Today Virginia is chatting with Amy Palanjian.

You probably already know Amy as Yummy Toddler Food, which is her blog/Instagram/Tiktok. She’s also the bestselling author of Dinnertime SOS, and writes a great bi-weekly newsletter called YTF Community, which comes with super helpful meal plans.

Some of you may have listened to our old podcast, Comfort Food, or maybe you’ve just heard Amy on her previous appearances on Burnt Toast (one, two and three). But we realized that Amy hasn’t been on the pod since we both got divorced! Obviously a lot in our lives has changed, but specifically, a lot has changed in terms of how we feed our people and how we feed ourselves.

So this is an episode about single mom dinner. I think you’ll enjoy it.

To tell us YOUR thoughts, and to get all of the links and resources mentioned in this episode, as well as a complete transcript, visit our show page.

If you want more conversations like this one, please rate and review us in your podcast player! And become a paid Burnt Toast subscriber — subscriptions are just $7 per month! —to get all of Virginia's reporting and bonus subscriber-only episodes.

And don’t forget to check out our Burnt Toast Podcast Bonus Content!

Disclaimer: You’re listening to this episode because you value my input as a journalist who reports on these issues and therefore has a lot of informed opinions. Neither my guest today nor I are healthcare providers, and this conversation is not meant to substitute for medical or therapeutic advice.

FAT TALK is out! Order your signed copy from Virginia's favorite independent bookstore, Split Rock Books (they ship anywhere in the US!). Or order it from your independent bookstore, or from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, or Kobo or anywhere else you like to buy books. You can also order the audio book from Libro.fm or Audible.

CREDITS

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. Follow Virginia on Instagram, Follow Corinne @SellTradePlus, an Instagram account where you can buy and sell plus size clothing and subscribe to Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Farideh.

Our theme music is by Jeff Bailey and Chris Maxwell.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism.

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Episode 166 Transcript

Virginia

Amy, you are here!

Amy

It seems like it’s been a long time. We’ve lived a lot of life.

Virginia

Were we both married when you were on the podcast last? No, because it was when your book came out.

Amy

But nobody knew I wasn’t married anymore.

Virginia

Oh, you were secret not married.

Amy

I was going through the process of divorce, and had not yet made it public.

Virginia

I think I was out? But you were not. You were still in the divorce closet.

Well, we have lived a life. And you are back on the podcast! Do you want to tell folks who you are, in addition to being divorced, and what you do?

Amy

Yes. You guys will quickly learn that Virginia and I have a lot of shorthand, because she’s my best friend. I’m Amy from Yummy Toddler Food. So that is my website, social accounts. I’m also the author of Dinnertime SOS, which is the book we were talking about that came out last year.

Virginia

If you’re not already following Amy, all I can say is you’re not a Millennial Mom because literally all of us follow her.

So we’ve been talking about doing this episode for a very long time, ever since we both started eating as single people again. We were like, oh, it’s really different. There’s a lot to say. We have a lot I want to talk about.

Before we dive in, I do want us to quickly talk about the phrase “single mom.”

Whenever I use it, inevitably someone will —maybe rightfully?— say to me, “I’m not sure you’re allowed to use the phrase single mom.” Because a true “single mom” is someone who has no co-parent whatsoever, no support, and is doing 100 percent of all of the things by themselves.

So I’m curious how you feel about that term.

Amy

I guess when I think of it culturally, I do think that the word is more often used for moms who have full custody of their kids all the time, and they’re legitimately doing it on their own all the time. But I do use it to refer to myself, because I am single and I am a mom, regardless of whether I have custody of my kids. And there is the reality that even when my kids are not physically in my house, or under my supervision, I am still their mom and still often doing mom things. So it feels unnecessarily divisive to have that be so rigid.

Virginia

Someone said to me, “you should say solo parenting.”

Amy

But isn’t that when you’re married and your partner leaves for a bit?

Virginia

Yeah. I don’t want to say solo parenting, because that’s what my married friends say, “oh, I’m solo parenting this weekend,” and that is a totally different situation. You’re solo parenting for two days. You are not in our club.

I do have a super-involved co-parent and I’m grateful for that. But still, when I am making dinner for my children in my house, it is just me. So I use it somewhat selectively. I’m fortunate that there is a co-parent, and there are aspects of parenting I do still collaborate on. And there are a lot of pieces of the work of taking care of my kids that I now do 100 percent alone. When I have them, it’s 100 percnt me.

So I just wanted us to acknowledge that there are definitely different layers of divorce privilege and single mom privilege. And I want us to acknowledge our privilege as we launch into this conversation. But for the purposes of this episode, we’re going to be talking about feeding our kids by ourselves, and feeding ourselves as single people. And that feels like an allowable use of “single mom” in my book.

Amy

I also want to say, parenting is hard regardless. And there is this thing that happens where it becomes so quickly a competition of, like, who has it harder? And I really just don’t want that. So I just want to acknowledge it’s hard.

Virginia

Somebody who pushed back on me recently, said, “I’m a step-mom and my husband is really involved in the kids, and if his ex was identifying as a single mom, it would be sort of erasing his contributions.” So I hear that, and I don’t want to minimize anyone who’s parenting kids in any capacity, you know? Good job. Way to show up.

Amy

But her experience might be different from his. That’s her story.

Virginia

I’m curious what listeners will say. I’m sure we’ll get a lot of comments about this piece. Just wanted to put it out there that we are aware this is a loaded term.

And I think we both feel we have some claim to this loaded term, and now we are going to proceed with talking about single mom dinners.

So there are now two kinds of dinners in our lives. There are the dinners where we are feeding our children and we are the single adults in the house making that happen. And then there are the dinners where we feed only ourselves.

Let’s talk about the kids part first. How does that feel different for you now?

Amy

Well, I think the expectations are simply lower. I didn’t quite realize how much the expectations of what another adult thought dinner should be impacted my mental load. And, you know, I wrote a book about dinner. I thought about dinner a whole lot.

Virginia

You are, I would say, one of our nation’s foremost dinner experts.

Amy

Once it was just me making those decisions and taking into account the premises of my kids and myself—it’s easier, I’ll say that. It’s just less complicated.

One big difference is I don’t cook meat very often. That was something that was an expectation before as part of “a real dinner.” And so now it’s just looser. I often serve my kids more informal meals. Like last night, I had to make something for work, and so I had the leftovers and it was a form of pizza. And my kids—like this literally is the first time this has happened. They gave me a round of applause. They were like, “round of applause for Mama!” And I was like, what is happening?

Virginia

You won, you won dinner.

Amy

Because they just were so delighted. Of course, it ended with, like—I don’t remember what it was. But then I texted you, like, “I will not ramble tomorrow about how much my kids complain about dinner.”

Virginia

So there was a pivot. There was applause and then there was the pivot. The hard pivot into “actually we hate this and everything you stand for.” That makes sense. That sounds familiar.

Amy

Yes. I have put a lot less pressure on dinner, and we eat a lot of the same things. And I think it’s partly because my kids are here every other week. So there’s something to the comfort of having familiar meals and foods.

Virginia

Yeah, totally.

Amy

And they expect certain things when they’re with me now. And I like that because it’s just easier.

So I’m pretty much buying the same groceries and I’m pretty much making the same set of meals with small changes, and I really do not have any concerns about that whatsoever.

Virginia

It has been set in stone almost since the beginning, that the first night they come back from their dad’s, we’re going to have pesto pasta and brownies. That is the meal they want to come back to me for. Which, like, he makes those things, too? But I do think my pesto is really good. And I think that’s a useful touch point for them. Of like, “Okay, we’re back in this house now.” We’re back in this routine, and there’s something expected about the routine here.

And, I admit I am sick of eating pesto pasta every Tuesday. I’m over it. But I am continuing to make it because I see how important that is for them.

Amy

I also will say, I buy a lot more like frozen chicken tenders than ever before in my life, and I eat them when I’m by myself also.

Virginia

You had that great dinner last week. You were like, I’ve never been so proud of a meal I made for myself. And it was chicken tenders and pasta with Rao’s marinara sauce, I think?

Amy

It was like a deconstructed chicken parm. It was amazing.

Virginia

Well, I made it the next night for me and the kids and it was great because one of my kids doesn’t like pasta with red sauce, but loves chicken tenders, and the other one only eats the pasta, and then I ate everything. I was like, “This is a meal I have been missing from my rotation.”

A big shift for me that I think I’m really coming to terms with is, how much work I had put into cooking as a married mother. And people know my backstory, feeding my kid was really hard for the first few years due to medical challenges. So I come into this with a certain amount of baggage. It’s gotten, of course, tremendously easier, but it is still so much freaking work. And, yeah, being able to feel less pressure around how dinner has to look, like dinner capital D dinner.

So last night, I ordered sushi for myself. One kid ate leftover pasta, one kid ate microwaved pancakes, and that was dinner. And I threw some fruit on the table. I don’t remember if anyone ate it.

I’ve hosted many a 20-person Christmas dinner. I bake really good chocolate chip cookies from scratch. I was the primary cook in my marriage, and I am now the only cook in my house.

But what I’ve slowly realized over the past year is that… I don’t like to cook. At least not right now. And it’s feeling entirely possible that I won’t ever like it again?

Read full story

Amy

I think that what has happened is: All the things that we always said that we believed about dinner are now actually the way that we’re living.

Virginia

Interesting.

Amy

We weren’t quite fully able to do it before.

Virginia

We weren’t giving ourselves permission before.

Amy

Part of the reason I was so happy with myself when I made that dinner was because I rarely cook dinner for myself.

Virginia

Oh yeah, same.

Amy

I’m able to give myself permission to not work all the time in a way that I haven’t been able to do that before. So I’m happy about that, because, frankly, it’s too much work to cook all day and then have to keep cooking.

Virginia

I don’t know how you do it. But, I think you’re right. We were always talking about “it’s okay to make it less work. It’s okay to take shortcuts,” but not always giving ourselves permission.

I was very attached to the idea of one family, one meal. Don’t be a short order cook. I thought it represented some kind of failure if I was making something on the side for a kid who didn’t want to eat the main meal. I was definitely dying on that mountain for a long time.

But something about removing a person from the table makes it less work for me. I can’t quite understand the math, but it doesn’t feel as hard to be like, “oh, I can just make three quick things that isn’t really cooking” and everyone gets what they want. Versus “Let me try to make one full meal, somehow needing it all to slot together like a jigsaw puzzle.” Why was I putting that pressure on myself?

Amy

I mean, I still consider myself to be making one meal, but I think I just care a lot less about the components.

Virginia

They don’t have to go together so well.

Amy

One of the meals I make almost every week that the kids are with me, is—I mean, this is going to sound so simple. It’s some form of breaded chicken in the air fryer, broccoli, and potatoes. There is nothing special or fancy about any of that, except for the fact that it is a reliable combination of foods that everyone will eat at least two of them. I don’t know that I would have necessarily considered that “dinner enough,” do you know what I mean?

Virginia

It sounds like a very full dinner? Again, my children ate leftover pasta and microwave pancakes while I ordered sushi last night. You had three things that go together! It’s not contradictory to serve potatoes and chicken and broccoli.

Amy

I’m not saying that it is. I am saying that it is three incredibly simple things.

Virginia

You would have felt like you had to dress it up more before?

Amy

Right. Like, there’s no recipe involved. You’re not going to find that listed anywhere as a dinner idea on the Internet.

Virginia

I mean, I’m writing it down.

Amy

Guys, it’s a really good dinner idea. Chicken, broccoli, and potatoes.

Virginia

Wait, how do you do the potatoes?

Amy

I buy baby potatoes, and then I quarter them and just boil them until they’re soft, and then I toss them with butter and salt. That’s it.

Virginia

Okay, yeah, I could probably do that. But yes, it is a very different vibe now. I’ve talked about this on the newsletter, we read books with dinner most nights now. Or one of my kids might listen to an audio book. I’m less focused on, like, dinner has to be this moment where we come together and have a conversation everyone all together.

Because one thing I find with my version of single parenting is like, in some ways, there’s more time for me with the kids. I’m going to have those conversations with them, but they happen at different points in our day now. I’m doing both all of dinner and all of bedtime, right?

Amy

Dinner doesn’t have to serve all of the purposes.

Virginia

I’m not tag teaming with another person anymore throughout the afternoon and evening. So on the days when we don’t have a lot of activities, my kids are home from 3pm until I can put them in their beds. That’s a lot of time! And sometimes by 6pm, I’m kind of like, “Let’s just all read our books. We don’t need to talk. It’s fine.”

So that’s another change where this feels less like it needs to be this big “come together” moment for the family.

And I think, too, some of that is just wanting less work for me. Like, sometimes if my kids are in a real arguing phase, I know they’re going to both be happier if they get more one-on-one time with me, versus me forcing “We all like each other right now, it’s going great!!”

Amy

One of the things that we do now that we didn’t do before, is we listen to a lot more music. I bought a speaker for the kitchen. Yes, there are some arguments about what we listen to, because it tends to be the same thing for like, six weeks, and then one kid decides they hate that music.

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Virginia

Obviously.

Amy

But it changes. When my kids get into those phases where they’re just arguing with each other, I put music on, and it just helps. But the difference is that I can play whatever I want, and I have convinced my children to like the music that I like.

Virginia

I mean you’re an evil genius.

Amy

It is the best. This is my parenting super power somehow.

Virginia

As you know, I have one child who will like everything I like, and one child who will never like everything I like. I will not name them, but one child joins me in my Chappell Roan love, and the other child is way too cool. And I’m just like, “You’re wrong. I’m sorry. You’re wrong. Talk to your peers. Get back to me.”

Should we talk about single lady life and single lady dinner?

Amy

Single lady meals. We’re not going to call it Girl Dinner!

Virginia

We’re definitely not. So you do cook for yourself more. Less than you previously cooked, but more than I do.

Amy

So I think I want to acknowledge that I still very often, have very little appetite, and that is a fact of my life that I have just accepted is partly due to stress.

Virginia

I don’t know how much of that story you want to share?

Amy

When I was going through my divorce, I basically fully lost my appetite. Like, nothing seemed appealing. I didn’t physically feel hungry. And so I was just had to make myself eat, because that’s what you do. You want to make sure that you’re nourishing yourself. And it was awful. It’s a pretty terrible thing to have to put food in your mouth that you both don’t want and don’t feel hungry for, but just knowing that you have to.

It definitely got better once I was living in my house by myself or with my kids, and, you know, I’d say I’m like, 75 percent there with it. But when life is chaos, or the kids are yelling, or if we’re having a meal and one of my kids loses their mind, my appetite is like, “I’m out.” Like, I am just done.

And even when I’m by myself, it depends on what else is going on, but it does still sort of happen. So when I’m looking at meals for myself, they have to have a lot of flavor, or a lot of texture contrast or some other element to make it more appealing. And I feel a lot of empathy for my toddler community, because I feel like that often is what they’re looking for in addition to flavor, like, how else is this interesting to me?

So it’s been a learning process, but that is why I think that the jarred marinara, which is very flavorful, paired with crunchy, crispy chicken tenders with melted cheese. I think there’s something about that texture contrast that’s hits everywhere.

Virginia

Yeah, it checks all the boxes.

Amy

So I sometimes cook for myself. I sometimes make salads with chicken. But I feel like I’ve landed on a couple things that I know I really like and that I can make easily when the kids aren’t here.

Virginia

I’m still working on that list a little bit. I didn’t experience the appetite loss. I think, if anything, when my children are having a hard time during dinner, I’m inclined to be like, “You can leave and I will stay here and finish eating.” I don’t send them away, but I’m like, if you don’t want to be at the table, in fact, I’m going to sit here and eat my dinner. I have a strong self-preservation streak when it comes to me and eating.

But I do feel just really aware that the amount of work I have put into feeding other people over the last many years of my life is work that I need a break from. And that applies to feeding myself as well.

And I think I’m still savoring the ability to have downtime when the kids aren’t with me, in a way that’s harder to recreate when they are here. Not that I don’t relax with my children, but it’s just a different energy.

Amy

I buy more shortcut ingredients for myself than I ever have. Even more than I do I think, for the kids. Like, I buy frozen rice from Wegman’s, because there’s a particular type that they have that is—like, rice is not hard to cook, but it is one of those things that when you are like this would be really nice to have rice with it. Do you want to go spend 30 minutes?

Virginia

And get the other pot dirty?

Amy

So it’s like three minutes. It’s really good. So I always have that in my freezer. And then almost every week that I’m on my own, I buy pre-cooked chicken.

Virginia

Like, a rotisserie chicken or?

Amy

I am an exclusive Wegman’s shopper. They have this Peruvian chicken that is very flavorful, and it is versatile enough with the spices that are on it that it can pretty much go with anything. So I either usually get that or a lemon garlic chicken. It’s like a grilled chicken breast, but it’s very tender. It’s not dry at all. And so having something like that in the fridge has been very, very helpful, just as a component.

Virginia

I would order less takeout if I lived near a Wegman’s, is what I’m learning. Because my solution tends to be what I call the Lorelai Gilmore School of meal planning, where you over-order on your takeout, so that you can get multiple meals out of it.

Amy

Leftovers.

Virginia

If we order from the good taco place—whenever Amy visits, we have to order from the good taco place. Last weekend I ordered that for dinner with my sister. And I ordered two of your favorite salad and kept one in the fridge so I’d have it for lunch.

Amy

Oh smart! If I lived near that taco place—it’s called Hudson Taco. They make this salad that just is the most delicious. I’m never going to try to recreate it, because it’s just, it’s so good.

Virginia

I don’t know what the dressing is, but it’s so good. And then I make it into a lunch. I added some more cheese, and chopped up some turkey. And I had the tortilla chips and the guac and the salsa left over and that was a great lunch.

So I’m very strategic with my takeout ordering. It’s not a budget-friendly way to feed yourself, but it works. Like, I never have my kids on Mondays. So I always order takeout on Monday nights, because that’s my long work day. And I just recognize I need to be able to work and not be like, “I have to stop and cook dinner.” That is something I need in my week, is to have a day like that.

But otherwise, I do a lot of Rao’s sauce and pasta, Maybe scrambled eggs. What else do I make for myself? The other thing is: When I don’t have my kids is when I make my social plans. So I tend to eat dinner out because I’m meeting friends at least one or two of the nights, and that’s same thing. Be strategic with your order and get leftovers. Bring them home, repurpose. This is a whole way of life.

Amy

Yeah, I do often make myself salmon bites in the air fryer, which is a recipe that’s on my website. But the beauty of that recipe is it tastes as good cold as it does warm. So I make it and then I eat some of it warm for dinner with rice, and then have it cold either with a salad or in a wrap or some other way. Or just eat it. And that’s not like meal prepping. That’s just actually liking leftovers, which is not something that I always like.

Virginia

Yeah, you’re not a leftover fan like me.

Okay, real talk. Do I need an air fryer? Is this what’s missing from my life?

Amy

My oven takes a very long time to heat up. And I absolutely would not turn on the oven to cook myself a piece of salmon. I mean, you can do it on the in a pan. But frozen chicken, breaded chicken—my experience of it is that it’s better and it’s so fast.

So I’m not going to say yes. I mean, you have a convection oven, right?

Virginia

I do have a convection oven.

Amy

Technically that is the same thing. It just takes longer.

Virginia

Yeah, it does take longer.

I don’t ever use the oven when the children are not here. I can’t remember when I used the oven to cook only myself a meal. Why is that? That’s weird. I don’t know why that is.

Amy

I mean, that actually might be the same for me.

Virginia

But you’re using an air fryer and I’m ordering takeout. This is the difference between us. That’s Amy’s and Virginia’s personalities in a nutshell. Amy’s like, “I found this easy hack with the air fryer.” And I’m like, “I don’t know what that means. I’ll just get Uber Eats again.”

I want to hear what listeners think about air fryers. I feel like I’m going to get a lot of a lot of fervent opinions pro-air fryer, and I’m here for it. I do want to know, if you keep it on your counter, does it drive you nuts as more counter clutter? Because I do have limited bandwidth for that.

Amy

I do have a lot of storage space, so it’s not on my counter.

Virginia

Wait, where do you keep it?

Amy

It’s in a cabinet.

Virginia

Then do you have to pull it out every time you use it?

Amy

Yeah, but it’s not that big. It’s like, this big? It’s like, the size of my head. I don’t know. I was trying to show you with my hands.

Virginia

No, let’s go with the size of your head.

Amy

I just pull it out and put it on the counter right above it.

Virginia

So it’s not like, the size of a microwave. I think I thought they were the size of a microwave.

Amy

It’s like half the size of a microwave.

Virginia

Like…a toaster? That feels like a more standard unit of kitchen measurement than your head?

Amy

Yes, but it’s not a huge deal. The only part you have to wash is the bottom part.

Virginia

It’s not as much time as using the blender.

Amy

I feel a lot of responsibility if you get one and you hate it.

Virginia

I know. I will blame you. It’s your fault.

I mean,

Julia Turshen

is pro-air fryer, too. A lot of you are warming me to a concept, but I need to spend some time with my kitchen to figure out where it would live. If I had better seltzer storage, I could make some counter space. We don’t need to get into redesigning my kitchen right now.

Amy

This is a very fancy problem.

Virginia

I just need a kitchen renovation, and then I can buy an air fryer. Great. Problem solved.

What else do we want to say about feeding ourselves? I will say one thing I love about eating alone is, as mentioned, I read with my children too, but I get more interruptions. Like, being able to read, being able to eat in front of the TV.

Amy

Oh, eating in front of the TV is the world’s greatest when you’re not worrying about someone else spilling anything.

Virginia

Exactly, exactly. This is, again, not like I won’t let my children eat in front of the TV, but I’m arming them with trays and napkins and like, okay, you can have that here, but that you have to go eat at the counter because I don’t trust you to drink a smoothie on this couch.

But just being able to be like, I’m going to curl up with my bowl of Indian takeout and watch whatever. Bliss, absolute bliss.

Amy

Yeah, that is nice. I have to say, I do that more in the colder months. I haven’t done it a lot because I do eat outside. Well, we’re like, at the end of the season, but I did eat outside a lot this summer, which was very nice.

Virginia

Yeah. I feel like summer, it’s sit outside with a book, don’t get interrupted. Winter, it’s curl up in front of the TV. Don’t get interrupted either way. It’s pretty great.

One thing I struggle with a little, and this is kind of like the whole discussion about girl dinner, is on the one hand, it’s great. We can lower standards and just make what we really want to eat and not feel like we have to perform capital D dinner. And on the other hand, sometimes I’m like, “Is it that I think I’m not worth making a fancy meal for?”

Amy

I have this thought a lot, because every time I want to show someone the meal I made for myself, I’m like, “There are single people everywhere eating something for dinner.” Surely a lot of them cook. This is like, not, not a novel thing.

Virginia

No, it is not. Single people should all feed ourselves. We all deserve to eat.

Amy

I think for me, the nature of the content that I produce for work is kid-centric, and when I’m planning meals to have with my kids, I do take my preferences into consideration, but I am taking a lot of other preferences into consideration.

Virginia

You’re trying to balance all the needs.

Amy

I think it’s partly that it’s just novel to have the experience of being able to make all the decisions and then get to decide how much energy.

But I’m super aware of, like, when I see another single person what they made for dinner, I’m like, oh, that’s just their normal life. They’re not judging themselves one way or another. I think it’s just a difference in circumstance that maybe we’re still getting used to.

Virginia

Yes, but we are new at this. Well, we’re both over a year out, but it’s relatively new.

And this is also where the single mom thing comes back in. If you go from the hot and cold of “I’m intensively feeding other people every meal they eat. They’re dependent on me for everything,” to “I only have to worry about myself,” versus someone who’s single all the time. Like a child-free single person has a different set of calculations, I would imagine. I don’t know.

I will say, in addition to spending too much money on takeout—I like that all my solutions are expensive. I’m also renovating my kitchen, you’ll notice— I do enjoy buying myself like one fancier thing that I wouldn’t buy to feed the kids.

Like often it’s that Meredith Dairy sheep and goat cheese, which is a very versatile staple for feeding yourself. Because you can put it on everything. You can put it in pasta. You can put it on a salad. I will often buy a jar of that at the beginning of my long weekend, right? And that will factor into a lot of meals. And that feels like a real gift to myself to buy a nice a nicer ingredient, like the fancier pasta, maybe.

Amy

Yeah, I do sometimes buy the fancier pasta. There’s a local farm that has a bunch of local food products and there’s this one bread that is very expensive, but it is full of seeds and it is sourdough. I don’t even know. It’s really, really good. They also have a cheese that I really like. So I will sometimes on Friday, drive out there and get myself some things. They also have croissants, and so I’ll sort of get an assortment of basically bread and cheese to have. But that has nothing to do with the kids, because they won’t eat any of that. I mean, they would eat the croissants, but they won’t eat any of the other things. So I think it’s also just having the space to be able to make decisions like that.

I mean, I would hope that anyone in a marriage who wanted to go buy themselves nice bread and cheese would be able to do that. I am just aware that we have more time to be able to do that more easily.

Virginia

Yeah, and you’re only buying it for one person. The math is just somehow different. I mean, married people, you should eat well, too.

Amy

I think that the struggle of feeding yourself is true for many moms, regardless of the situation, because there are just so many external influences. I think the thing that we have gotten to experience is just what happens when you have a little bit more space.

Virginia

The space is nice. The space is really helpful.

What’s the best thing you’ve made to eat with your kids recently? And what’s the best thing you’ve made to eat by yourself?

Amy

I mean, I really like the salmon bites that I was talking about. So it’s salmon bites, which have spices on them, with rice and a cucumber sauce, which is basically like Tzatziki. It’s very good, very simple. That’s maybe my favorite thing to eat by myself right now.

Virginia

I definitely want to try that. Even if I don’t have an air fryer.

Amy

Favorite things with the kids—I mean, we all really like chicken noodle soup with really sturdy egg noodles that make a giant mess. My daughter—it’s in my cookbook and there’s a picture of her slurping noodles. So she refers to that soup as the one that gets all over my chin, because that’s the way that she eats it.

So we have that quite a bit, and I make it with rotisserie chicken. It’s super easy, but I think that would be my pick.

Virginia

That’s really good. I don’t have a pick because, as discussed, I don’t like cooking right now, but I will say, because I do order more takeout, I’ve had the recent breakthrough that one child now likes Indian food and the other child doesn’t. But our Indian restaurant does do chicken nuggets, so now there’s one takeout meal I can order to feed us all. And I don’t know, that feels pretty delightful?

You and I have talked about how we both have our kids for pretty long stretches, and when you’re at the 80 percent mark of your stretch, is often when bandwidth is low. And so I’ve been saving that Indian food dinner for the Wednesday night before they go back to their dad’s.

Because normally our routine is they get their weeknight screen time while I’m making dinner, which is something I started when they were toddlers. And I couldn’t figure out how you cook with toddlers, and I’m not Amy. And so that was when they got to watch shows. So that’s still when they get their screen time. And I realized, if I order take out and I don’t have to spend that hour cooking, then I get to read a book or something. And that is pretty great for managing the single parenting bandwidth.

Amy

Yeah, that sounds nice.

Virginia

Yeah, follow me for more pro tips on how to feed your kids! Don’t actually. Follow Amy for those tips.

Well, this has been super helpful and interesting and maybe I’m renovating my kitchen now. So, good talk. Thank you.

Amy

I bet I could come over and just find you a spot.

Virginia

It’s possible I don’t need new countertops to do this. But do I need new countertops? I mean, just a thought, just a thought.

Amy

I don’t know, I think you’re okay.

Virginia

No countertops. Don’t worry everyone, I’m not renovating my kitchen that I don’t even want to cook in.

Amy

I feel like we’ve learned like everything we needed to know about Virginia’s relationship to cooking.

Virginia

I think it’s going to come back. I used to enjoy cooking more recreationally, and I think it’s going to come back, but it’s not back right now. And I think I just need to be okay with that.

Amy

That’s fair!

Butter

Virginia

All right. Should we do butter?

Amy

Okay, so my reading is primarily spicy romance novels, which is a genre that I adore.

Virginia

It’s the best genre.

Amy

But I actually am going to give a book recommendation that’s not that. It’s one of the few non-romance books I’ve read lately. It’s called The Pivot Year, and it is a little self help-y, but I love it so much because there are 365pages, and every one has a paragraph. And it’s basically like, I don’t even know how to describe it without it sounding like terrible, but it’s motivational, just reminding you that you’re enough, essentially, is like the through line, which has been very helpful to me in the past year.

I don’t read one a day. I just read a couple before I go to bed, and I feel like it orients my brain in a really nice way.

Virginia

I mean, you’ve been in a pivot year. I like the phrase “pivot year,” too. We have been pivoting.

Amy

Hold on. I’m going to grab the author’s name—

Virginia

It’s Brianna Wiest.

Amy

There’s a lot of it that’s about relationships and thinking about the people in your life and just being present in all of those things—her words sound better than mine. But I do really like it, and I actually might even give it to my oldest kid, because there’s a lot about just remembering that you’re great the way that you are that I think would be kind of amazing to hear as a tween. And she usually likes my recommendations.

Virginia

You can get away with that. We have different tweens. Anyway.

I love that. It sounds like if Glennon Doyle took all her best lines and made them into a short book?

Amy

Although this author seems a little more even-keeled. Not to say anything bad about dear Glennon.

Virginia

We’ll both come on your podcast, Glennon! But also, sometimes we worry about you.

That’s a really good rec.

All right, I’m going to recommend the book I am actually I’m in the final 10 pages of, but I feel pretty confident it’s gonna stick the landing. It’s called Colored Television by Danzy Senna, who is a new author to me, but not a new author. This is her third book. I’m excited to go read the others.

She is a mixed race woman. And it is a book about a sort of floundering novelist who is mixed race and who writes a lot about the challenges of being mixed race. And they’re living in LA and their family is super strapped financially, because both the parents are artists, and obviously that doesn’t pay well. So she’s then trying to break into TV writing. So it’s about the world of TV writing. It’s about marriage. It’s about a lot of things, I really loved it. We’re reading it for book club, and I already heard that some people didn’t like it, so I’m curious to see what the notes are. But it’s a really fast read.

I realized I needed to take a little bit of a spicy romance break, because I put down two recently—and I don’t want to say which ones they were, because I’m not dissing the books. But I think it’s feeling a little too familiar, you know? I needed a genre break.

At first, I was like, “Oh, I’m going to try to read a more literary book. Can my brain do that?” But this one pulled me, and it’s really propulsive and interesting, and she does make some smart observations, relevant to our conversation about acknowledging divorce privilege. There’s a moment where she’s considering divorce and what that would look like for them financially. And she’s like, all the wealthy white ladies in LA love divorce because they get to do the self care time and all this. And I was like, okay, okay, I hear you. I take that note. But, yeah, but it’s great.

So Colored Television by Danzy Senna.

Amy

I’m going to look that up.

Virginia

Yeah, I think you’d really like it.

Awesome. This was really cool. Come back on the podcast soon, and we will talk about more things related to food or otherwise.

Amy

We will make sure to not wait for a major life event next time.

Virginia

Let’s not do it for our next divorce. Let’s do it sooner.

Amy

I’m a one divorce woman, Virginia.

Virginia

Same. Am also one marriage woman!

Amy

Yeah, exactly.

Virginia

To be clear, we’ve done it. We’ve been there, done that. Even though it would be so good for newsletter growth if I could just keep getting divorced and writing about it.

The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.

The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.

Our theme music is by Farideh.

Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.

Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!

Bonus Episode: MacArthur and the Puritans