Practical advice for cooking as caregiving

what to cook, how to pack + label it, etc.

Hi all!

On Monday I was cooking for

Full Fridge Club: Dishing It Out

with Emmet and Stephen and our client list this week included friends of mine who just had a baby. We were gifting them a Full Fridge Club share and I remarked to Emmet that I was so grateful to have the ability to give something so tangible to friends when they really need it.

Just about two years ago on the nose, I wrote about the way home cooking is a reminder of relentless care in one of the first posts of this newsletter. It’s hard to believe that was two years ago, but anyway, it all still stands.

And today I wanted to give some practical advice on how to cook for friends, family and community members when they need extra care. Let this also be a reminder to ask for this type of care when you need it. As someone who has a much easier time offering help than requesting it, let me just say out loud that it’s okay to ask for help when you need it; in fact, a lot of people really want to help!

Cathy Erway touched on this earlier this year in her great piece “Riding the Meal Train” for TASTE (I got to talk to her for it!). Cathy notes that here in America “any people are instinctually almost too proud to ask for help at times when they can use it.” She adds that “in other countries, the notion of a community or extended family participating in something like postpartum care is much stronger. But often, all it takes is participating in a meal train for the first time to realize how heartwarming and worthwhile it can be—whether you’re the giver or the recipient.”

So, without further ado, some tips for this type of cooking/caring.

TIPS!

1. PICK DISHES THAT DON’T HAVE TO BE EATEN IMMEDIATELY + WOULD BE GOOD FROZEN + DEFROSTED LATER

   1. I’m talking soups, stews, chili, meatballs, enchiladas, curries, quiche, frittatas, breakfast burritos…

2. SKIP LASAGNA

   1. There’s nothing wrong with lasagna! But it’s likely that the person you’re helping out is already getting one. And while I love lasagna, I definitely know for sure I don’t want to deal with multiple lasagnas in my fridge at once (plus it gets boring eating the same thing over and over).

3. THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU WOULD MOST WANT TO EAT IN THEIR SITUATION

   1. Speaking of not wanting lasagna a million times, think about what you would most want. Is someone having a hard time getting out of bed for any reason? Maybe something that doesn’t have a lot of crumbs and can be easily eaten out of a bowl with a spoon (red lentil soup, for example). Perhaps someone is grieving and just wants a stack of turkey sandwiches with mayo and cheese on grocery store sandwich bread waiting for them in their fridge. Maybe someone has welcomed a new baby and needs something they can grab with one hand while they rock the baby in the other (hello breakfast burritos wrapped in paper towels).

4. DON’T UNDERESTIMATE SIMPLICITY

   1. When someone is in need of care, I’d say ten times out of ten they’re not asking to be wowed. They just want to be taken care of. Maybe they just need chicken broth and Saltines. Maybe they just need you to wash a head of lettuce and dry it and give it to them wrapped in a towel with a jar of homemade vinaigrette alongside because that’s what they’d most like to make themselves but they just can’t do that right now. Maybe they just need foil-wrapped baked potatoes and a container of sour cream. Maybe they need homemade tuna salad and a sleeve of Ritz crackers.

5. CONSIDER A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA

   1. Beyond the dish(es) you’re dropping off, consider something a little extra to round out your offering. It could be something baked, like cornbread to go with the chili you’re dropping off or maybe banana bread or a batch of muffins for breakfast. Or something store-bought like a nice loaf of bread, or perhaps individual containers of yogurt and a bag of granola, some cut-up fruit or snacks like Babybel cheese wheels (I love their cheddar!) and crackers.

6. DON’T CREATE MORE WORK A.K.A. DON’T CREAT MORE TO CLEAN!/AVOID DISHES PEOPLE HAVE TO RETURN

   1. Embrace deli containers (they stack well, you can see what’s inside of them, they don’t leak, they’re cheap, most can go in the microwave, you don’t need them back, they can be run through the dishwasher and reused).

   2. Wrap things like breakfast burritos and garlic bread in foil so they just need to be warmed up in the toaster oven and then the foil can be recycled or tossed.

7. LABEL THINGS CLEARLY + INCLUDE REHEATING INSTRUCTIONS

   1. Use masking tape + a permanent marker or whip out the label maker…

   2. Include the name of the dish, the date you made it, and any helpful notes about reheating and about ingredients (maybe one person in the household is vegan, for example, and needs to know which soup has chicken broth and which doesn’t).

   3. Re: reheating…refer to this if helpful!

8. STREAMLINE COMMUNICATION

   1. Especially if you’re one of many people helping someone out, embrace websites like MealTrain.com or TakeThemAMeal.com to make it easy for people to list preferences/allergies, drop-off instructions, etc. and also make it so much easier for community members to pick dates, get automatic reminders, etc.

9. GET MORE HELP IF YOU NEED IT

   1. You don’t have to cook yourself! Order takeout for your family/friends/community members or hire businesses like our very own Full Fridge Club (Kingston, NY area!) to do the cooking for you! If you order takeout, include the tip in your order and let your recipient know that that’s already been handled.

   2. If you don’t like to cook and the person you’re helping does but can’t do the physical and mental labor of figuring out what to cook, grocery shopping, etc., consider a meal kit like Blue Apron, Dinnerly, Purple Carrot or anything similar (there are so many!!)

   3. If you or someone you know is facing a life-altering/threatening illness and cannot access food, know about organizations that provide medically-tailored meals for free, such as:

      1. God’s Love We Deliver (NYC area)

      2. Project Angel Food (Los Angeles area)

      3. Angel Food East (Kingston, NY area)

      4. If you know of other organizations like this where you live, let us know in the comments!

And here are some examples from my actual life!

Here’s a fun photo from a few month’s ago when I made five types of soup for my brother and my sister-in-law in anticipation of their new arrival (my adorable nephew!) to put in their chest freezer (if you zoom in you can see my niece’s very cute spelling of ‘broccoli’ via their label maker).

Here’s a round of breakfast burritos I made just last week for friends who had a baby. I used 8 large flour tortillas, a large bag of grated cheddar, a dozen scrambled eggs, a can of rinsed/drained black beans, and a can of Rotel diced tomatoes/green chilies that I let drain in a sieve for a while to get rid of the excess moisture. Easy! I wrapped these all up, crisped them in a skillet with a tiny bit of oil to really seal them and also give them more flavor, then wrapped each in foil.

Here are the finished burritos:

And lastly here’s the picture I took at the end of my How to Handle Your CSA Share! class I taught last weekend and I think it’s a great example of an unexpected-but-useful thing you could bring to someone:

• a tray of roasted root vegetables

• a towel of beautiful, fresh lettuce that’s been washed + dried

• a container of an herby sauce that can go on anything

• a container of cleaned, chopped, and steamed greens that can go with/in anything!

I recently got an email from a reader named Beth inquiring about ideas for recipes that help with accessibility issues. “What if you can't lift heavy weights [big pots/cans/etc.] or chop veggies easily?” were some of Beth’s questions. I will be sure to address this in another newsletter soon and would love any and all tips/thoughts y’all might have!! Is this something you navigate everyday in your kitchen? Or something you’ve had to adapt to or maybe help someone else out with? Would love your thoughts!

xoxooxox Julia