, and cold cuts. \u00a0It\u2019s called \u201cBrotzeit\u201d \u2014 literally, \u201cbread time,\u201d and it simplifies the evening meal considerably. <\/p>\n

(Of course, the reliance on bread and cold cuts would violate one of the other sacred tenets of the left, that all food must be fresh, freshly prepared, minimally-processed, organic, and pretty much as close to its raw state as possible, while at the same time richly varied from day to day. \u00a0And, yes, if you raise your demands on home cooks, then this does become \u201ctyrannical.\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Look, I know I\u2019m late to the party. \u00a0Everybody\u2019s been busy mocking Amanda Marcotte for her piece in Slate calling for everyone to abandon the ideal of home-cooked meals because it\u2019s too hard on the women who usually end up being the cooks of those meals. \u00a0Everyone correctly observes that (a) cooking isn\u2019t that hard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[217,20],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-family-life","tag-parenting"],"yoast_head":"\nHome-cooked meals: engaging with Marcotte<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Look, I know I'm late to the party.  Everybody's been busy mocking Amanda Marcotte for her piece in Slate calling for everyone to abandon the ideal\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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