After Slate posted the caustic article about home-cooked meals and all the facets of their lameness, every food blogger, mom, and home-cook took to the internet to reply.
And DAMMIT, I'M ALL THREE! It's my turn.
Slate stated the obvious: it takes time and money to cook food and often the people you cook for don't love it.
What's the freaking alternative, Slate? Eat fast food and die early? NEAT.
But that stupid article brought up an ongoing debate that I've been hearing: does anyone care about homemade?
I've had MANY converations with friends about cooking from a box versus cooking from scratch and the results thereof.
My awesome Hair Queen and I like to discuss food and cooking. She digs making fresh pasta dishes and amping up box stuff with fresh ingredients, like one does for health and convenience's sake. Her husband eats it willingly, but also quips, "Can't you just make it like the box says?". So one day, she made Kraft Mac and Cheese as the gods intended and her husband exclaims, "What did you put in this?! It's sooooo good."
Sigh.
I've had the same experience in different forms: making brownies from a box versus my mom's awesome from-scratch recipe and the box "recipe" gets accolades, pizza that I upwrap cellophane from versus my made-all-things version where the frozen kind wins everytime, homemade bread is too hole-y/un-uniform compared to store-bought, etc.
All that experimenting with a different recipe every night? Not usually met by moans of delight (although, throught some miracle, my kids always compliment and thank me for meals, even if they don't like it). I understand why my mom and dad ended up generally cooking the same rotation of 15-20 dinners or so: it was easier to please everyone and took relatively less time than Cooking/Experimenting.
The question with the Slate article and the debate in general, is how do you love cooking, but save money and time, while keeping your family well-fed AND healthy?
TELL ME.
One year ago: Disclaimer for Your Children, in which I state the obvious.
Two years ago: LLLL, in which I describe what a date is.
