Why I Make Birthday Cake For My Kids

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

After all, my homemade cakes aren't exactly stunners.

And sometimes it feels like kids care more about frosting color than actual taste anyway.

And everyone who's ever hosted a birthday party knows that several of the kids take one or two bites and leave the rest (which is one of those delightfully healthy kid habits that we never give them credit for because it drives us absolutely bonkers).

And while a basic and delicious cake can be cheaper than a boxed one (think wacky cake), the cakes I make probably aren't even always cost efficient (think pounds of frosting).

So why do I take a couple hours out of an already busy day to dust off the cake pans and put something in them. 

Because my mother made homemade cakes for us. This meant something to me as a child. She asked what we wanted. We could make a demand (um, okay, I'm sure we made many and not just on our birthdays, but on this day with our cakes it was allowed, encouraged even. We got to choose the cake type and shape and Mom would make it). And even at that age, I had knew that Mom's cakes tasted better than store-bought ones. Even when they didn't turn out quite right. And sometimes they didn't.

Mom's homemade cakes had more, um, personality than other cakes. Sometimes (like that butterfly one, remember it Mom?) they were utterly perfect in both beauty and taste. Sometimes they were awesome and then someone (like maybe me, but I'm not admitting anything) sort of smashed an edge when the cake was in the car and turned them sort of less than perfect (sorry about that Wonder Woman cake, Rebecca). And sometimes Mom's cakes had so very very much personality that some might have called them a little, um, special. We may or may not have had a few years of jokes about ugly cakes. But they sure tasted good.

Yes, my mother could have slapped a store-bought cake down on the table and it would have been a definite rectangle and the colors would have been piped on just perfectly. And it would have tasted just exactly like the last store-bought cake that I got the year before. Yeah, that's just not for me. I'll take the lopsided thing that's trying to be held up by the long toothpicks and is nevertheless flopping over enough that the coconut icing is sort of slipping off. And then I'll stick a finger in that icing and you better believe I'll love every lick. Those cakes taught me a lesson too. They taught me that things given in love don't have to be perfect to be just right. 

Which is part of the reason that food means something. And food does mean something. It means something to me to make a cake. And it means something to my kids to receive a cake, even though they can't yet put that thing into words. It gives us things to remember. It gives us things to enjoy. It gives us things to laugh about or tell stories about. It is one of the avenues through which we can communicate to those for whom we care. It is not the only avenue. If you hate making cakes, or if you need to simplify a truly crazy birthday, this post isn't about how you should feel guilty and absolutely always make a homemade cake. It's definitely not the only avenue to meaning in life or birthdays. Maybe you like to throw awesome parties, or spend special time with your child/loved one, or visit Grandma's house, or buy a knock down gift, or whatever. This post isn't meant to impose guilt or extra must-do's. It's merely a jaunt down my cakey cakey road. And who wouldn't want to take a jaunt down a cakey cakey road.

Which brings me to my final point. I really love making cakes. I especially love making them for people I care about. I love the ritual of getting out the bowls, the pans, the flour, sugar, cocoa. I love the smell, look, and texture of a homemade cake. I love their imperfections (unless they're dry; then I weep). I love their dings and those places you have to fill with frosting. I love that things given in love don't have to be perfect to be just right. 

Thank you, Mom. And Happy Birthday, Mark.

"Reduced" Lunch

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

(Okay, so this picture may be a few things I slapped together on the counter after 10pm tonight. I'll try to get a more accurate shot Monday morning, should this blog manage to enter my mind in the course of the morning rush.)

Today we're starting with a disclaimer instead of a confession: I fully support the school lunch program (and breakfast program). Truly, I think they are wonderful ideas. This post is not intended to criticize these programs or the people who utilize them in any way. I do not think children should ever go hungry and I think these programs are a good way to put a dent in child hunger as well as give a bit of nutrition to children who otherwise might get none. I know school lunches are always under fire for not providing good nutrition (and truly much of this criticism is merited), but it's still come a long way from a whole lot of no food at all, which is what I'm pretty sure it was a couple of generations ago, or maybe even less.

End disclaimer and on to my post.

At the beginning of every school year, I'm confronted with a small dilemma. Every school year all the school children are sent home the form you can fill out if you wish your children to be considered for free or reduced lunches. Our family, being a little heavier on the children end than the money end, is always sort of toeing the line of potential eligibility. So every year I stare at that form and think about filling it out. I don't really want to. My pride interferes as does my feeling about what comprises a healthy lunch. And then there are my personal views about self-reliance and my soap box about how very much many Americans enjoy while still considering themselves "poor."

Additionally, it's not like my kids would eat most of the school lunch offerings anyway. I believe I've mentioned--oh, a time or two--that my children are rather picky. Mark doesn't eat meat. At all. Elizabeth loves meat, but only in it's virginal cooked state--no sauces, toppings or spices of any kind. Both of them have issues with vegetables (who doesn't have issues with school lunch vegetables) and all sorts of other foods. I know if I got them school lunches that they would eat a) chocolate milk, b) pudding, c) tater tots. On Thursdays when it is served, they would also eat pizza. P.S. In case you haven't been around a public school for a while, the pizzas are exactly the same as when we were growing up. I suspect that somewhere in Kansas, there is a large warehouse that, during the cold war, was stocked with frozen school lunch pizzas in the event that the world would end and frozen school lunch pizzas would be no more (say it isn't so). When the world did not end, I suspect that they began using these pizzas and that, still today, they are delivering these same 1955 school lunch pizzas to eager children around the United States.

But that is a digression from this intense intellectual political post. Let's see, where was I? Oh, yes, reduced lunch. Despite my hang-ups, the idea of reduced lunch is always sort of tempting to me.

This year I looked at my form as I always do. I tapped my pen a few times. Reduced lunches are $.40.

And then I thought, as I'm inclined to think when it comes to money and the government, "I bet I can beat that. I bet I can beat that right here at home. In fact, I bet I'm beating it right now."

So I tallied it up. And I was a little surprised about at my findings.

My kids' standard lunch (no, they don't eat exactly this every day, but they eat something like it most days, which, for the record is because they want to eat such dull fare, not because I don't ever provide the poor children other options):
Peanut butter and jelly or honey sandwich
apple sauce
grapes (if they're cheap) or other cheap fruit
treat such as breakfast cookie or a few chocolate chips
water
I don't always get the 2 fruits in; it depends on what we have, but I always get one in and it is always one that they will eat, which I think is a better batting average than school lunch has. Also I don't always get a treat in; heaven knows they don't really need it.

This is how much it costs:
2 slices bread store 100% whole wheat bread: .08
1/2 Tbsp Welch's grape jam: .02
2 Tbsp bulk Skippy peanut butter: .10
1/2 C applesauce (not in the individually packaged things, but measured out from the big bottle into my own tupperware): .15 (Note: originally, this said .24; that was due to a math error on my part, which I noticed the next time I went to the store and looked at applesauce. It has been corrected.)
1/2 C grapes: .16
breakfast cookie: .10
Total: $.61
If I eliminated the applesauce and the breakfast cookie, which is a sometimes typical (as in out of stuff or in a hurry) amount for us, it would be $.36. My kids would still be full enough to make it home, but they'd probably make up for it by eating a bigger snack. But then maybe they wouldn't because I feel like they always want a snack when they get home whether they've eaten a school lunch or a small homemade lunch. 

This is how many calories it contains:
bread: 150
peanut butter: 180
jam: 25
applesauce: 50
grapes: 55
breakfast cookie: 150

Total: 610 calories. If you chop out the apple sauce and breakfast cookie you get: 400 calories.

You may not know this (I didn't until recently), but schools have strict caloric guidelines and generally keep their lunches at (at minimum) between 633 and 825 calories, depending on the age of the children. This makes sense since this constitutes 1/3 of the meals of the day that they are supposedly eating (yeah, not counting those 20 snacks and sweets that the schools are helping to contribute to, but that's another rant for another day). And we have to remember that some of these meals are going to desperately needy children who may not get many calories at home. So if I chop out the applesauce and breakfast cookie, I'm not meeting the same caloric standards the school is. Of course, if I fried the whole wheat bread (the equivalent of what the schools sometimes do) I could get those calories back for only a few cents.

This is how nutritious it is: 
-1 C fruit (some info on applesauce and grapes specifically)
-Whole wheat bread contains several vitamins (especially B vitamins) as well.
-10 grams fiber: 4 grams of fiber in the bread, plus 3 from the applesauce plus 1 gram from the grapes (wow, thought the grapes were higher than that), 2 grams from the peanut butter. There's also more from a breakfast cookie (should such healthy stuff be the treat; sometimes it's a few chocolate chips) since mine are whole grain, but I don't know how much--I'd guess 2-3 grams, but it's a guess.
-14 grams protein: 7 grams protein from the peanut butter, 7 grams protein from the bread (PB, in combination with whole wheat makes a full protein). There's also probably a bit from the fruit, but not much.
-15 grams (or about 3 tsp) added sugar: 3 grams from PB, 5 grams from bread (another surprise), 7 grams from jam (a breakfast cookie will add another 5 grams or so)

This is how much time it takes me to make: 5 minutes/lunch
Make sandwiches, lovingly cut one sandwich into triangles, pour applesauce into containers, put grapes in containers, pack it all up. (I'm assuming the breakfast cookies have already been made for breakfast at some point and am therefore not counting that as extra time, though--for purposes of full disclosure, it must be admitted that cooking homemade foods does take some time). Also, I haven't counted shopping time since these are things I would buy whether I made school lunch or not. In other words it doesn't add anything to my shopping time.

This is what gets tossed uneaten into the garbage at school:
Crusts. My kids bring home the stuff they didn't eat at lunch because they didn't have time or appetite and eat it after school when they're starving from not having time or appetite to eat it earlier. I think the use of Tupperware containers for fruit encourages that because they're not going to throw that away, so they just leave the uneaten stuff in it and bring it home. Also, I have trained them (i.e. threatened them) to do so. It's important to me that they not waste it. And it's more convenient for them as well. They don't have to wait for me to finish helping with the other's homework before they can have a snack.

Interesting, huh? Considering I've been keeping obsessive compulsive track of our expenses all year, I'm a little surprised that I had no idea how much our homemade school lunches were costing us. Or what we were getting from them. Overall, I'm pleased. Although I'm not sure that applesauce is worth it's weight in gold. Bring on the carrot sticks. Except that Mark will veto that. Which is why we do applesauce. And there we go around again. A dilemma as old as school lunch itself.

I know that's still too much money for some. I know that's still time not everybody has. But I have it. And I intend to use it. Because we all get a little attached to our soapboxes, right?