Mini-Ep 399: I Dream of Dinner
Doree and Elise hear from listeners about how to be parent friends when your kids aren't friends, normalizing staying inside during the summer as a form of self-care, and some great weeknight dinner recs. Come for the listener questions, and stick around for the Trader Joe’s segment!
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Transcript
Doree: Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir.
Elise: And I'm Elise Hu. And we are two friends who like to talk a lot about serums,
Doree: And this is a mini episode where we hear from you, we share your comments and thoughts and answer your questions to the best of our ability. And as we always remind people, we're podcast hosts, we're not mental health experts or medical doctors, so we might have to encourage you to seek support from a medical and or mental health professional as needed. How's it going, Elise? I
Elise: Feel like we won't have any really tough questions in today's episode. In particular though,
Doree: No. Nothing where I was like, oh, this person should really talk to a professional.
Elise: Yes. Nothing where it's above our pay grade. I'm really excited about
Doree: These topics. I like to just put in that disclaimer.
Elise: I had a health scare though, I forgot to tell you. Maybe I'll save it for this. I'll save it for the casual chat. You were like, how's it going? I'll save it for casual chat. It's kind of funny.
Doree: Okay, well this was a nice text that we got that I just wanted to read. Okay. Just wanted to say you guys are doing great. I'm an OG listener and was so sad about Kate's departure, but I'm very much enjoying the new episodes with Elise. Thanks so much for all your hard work. It brings so many bright spots to my week.
Elise: Well, these texts bring so many bright spots to my week, our week, so thank you.
Doree: Yeah, I love getting these texts and the voicemails. It's all very nice. So thank you everybody for sharing that. And the casual chat that Elise just referred to is something we do on the Patreon every week where it's just casual chatting, just banter talk about what's on our minds, talk about health scares everything else. I'm only
Elise: Laughing, it's not serious.
Doree: Okay, good. You can check that out at patreon.com/forever. Three five. We have a seven day free trial, so if you want to listen before you commit. I understand. Alright, Elise, I want to kick things off with a voicemail that we got.
Elise: Okay, well let's hear it.
Voicemail: Hi Doree and welcome Elise. This is Kristy in Manhattan walking to work and I had to stop the cod. I listen to you every morning when I'm doing my walk and about parents and the parent friends by circumstance with your children. I loved your question. I think about it often about being thrown into a circumstance where you're with a bunch of parents that you may not have the interest with and other parents and your kids don't really like each other very much. We have a few of those and we really want to hang out with the parents and we really have a hard time carving out time to all hang out where without our kids. So anybody that wants to comment on that, I'd love to hear it. Any suggestions and love the pod. Bye.
Elise: That's a great question.
Doree: That is a great question. I
Elise: Have a follow-up, which is how old are your kids?
Doree: Because
Elise: Now that I have older kids or my kids are older, the oldest is a rising middle schooler, I certainly don't have to bring her to hang out with parent friends who have kids that she might not be friends with. She can stay home or she goes off and hangs out with her own friends. She kind of has her own social world and her own social life. The trickier thing is when they're younger. So in those cases, have you encountered this story and what have you done?
Doree: When I got this voicemail, I was really trying to think of the friends that I made in Henry's preschool class and the parent friends that I made and his preschool class was very tight, so there was no one that he absolutely wasn't friends with and he was with the same kids basically for three years. But I do feel like this year especially, things started separating by sex. A lot of, he wanted to play more with boys and the girls wanted to play more with girls. He had some play dates with girls, but I did find that it generally was with boys, so that ended up being something where it was like, oh, I'm not going to see these parents. One, one of the parents in his class, one of the moms set up a little book club with me and her and three other moms who I really like and they all were parents of girls. I was the only parent of a boy and I realized I hadn't really hung out with definitely a couple of them. It's one thing to hang out with parents of a kid that your kid is sort of indifferent to, but what if it's the parent of a kid that your kid actively dislikes or the other kid actively dislikes your kid? Then what
Elise: If the other kid actively dislikes my kid? I usually don't know about it if I'm hanging out with the parent. There are cases, I think with the third grade class last year in which there was a mom group and we would go out for each other's birthdays or we would go out drinking and trying to organize that every couple of months and there were like six to eight of us in there. So undoubtedly our kids. Among those kids, there were some kids who just didn't like each other or didn't hang out at all, but the mom still did and we were sort of indifferent to it. I have found it helpful when my daughters get into beefs with other girls to actually have a relationship, a preexisting friendship with the parents because then we can kind of talk about it. We can't be there to witness or intervene, whatever is going on, but at least as adults we can kind of talk about it and then try and support our own children getting through whatever conflict they're getting through. So I think it's helpful most of the time for adults to maintain our friendships with one another irrespective of whether the kids are beefing or not, because sometimes they're like best friends one week and then they're beefing the next week and what are we going to do? Ride the waves of our kids.
Doree: I mean, I guess what I'm hearing from both of us actually is that if you like other parents that your kids are not friends with, take the initiative to just hang out with them without your kids. Yeah,
Elise: And that's what ends up happening. Anyway, my closest LA friends we met in the pickup line while my middle schooler was in kindergarten or first grade, and we continued to hang out throughout the Covid pandemic outdoors and our kids still hung out together then, but one is a girl and one is a boy, and now they barely talk to each other even though they're in the same grade. But as parents, we continue to maintain our friendship.
Doree: I love that. All right, let's do another voicemail. Okay. Okay. This is in reference to a conversation we were having last week or the week before. I forget.
Voicemail: Hi there. Calling in for the person who asked about summer self-care, one of the things that I think we don't talk about enough because you see a lot of the media like, oh, summer's here, you got to go to the pool and go to the beach and do all the outside things and this is the time to really enjoy the outdoors. And I live in southeast Texas, it's disgusting outside and I know Florida is disgusting. There are other places that are gross. So one thing that I give myself in summer, self-care, it's just the permission to stay inside. There are the world that stay inside for the whole winter and that's their inside season. And if you want to say summer, I'm going to stay inside the majority of the time, then go off. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. So huge part of summer self-care to myself. It's just, Hey girl, it's okay to stay inside. Also, obviously drink a lot of water and I buy myself a cute new water bottle as a gift. Alright, love you guys. Super excited to see that mini apps are back. Okay, bye.
Doree: I just love this listen's energy. Yeah,
Elise: Such a great tip. And she's absolutely right that southeast Texas is disgusting in the summer. I am a Texan. I am from Dallas but also lived in Houston and Waco and Houston is southeast ish, so I second that. Staying inside, especially if you're a Texan or in other humid and disgusting places that get really muggy and wear your glasses fog up once you step outside.
Doree: Yes.
Elise: You don't need to be outside running through a sprinkler.
Doree: No, I just love this normalize staying inside as summer.
Elise: Yeah, it's a privilege.
Doree: Totally. It's a privilege to have air conditioning and to be able to exist in climate controlled environments, so why not take advantage of that? And also, I grew up in Boston where as this listener alluded to is a place where you stay inside in the winter and so in my mind it's like, oh, summer, we can finally be outside. But that is not realistic for a lot of people.
Elise: Definitely not in south Texas. No. Or Louisiana. Yeah, Atlanta.
Doree: Totally. Even like DC Pretty gross in the
Elise: Summer. Oh, dc.
Doree: Alright, well before we take a break, let me just remind everyone that we have a website, February 35 podcast.com. We have links there to everything we mentioned on the show. We're also on Instagram at February 35 podcast. We have a newsletter at FE 35 podcast.com/newsletter and please call or text us (781) 591-0390. You can also email us at podcast gmail. We'll say the vast majority of communication we get is via voicemail or text
Elise: And we love them
Doree: And we love and we'll be
Elise: Right.
Doree: All right, we're back and we recently were discussing weeknight dinners, which are a little bit the bane of my existence, but also, I don't know, I don't mind them also because I like eating at home and I like the dinner hour. It's not an hour, it's more like 15 minutes. But you
Elise: Like the ritual of dinner
Doree: Together? I like the ritual. Yes. I like the ritual of us all eating dinner together and we do all eat dinner together. We used to eat after Henry went to bed and then I was like, this is ridiculous. Let's just all eat at five 30. So I ate at five 30 and you and I both talked about some of our weeknight dinner kind of staples and we heard from a lot of listeners about this. We're going to read some of them, but we also got so many wrecks that were so good, but we didn't have time for them all on the show. So those are all on the Patreon. So head over to the Patreon. All of our additional listener weeknight dinner recommendations are on the Patreon, so check those out. Patreon com slash pepper. Okay. Elise, do you want to read this first text that we got?
Elise: Okay. Yes, it begins. Okay, so RE weeknight dinners, we have a set rotation for the kids, which is exactly what Doree said. Chicken nuggets, fish sticks, breakfast for dinner, ravioli, et cetera. That sounds a lot like your
Doree: House, Doree. It does, yes.
Elise: Lemme just go back to the text. As adults, we eat meal delivery service, $11 per meal, subscription bag salad, salmon with broccoli, all the super easy go-tos that you mentioned. I just let go of the thought that I need to cook and need to make anything remotely interesting for my children. I serve a fruit and vegetable with every meal and if they eat it great. If not, I truly do not have time to care. God bless you. I
Doree: Love this listener's energy also. I mean it was
Elise: Me. Just kidding, just kidding.
Doree: So Henry loves the butternut squash ravioli from Trader Joe's and he has historically been very vocal about not liking any other ravioli. Even though Ravioli's delicious. What is your problem? She sure
Elise: Is.
Doree: Last night I made another variety of Trader Joe's ravioli. I think it was like ricotta and lemon or something like that. And they were really good and he was like, I don't want these. And then he ate a whole plate of them. So I was like, you know what, God,
Elise: Try something new, try
Doree: Something new. But I mean that's kind of the level of try something new we're at is a different variety of ravioli.
Elise: I love that text though. Thanks for letting me. Me too. Read
Doree: It. I truly do not have time to care. And you know what that is, that's how I feel a lot of the times too, especially after reading. Did you read Fat Talk Virginia Soul Smith's book Love?
Elise: Yes, and love Virginia Soul Smith love
Doree: Her. I'm a huge fan of hers. Overall thing is it's better to have your kids just eat and have a healthy relationship with food than to give them a fucking complex. And so that's kind of where I've landed.
Elise: Yes, it does not need to be so emotionally fraught.
Doree: No, it does not. Okay, so thank you listener. I do need to get You're right though. I do need to get fish sticks back into the rotation. Those were such a staple of my brother's childhood because he was a
Elise: Mine. I loved fish sticks.
Doree: I didn't like fish sticks, but I remember my brother being a very picky eater as a kid and eating. Do you remember Elio's Pizza? Yeah. Yeah. So he'd eat a rotation of Elio's pizza, fish sticks and maybe one other thing, but it was a lot of fish sticks. Anyway, my brother
Elise: Was a real Dave devotee of Hot Pockets.
Doree: Oh, okay.
Elise: He turned out fine.
Doree: I know my brother too and now he eats everything. Okay. Anyway, here's an email on this topic. Hi Doree Lease. I'm so glad the mini episodes are back. We're too. Thank you. I think I started listening right around the time you introduce them. They've always been my fave right dinner. Very important. I'm someone who would have no trouble eating pasta every night of the week. I don't, but I could. My evening kitchen MVPs are a box of Pharaoh pasta and a block of good Parmesan. With that, I feel like I'm 70% of the way to being well fed. My newest go-to is homemade pesto. I was the last to learn that it's stupidly easy to make variations on recipes abound, but the one I've adopted combines basil or whatever leafy herb you have around. I've made it with a mix of parsley and tarragon after I accidentally bought tarragon and it came out delicious with walnuts, olive oil, garlic, and salt's it. I make it with an electric immersion blender, which sounds fancy but is not fancy. It takes all of 15 minutes starting from when I walk into the kitchen and keeps in the fridge for a few days. Serve with great your own Parmesan and any roasted veg or bag salad. Yum.
Elise: Oh, so yummy. So yummy.
Doree: That sounds really good.
Elise: Pesto really is easy to make and I don't think to do it. I have a food processor. I should do that.
Doree: Yeah, I have an electric immersion blender. I agree. It's not that fancy. There's also savory breakfast for dinner, cheesy scrambled eggs and garlic sauteed kale over rice cooker brown rice. I do love a cheesy scrambled egg.
Elise: Agree.
Doree: Both of these also involve minimal pots and pans, which is key because washing dishes is loathsome
Elise: Also. Agree, hard, agree, also agree. These meals sound delicious. This is exactly the kind of content that my TikTok algorithm shows me, and this is why I get sucked into TikTok because I'm constantly getting delicious, easy to make meals.
Doree: But do you make them?
Elise: No, I usually just watch it.
Doree: Okay, alright.
Elise: It's like people who watch those get ready with mes but don't actually go do the makeup.
Doree: Yes. I texted this to you, but your TikTok came up for me on you page last night and I was like, oh
Elise: Baby, do you think the phone has been listening? Here
Doree: We go. Probably. It was weird. Usually I feel like my for you shows me viral videos or videos with hundreds of thousands of views. And then last night they were showing me a lot of friends of friends videos, your friends and videos that had 30 likes and I was like, this is,
Elise: It's it mining your contacts.
Doree: It's mine, my contacts a lot more and showing me a lot of stuff that friends had reposted. Yeah. So I was like, this is interesting that the algorithm is like sentient always listening. But Elise has a great TikTok, which you should check out if you're on TikTok.
Elise: I mainly lurk to look at one pot meals, but occasionally I'll put up content. So yeah, check it out.
Doree: It's just Elise Hu, right?
Elise: It is backwards. No, it's who? Elise. Like WHO Elise.
Doree: Oh yes, yes, yes.
Elise: Elia C because I couldn't take up my Instagram handle. It had already been taken so I had
Doree: To flip. That's
Elise: It's inverted.
Doree: Okay.
Elise: Alright. We have another great email. Are you ready?
Doree: I'm ready.
Elise: Hi Doree. Elise, depending on the season, I love to throw together a big pot of tortilla soup using sauteed onions, Chipotle and cumin as a base, and then adding in canned corn, black beans, whole or diced tomatoes and vegetable broth serve with fresh lime, fresh cilantro, crumbled tortilla chips and grated cheese can for sure be customized to include say shredded chicken or whatever in the summer. A hardy salad Niwa is super easy to throw together fast and very hardy and satisfying a bed of green, some boiled potatoes and hard boiled eggs. Whatever veg you want to throw in. Green beans are traditional, but you can really go in any direction here and some good quality oil packed tuna and olives dressed with a Dijon vinegarette. That sounds so good. I forgot about oil packed tuna. Why don't I buy oil packed tuna? And then one more paragraph here, I cannot sing.
Ali Sage's praises enough. She published a cookbook a few years back called I Dream of Dinner and every single recipe in there is a banger. They are so genius, largely requires six ingredients or fewer and are very vegetarian friendly with a few exceptions. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times cooking section and a total superstar. She also co-wrote Caroline Chamber's forthcoming cookbook What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking, which is itself a very excellent substack that specializes in easy family-friendly recipes that are easy to follow and endlessly customizable. Hetty McKinnon Substack is also fantastic and entirely veg. Just some thoughts. Bon Appetit goat. Lauren,
Doree: You might be wondering why she signed that goat. Lauren,
Elise: I am wondering,
Doree: Is she
Elise: The goat?
Doree: She is, but she is a longtime listener of the pod. Her name is Lauren Gitlin and she has a farm called Villa Villa Kula Farm in Vermont where she raises goats. She is very cool and she's written into the pod before and I'm a big fan, so thank you Lauren. I'm going to sign up for the What to Cook when you don't feel like cooking. That sounds perfect. And like I said, we have more weeknight dinner recommendations on the Patreon, so check those out and we're okay. So someone wrote in a couple of weeks ago and suggested maybe half in Jest that we have a Trader Joe's segment. Oh
Elise: Right, right. Of
Doree: Podcast.
Elise: And then we went on and RIFed on Trader Joe's for like 20 minutes.
Doree: Yes. And then we discussed Trader Joe's for a long while and our listeners have some thoughts about Trader Joe's as well, so I thought we could play them. The first one is actually a Costco Trader Joe mashup, if you'll Excellent. Which I feel like speaks to your interests. It sure does.
Voicemail: Hi Forever three five. This is me calling in from Denver. I was literally just listening to the episode about Doree's favorite Joe's recommendations and also Elise and Doree talking about Costco. And I just wanted, I've been meaning to call in for a while to tell you this, and I live 10 minutes from my Costco, whereas my Trader Joe's are all 20 to 30 minutes. So I ended up Costco a lot more than I would think. One thing that I will say is my secret to an amazing go run, and I say this as someone who does not have kids, so this is maybe easier for me to do without kids, but I love to go on a weeknight and specifically the hour before they close, the parking lot is dead. There are no lines. It's so easy to get in and out, but even I went yesterday at 4:00 PM on a Tuesday night and I was there in and out in 25 minutes, which is great.
But the other thing I just wanted to recommend, because I know Doree loves the Trader Joe's Kimbo, is Costco has a kimbo and I would've never picked it up except that I've been hearing Doree talk about Kimbo for the last couple of weeks on the pod. And so I loved it and it's actually become one of me and my husband's favorite just easy meals. On Tuesday nights we take a ceramics class and it starts at six o'clock and we struggle to figure out what to eat before we have to go to the three hour ceramics class. So just being able to microwave kimbo and getting some tofu and veg. So it's definitely become a must have in our freezer, purchase it every time. So yeah, just wanted to call in with that quick Greco love trader. Joe's love Costco and love the pod. Kate's book just arrived in the mail for me yesterday. And also Elise, I've just loved hearing your voice in the first couple weeks of you coming on board. So anyways, long time listener and fan in Denver. Thanks so much. Bye.
Elise: That's such a hot tip.
Doree: Such a hot tip. I knew you would love that tip. There's Kimbo at Costco. Kimbo at Costco, and then also the showing up right before closing tip.
Elise: I like that. I did that I guess just before Christmas and the caller's absolutely right. It's dead or it's dead compared to other
Doree: Times. Interesting.
Elise: And what I remember about this was there was a giant black suburban parked in the parking lot with a license plate. Brad Pitt
Doree: Stop.
Elise: And so it turns out there's this guy, there's this guy who kind of resembles Brad Pitt,
Doree: Oh my God. Who
Elise: Drives around going to Costco and the Gelson's in Marina Delrey and other places that people have spotted him with a black suburban with the license plate, Brad Pitt, just so that he can be confused as Brad Pitt.
Doree: That is, I mean that is true commitment to the bit.
Elise: It sure is, but it especially works when you're just driving along on the 4 0 5 or something and somebody sees you and it's like, oh my gosh, it's actually him. It's
Doree: Actually him. He obviously has a license plate with his name on it. That's definitely something he would do. It was funny to me too because my Trader Joe's versus Costco Radius is the inverse of this listeners. My Trader Joe's is like five minutes from my house and my Costco is like 25 to 30. So yeah, I also love that she and her husband takes ceramics together like so sweet.
Elise: Yeah.
Doree: Alright, well thank you listener. This is a great tip. I'm going to look for the Kim. I feel like I looked for it once and I couldn't find it, but I'm going to look for it again. Okay. Onto some other Trader Joe's res.
Voicemail: Okay. I was just listening to your Trader Joe's Rex as I was on route to Trader Joe's, so that was extremely helpful. And I had Kim, so I'm really excited to try that. My Trader Joe's recommendation, this is controversial contr, but contr, the snacky clusters in the candy section, they're super, super sweet, but they have chunks of corn chips, maybe peanuts, I'm not really sure, but it's the perfect salty, sweet, crunchy, delicious combo. So I highly recommend
Elise: Oh, I love the salty Sweet.
Voicemail: Also, this is the first time I'm calling post Kate era and while I miss Kate, I am loving Elise and everything she's bringing to the podcast. So thanks guys. Bye.
Elise: Oh, this is so sweet. Doree didn't prepare me with what was going to be in these voicemails, so I have to say I feel so touched and moved and welcomed.
Doree: You should feel. Thank you. You should feel all those things. I love a controversial Trader Joe's rack,
Elise: But Salty Sweet is the best combo
Doree: I know. Have you
Elise: Ever tried? My favorite snack in the world is to dip french fries into a frosty
Doree: Or
Elise: French fries into a McFlurry. That is my favorite. And so this sounds like this is the exact right kind of flavor profile for me.
Doree: The salty, crunchy. Yeah. I love a chocolate covered pretzel.
Elise: Yeah, exactly. I mean that's what I'll free bowl for
Doree: Bringing it back. I've never tried
Elise: These, my friends. It's called a callback and I've done it.
Doree: Have you tried these?
Elise: I haven't. I need to go do it right after we get done recording
Doree: And then we got one more wreck for Trader Joe's Penne Rabata. So good and easy. I buy in bulk and end up eating it all in a week.
Elise: I'm a yes on any starches and any cheeses, so I'm there
Doree: Sold. Okay. Alright. Well that brings us to the end of this episode, Elise,
Elise: What a bunch of delightful suggestions, right?
Doree: I know, yes, such great suggestions. Keep your suggestions coming. Also, if you have questions for us, please let us know. 7, 8, 1 5, 9, 1 0 3, 9 0. Yeah, we take
Elise: Those
Doree: Two. We take those two. And yeah, we will talk to you soon.
Elise: Thanks everyone. Bye.
*Transcripts are AI generated