Opening Day

By Andrew Hunter
For The Family Table, a blog for busy families

The boys look forward to a few special days each year. The big ones like Christmas and their birthdays are obvious, but one of their favorites is opening day of apple season.

We make the trek east each Labor Day weekend on the Pomona Freeway toward San Bernardino, then exit into the foothills where Los Angeles peels away to orchards that support communities in existence to grow, harvest and sell apples.

Snow-Line, Riley’s and Willowbrook apple farms host scores of visitors with hot fry cakes, fresh pressed cider, and “mile high” apple pies. Our favorite is Snow-Line because it’s a simple assemblage of red barns, orchards for picking and a hillbilly musician who takes his break between songs with a cold can of Coke in his dilapidated old red Cadillac parked in the shade.

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Red Onion Rings

By Andrew Hunter
For The Family Table, a blog for busy families

Families cannot live on spinach alone, so on special occasions when the boys are really good, onion rings are in order. Deep-frying in the house is kind of a messy proposition, so I thought I was a genius when I set up the electric fryer on the patio table ... you might want to try the same.

I used to slice yellow or white onions for my onion rings until I met Patsy, my beloved mother-in-law. Patsy likes three things in abundance: ice, iced tea and red onions. Sometimes at lunch, I wonder why she bothers with the lettuce, but it’s just a foil for her thinly sliced red onions.

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Saguette’s Carrot Soup

By Marilyn Hunter
For The Family Table, a blog for busy families

Sometimes a book inspires a meal.

One of our boys’ favorites, Monsieur Saguette and his Baguette, tells the story of a young Frenchman who makes a delicious pot of hot carrot soup only to find he has no bread in the house. He sets off to a boulangerie to buy a baguette and on his way home meets with many challenges that his baguette triumphantly pulls him through.

I’ll bet we have read this book aloud as a family at least a hundred times. It’s a rare read because both boys enjoy it and have for years. Saguette uses his baguette for crazy things on his walk home, like propping open the mouth of an alligator, using it as an extension of his arm to save a kitten from a tree and as a ladder for getting out of a giant hole he fell into.

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The Secret to Getting your Kids to Eat Spinach

By Marilyn Hunter
For The Family Table, a blog for busy families

Want to know how to get your kids to eat spinach? Simple: add a little crispy bacon. I don’t know about you, but my boys literally vibrate when they can smell bacon cooking. They would eat just about anything with bacon crumbled on top. This old school salad is perfect for finicky kids and not bad for adults, too.

I stopped frying bacon in a pan years ago … now I bake it in the oven. For those of you who don’t know this trick, place a baking rack on top of a sheet pan, then arrange the bacon slices in rows on the rack and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F. The bacon won’t shrink as much as in a pan, the rack keeps the bacon from soaking in fat and most of all, there’s no splattering grease, making clean up so much easier.

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An American Favorite

By Andrew Hunter
For The Family Table, a blog for busy families

For better or worse, we all grew up with a tradition of meatloaf at the family table. Most of us endured a combination of beef and pork mixed with dried herbs, fresh onions if we were lucky, and a thick blanket of ketchup across the top, which was the loaf’s saving grace.

Marilyn and I figured that we would continue the tradition with Ben and Nick so that they might pass it down to their kids in 20 years. The boys like leftover meatloaf better than hot out of the oven. I’m not sure why, except they get to take meatloaf sandwiches in their lunchboxes.

The version below is a starter recipe, meaning if you haven’t made meatloaf before, try this version. It won’t be as good as your mom’s because no meatloaf ever is, but it’ll be your meatloaf, which will make it better. The variations below are for when you feel like an adventure in the kitchen and on your palate.

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