{"id":2996,"date":"2013-01-22T11:51:19","date_gmt":"2013-01-22T15:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/?p=2996"},"modified":"2013-01-22T11:51:19","modified_gmt":"2013-01-22T15:51:19","slug":"order-up-dinner-and-love-hold-the-onions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/22\/order-up-dinner-and-love-hold-the-onions\/","title":{"rendered":"Order up! Dinner and Love, hold the onions"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you are lucky like me you had a mom and a grandmother or two who were the source of magical meals and desserts that you remember forever.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no better food to be had, your young palate was amazed at\u00c2\u00a0how good it was.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure there were some misses here and there (although I did manage to enjoy Welsh Rarebit<\/a> somehow), but for the most part it was all magic.\u00c2\u00a0 Once in a while at home there would be a really special dinner, or when you visited your grandmother there would be your favourite cookies out, somehow ready for you.\u00c2\u00a0 You never once questioned how amazing that was, what a coincidence it was that she just had this stuff ready, no matter how elaborate the meal.<\/p>\n

As I get older, and\u00c2\u00a0the kids get older\u00c2\u00a0naturally they become ever more appreciative of good food, and their favourites.\u00c2\u00a0 Seeing the excited faces and hearing the appreciation is awesome and rewarding, one of the true joys of parenting.<\/p>\n

Ok, enough of the inspirational tripe and misty eyed Hallmark-ed Pinterest-bait.\u00c2\u00a0 One thing that never ever crossed my ungrateful little kid mind EVEN ONCE was just how much back-breaking work and money went into feeding me.\u00c2\u00a0 Holy crap, it’s absolutely unbelievable how much work it is to feed a family well.\u00c2\u00a0 Nikki does an incredible job of feeding us, with appreciative sighs and ahhs all around, but man there’s a metric fuck-ton of work behind that, not to mention the cost.\u00c2\u00a0 The boys are getting bigger all the time, and the quantities of\u00c2\u00a0food they will eat in their teens is beginning to become apparent, forget the casual dinner guests that appear ever more regularly.<\/p>\n

For instance, just the other night we had dinner for Nikki’s Mom and Dad (Darlene’s birthday!), which was all good.\u00c2\u00a0 Aunt Pat tagged along at our insistence, which was awesome.\u00c2\u00a0 Jordy had a friend over, no problem.\u00c2\u00a0 Her boyfriend was scheduled to come too, but couldn’t make it at the last.\u00c2\u00a0 So what started as a regular dinner on a Wednesday night ended up as dinner for 10…\u00c2\u00a0 Nikki killed it too, amazing roasts (yes, two roasts) and most of a bag of potatoes mashed and creamy\u00c2\u00a0amazing, and veggies.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone loved it.\u00c2\u00a0 What I’m sure wasn’t obvious was the fact that getting that meal on the table took two trips to the grocery store (one for the extra roast, one for the rest) and a couple hours of prep.\u00c2\u00a0 Forget the rest of the things that were done, house cleaning and tidying, dishes washing, etc.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a stupendous amount of effort to cook for that many people.<\/p>\n

The most messed up part of it all is how COMMONPLACE and ordinary it’s all getting.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00c2\u00a0would have been the whole damn week getting ready for that dinner when we were younger.\u00c2\u00a0 Now?\u00c2\u00a0 Meh, Nikki knocks out a masterpiece with a few hours notice.\u00c2\u00a0 The magic becomes familiar and everyday to us parents, but there you go.\u00c2\u00a0 We wouldn’t change it for all the unicorns, puppies, and rainbow muffin baskets in the world***….<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*** Bonus Hallmark Norman Rockwell finish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are lucky like me you had a mom and a grandmother or two who were the source of magical meals and desserts that you remember forever.\u00c2\u00a0 There was no better food to be had, your young palate was … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piGNU-Mk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2996"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2999,"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2996\/revisions\/2999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vallentyne.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}