My husband and I love food. BS (Before Sofia) we would even have considered ourselves “foodies”. Hundreds of dollars were spent on the newest restaurants and on trying the newest fad in food. We meandered our way through the local food, the slow food, and the farmers market movements.
For me, this was the antithesis to the way I’d grown up eating – where every meal eaten out-of-the-house required a coupon and meals at home were based on convenience. My elite, liberal self turned my nose up at food of my youth. I even gave up (mostly) my secret McDonald’s habit.
That is, until I had a kid. Forget everything I thought I knew. If it’s not coming from a bag or a box, I do not have time for it.

In the first weeks of motherhood, breakfast would be eaten about 10am and then nothing until mid-day, when I realized I’d forgotten to do something. I clued in that muffins were the easiest thing to shove into my face. I started out with the 800 calorie double chocolate muffins using the excuse that I “needed” the extra calories. Not fitting into my clothes convinced me otherwise, so I moved to the 300 calorie ones. I hung out there for a few weeks until I decided to brave baking – muffins loaded with blueberries and chocolate chips. Where I’m at currently.
Vegetables have gone in a similar direction. Salad in a bag has become the main source of our vegetable consumption. In a previous life I would have admonished the bad-for-you and bad-for-the world salad bags, now I see them as a staple of my diet. I know, I know…listeria, recalls, plastic, fake, fecal matter, etc. It’s either that or no veggies at all.
At a trip to a local farmers market last night, my husband and I wandered past the fresh, local vegetables asking each other, “what should we get?” Within minutes we found ourselves back outside the market with the same thoughts, “when would we actually cook them?”
Within weeks, I’ve gone from judging the convenience food of my youth to being a full fledged supporter. In upcoming months, perhaps I’ll find a happy middle ground.
For now, our Food Network magazines sit abandoned on our coffee table, relics of the past. We page through recipes imagining them like countries we’d like to visit someday. Instead, my McDonald’s habit is out of the closet and has completely replaced the hundred dollar meals of yesteryear (Did you know two can dine for $9.98?). The new reality is that eating is a luxury and luxurious eating isn’t happening at my house.
My snooty foodie attitude has had a reality check, and I am amazed that my mom actually got us fed all those years. I have no idea what I’ll do when my daughter starts solids. I’ll likely be pouring Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup over chicken and stuffing it in an oven bag.
(Image from thedeafsage.wordpress.com – who says not to buy bagged salad.)