A New Way to Help Pepper Your Plate

Thanks to an old golfing buddy and high school friend, I have learned about a site that I think is about to be my new fav:

The Pepper Plate
www.pepperplate.com

I just joined yesterday (and it was free) so I cannot give a thorough rundown of all the features. However, I can share what made me fall in love and perhaps you will fall too.

Making the Most of the Meal

I love food. Let me start over. I love real food. The food that is rich, decadent, tantalizing and all of the words the foodie mags use. All of the other stuff that people eat, and kids seem to love, is just okay. And since I share my meals with children I am stuck most of the time eating the just okay stuff but it doesn't mean I don't try and get more out of our time at the table.

Good nutrition, good manners and a good time can all be had at the same table.

I've shared the shift changes of our breakfast table and the madness of our lunches. But what about our dinners? The time when The Munchkin and my husband, The Farmer, leave their out-in-the-real-world-lives and return to our house.

Lunch-styles of the Wrecked and Famished

Maybe lunch goes differently at your house, and for your sanity I truly hope it does. Lunch time at our house is chaos at best. To fully understand this we have to back all the way up to breakfast.

My oldest daughter, The Munchkin (more on this nickname later), eats breakfast at 7:10. This is the precise moment during her getting ready routine that she is hungry and has not yet brushed her teeth. I prefer to eat with clean chompers, she doesn't like the minty taste to interfere with her food. To each their own.

Next to the table is the middle child, the only boy in the family, The Cowboy (again, nickname history coming soon). Being a toddler he "has" to help make his breakfast. This really means he wants to push a chair over to the counter and watch you make his food. It's not worth splitting hairs. But by the time we have worked together and his oatmeal is ready it is nearing 7:20.