How to deal with fussy grownups: Reader Q&A

Jul 10, 2011 by Anna Migeon

A reader from Texas had this question for us:

So how do you feel about grownups who come to your house and state that they will not eat any food that is not organic, vegetarian, free range, or fair trade? This happens to be the night you are cooking steaks and nonorganic baked potatoes. Is this any different than the rebellious child, or just an extension of what happens as the rebellious child grows up? Would you cook a special meal for this person, in addition to the food you had already prepared, or would you simply say, “I was not aware that you had food preferences. Had I known, I would have prepared accordingly. However, I am not offended if you decline to join us.”

Sacred Appetite answers:

Miss Dinner Table Manners is shocked and dismayed that grown adults would…

Cheap food: Is saving money the best reason to eat at home?

Oct 23, 2009 by Anna Migeon

“It’s better to pay the grocer than the doctor,” the saying goes.

But according to marketers at Campbell Soup, our benchmark for an “affordable dinner at home” for a family of four is just $10.

The average four-person household, bringing in $49,000 per year, spends $5,700 a year, or $110 a week, or just $5 per meal, for groceries, according to Heinz’s research.

Could cheap food be a reason we’re paying the doctor so much? And why we can expect our kids to pay even more in their future?

How do we profit if we save money today, but lose our health and our children’s health tomorrow?

Double Food Standard

Now I understand the problems of a genuinely tight budget, but where we’re not willing to pay the grocer, we are willing to pay the restaurant. While we choke on paying more than $5 or $10 for the whole family to eat a fresh, tasty,…

A Perfect Kid Meal: Snow Crab Legs & Raw Vegetables with Red Pepper Garlic Mayonnaise

Jul 9, 2009 by Anna Migeon

I’m all about mayonnaise now.  I pretend that all mayonnaise, even the cheap store brand, is mayonnaise in its ideal form, like I once made from freshly laid raw eggs from our backyard, free-range, happy hens (who are no more), with a little lemon juice, Dijon mustard, good olive oil.  There’s nothing you can say against a little mayonnaise, at least in its ideal form. Good egg, good oil—it’s health food.

I made this mayonnaise-based dip the other day and served it with raw carrots, cucumbers, jicama (a crisp, fresh Mexican root vegetable), turnip and radishes, along with some ready-to-eat snow crab legs I found on sale for $5 a pound. I had never served crab legs…

How To Relieve Your Stress by Cooking Dinner

Apr 18, 2009 by Anna Migeon

“How do you have something different to eat every day?” my daughter’s school friends asked her at lunch one day.  The answer to the mystery:  her mom cooks every day, unless we are eating leftovers cooked previously.  While I do have numerous other personal shortcomings, I do cook. My daughter usually takes something homemade in her lunch. Today, for example, she took a colorful, flavorful salad of raw fennel, roasted beets, oranges and kalamata olives with a dressing of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, fennel seeds and orange peel.

Most of the other girls’ moms “don’t cook,” they reported. Or they cook about once a week. …