This is a Personal Touch, a chance to meet ordinary people making an extraordinary difference in the world. I’m Rebecca Cressman, and today I’m delighted to introduce to you Liz Edmunds. She is The Food Nanny, not only in book, on paper and in classes, but on television now, too. Liz, thank you for joining us.
A: Thank you so much, Rebecca. Thank you so much for having me.
Q: All right. Love The Food Nanny! I love that whole idea! You raised a large family, seven children, so when it comes to understanding kids and family dynamics and busy schedules, you get it. Why did you all of a sudden five years ago say, “You know what? I think there are a lot of us who don’t make it a priority to eat dinner anymore together as a family.” I guess, what brought you to that point to say, “I’m here to come to the rescue. I’m going to be The Food Nanny”?
A: Well, I’ve been doing it my whole life, almost 40 years, and honestly I have looked around for--oh gosh, it’s been the last 10 years really, and I have seen, especially in the 20s and 30s and maybe the young 40s crowd, just not getting together for family dinner. And as I would travel abroad and be over in Italy or France, or wherever, enjoying the incredible dinner hour there and coming home and enjoying it in my own home, which I had going for so long, I’m thinking to myself, “Wait a minute. America is missing out on something.” And it was dinnertime. I know we were talking earlier and we talked about some of this ‘drive-thru parenting’ and I believe that we’re doing that with dinner. We’re just not planning it. We’re not thinking about dinnertime as much. And there are a lot of people still doing that worldwide, but we need to bring it back home.
Q: Well, let’s talk about that because you brought up that term ‘drive-thru parenting.’ We have gotten ourselves so busy and so scheduled and so much a multi-tasking family that there isn’t that essential downtime that—you say in your book and you say on your show—that downtime is not just about healthy eating. It’s about healthy parenting and that we need that window of time. Tell me a little bit about that, about how that mealtime pays off in ways more than just satisfying the appetites.
A: Well, if we’re not looking our kids in the eye on a consistent basis, we really don’t know who they are. We’ve got to be able to take the time, I say five nights a week, to sit down with our family and get to know each other. And when we do that at dinnertime, it makes so many other things happen. If we have dinnertime together, we’re making so many other great important dynamics happen in the family. All right, we get to look our kids in the eye; we get to know what’s really going on with them. Their friends know and their teachers know, but we really don’t know unless we can talk to them on a daily basis. We can get to the root of the problems before they get started. Besides bonding with our family and opening up the communication, I know it’s the communication that exists at dinnertime that opens up good parenting and good relationships, one-on-one with children. I know that’s what happens. And as we have dinner, it also opens up other doors. We have a chance to talk about, “So kids, how did school go today?” “Oh, I saw that somebody didn’t do their chores this morning before they left for school.” It’s not a time to really talk about scolding or anything like that. But it is a time to gather together and talk about schedules, discuss the day, something great that’s happened within our family or within our family dynamics, with grandparents, other aunts and uncles or whatever. But it’s just the time that we need to come together as a family and set our moral boundaries and set our values. And as we talk about those on a daily basis, we really have something going on in our home.
Q: I love that. Okay, and now the premise of the TV show on BYUTV is that you are rescuing families that are saying, “Okay, I don’t,” (the woman or the man, the husband or wife) saying, “I don’t cook well.” I actually don’t take time in the kitchen; I’m not comfortable in the kitchen. I don’t know how to squeeze that in between all the kids’ schedules. And you come right into their lives and you say, “Here’s how you do it.” So give us a couple of tips. What would you advise for those of us who are super busy and we think, “How in the world am I going to carve an hour and a half out and do this?”
A: First of all, I say, “Cook and they will come.” Then I also say, “Cook for who is home,” because when our children are little, that’s the perfect time to get dinnertime going in our homes. As we’re raising them we’re building these values, we’re building these values within our family. That’s the perfect time. When they get to be teenagers and get into more activities in high school and even junior high school this is when the schedule starts to really, really fall apart. And I say, “All right. We set a dinner hour,” and whoever is there you eat, and then you put the dinner in the microwave or save it in the oven, wherever you need to save it. But when those kids come in, they will know there is going to be dinner there. The thing that always happened in our home, because of course we had kids going every which way, I noticed how the other children would always go to the table and strike up a conversation. “So how’s it going? How was your day?” And we once again find ourselves sitting down at the dinner table: mom, dad, single parent, single dad, whoever, going to the dinner table again and talking with that child.
Q: Okay. So you as the cook, let’s say that I was the cook, which I am in my family. My husband at least can barbeque, but I’m the cook in the family and I enjoy it. But if I wanted to make sure that it was something that was now a priority in my family, the very first thing to do is pick an hour, whether it be the 6 o’clock hour or whatever, and have that meal consistently at that time no matter how busy people’s schedules are so that those who are home get that meal and those who will come in later will find that waiting for them? What about your idea about dubbing every night of the week a certain theme so that it takes that mental energy out of planning the dinner? Tell me about that.
A: Yes. Well, the hardest part about putting dinner on the table is trying to decide what to cook. And well over 30 years ago, I came up with this plan and we call it "The Nanny Plan". Monday is comfort food night; Tuesday is Italian night; Wednesday is fish, meatless or breakfast; Thursday is Mexican night; Friday is pizza night; Saturday is grill night, and Sunday is a tradition day. And this plan never failed me. It didn’t matter if my day had gone completely crazy. Say it was Italian night and my day like all of us was just so terrible that I couldn’t even put my Italian meal on. It was okay because I always had my backup meals. Waffles was my number one backup meal. Waffles and pancakes. That was my number one backup meal. And everybody loves them. But it was the theme night that kept me going for all those years cooking on a consistent basis five nights a week. I say take two days off because we all have our favorite restaurants and we all have our favorite fast food and we love to eat out. But it didn’t mean that I always did eat out two nights a week. I planned for seven, but say my husband and I wanted to go out on Friday; then it was still pizza night for the kids. So I would either make the homemade pizza, which I have a fabulous homemade pizza crust and sauce and everything in my book, or I would go and get the pizza and bring it home. But it was my theme night that kept me going. Say we were on vacation and we had been gone a week or two weeks or whatever; ten days or even three days. We’re on our way home sick of eating out, eating the fast foods or eating at the restaurants and we just wanted to get home and take a breather and get unpacked. All I had to do was think in my mind, “All right, what day is it today?” Say it was Monday night. I would think, “All right, it’s Monday night. What is my quick, easy, delicious meal that I can stop here at the store, I can grab those items and then pick them up, and as soon as I’m home I’ve got dinner on the table in 20 minutes.” And so that’s what I would do. It was Monday night. I would go to my quickest meal, which might be mac and cheese, homemade mac and cheese or biscuits and sausage country gravy, I could have done in 15 minutes. Whatever it was, because I knew my meals so well in my head; it eliminated, “Oh gosh, what could I make when we get home. There are 50 million choices but comfort food night made me think of all my favorite recipes that I had been cooking for years and years, and just automatically I could run into the store, get what I needed, and I was home and on my way. But that is what kept me going for all those years.
Q: All right. Consistent dinner hour, theme nights that help take the stress out of the decision making on what to do, and then another tip in terms of how do you get the groceries in the house to make sure you are ready to go. I mean, sometimes I think, “Okay, it’s Italian night. Oops, I don’t have fresh basil, I’m out.” So do you have certain ingredients that you recommend that we buy and keep in stock so that if we do have Italian night or Mexican night, chances are we are going to need cilantro or we’re going to need basil?
A: Well, sure. But the whole thing is the plan. You sit down and every two weeks you make a plan. I started on the 1st and 15th, and the reason I did that was because those were the days that we got paid. We got paid on the 1st and then we got paid again on the 15th. And so that’s how I did it. I love to do it every two weeks. I’ve tried a month. I’ve tried a week. A week’s not long enough. A month is too long. It’s perfect I believe for two weeks. So I sit down and I make my plan. Right now if you have my book, you would go through my book. If you don’t and you have other cookbooks or you already know foods that you love, you would use my theme nights to get started. Or if you have other theme nights that you would like, do those. But sit down and go through and make your plan. So you go through Monday night and you choose a comfort meal. And if you choose a comfort meal, say it’s meatloaf, then you have another piece of paper, which is My Nanny Grocery List sitting next to you and you’re thinking in your mind, “Okay, let’s see, I need some ground beef for meatloaf,” maybe need some ketchup; you need some sage; you need some bread. I have milk in my meatloaf, whatever, and you think, “All right, what do I need?” You may already have everything that you need for meatloaf or you may need ground beef or whatever, so you write down on the list what you need. Then you go to the next night. Let’s see, do I want leftovers the next night? Do I want leftover meatloaf; or no, I’ll eat all that up. Let’s go to Tuesday; that’s Italian night. So now you’re having beef on Monday. Then you’re going to Tuesday which is going to be Italian night. Just make sure that you’re not eating red meat back to back. So I probably choose a pasta that definitely wouldn’t have red meat in it and I’m looking at the recipe, “Okay, what do I need for my pasta?” Then I write all the ingredients down on the shopping list. So I go through for two weeks and when I’m finished planning, after I was used to it, it took me 10 minutes to make my meal plan for two weeks. I go shopping and I get everything I need. People say, “Oh, Liz, but you can’t get everything for two weeks.” And I’m saying, “Yes, you can. All you need to go back to the store for is probably some more milk, maybe some cilantro, but even my cilantro will last two weeks in the fridge if you stick it in a glass with water. If you stick it in a glass with water, your cilantro will even last two weeks. What won’t last two weeks, Rebecca? Maybe fresh tomatoes might be one that wouldn’t. If you put them in the fridge, they may even last two weeks. But carrots and potatoes and onions and fresh garlic and…
Q: They last long enough. So you go shopping, you make your plan, you go get that and then you will have those fresh ingredients that you need.
A: Yes. And then you stick your plan on your refrigerator or wherever you want to put it. If you’ve got too many appointments or your husband gets home before you or you both work and somebody is getting in earlier tonight, then someone else can see what’s on the list. You’ve got the page where the recipe is or the recipe is out—somebody has checked it in the morning and you come home and whoever it is that gets home first gets started with the meal.
Q: I like that. I’m going to make sure my teenager gets home first!
A: Yes. It’s a beautiful idea. I just did nanny a family and the 11-year-old girl said, “Food Nanny, I want to take Tuesday nights.” She said, “I love to cook. I’m really learning how to cook and Italian night is my favorite. So when she said, “I’m going to take Tuesday nights for the family,” I was impressed.
Q: And you know what? That was probably one of the best things I ever experienced. In my household, I was in charge of meals twice a week and did the cooking.
A: Yes.
Q: No matter how old you are, you do the cooking.
A: Yes.
Q: And so do you. Liz Edmunds, I love the fact that you’ve taken something that seems kind of complicated and said, “You know what? It is so worth the investment. A little bit of planning and then you have that reward. It’s the chance, the time to look in your children’s eyes and enjoy a cherished mealtime. Liz Edmunds, The Food Nanny, thank you so much; best of luck not only with your books but also with your TV series.
A: Oh, thank you. Thank you, Rebecca. It’s always such a pleasure. Thank you so much.
Q: You’re welcome. I’m Rebecca Cressman and we want to thank you for joining us for this week’s edition of a Personal Touch. Be sure to check your email next week to find out who else like Liz Edmunds is making a difference in our world with a Personal Touch.
End of interview.
