Our group chat this week got off to a bit of a punchy start, with an exchange about the glamorous and cutthroat world of freelance writing and Terri's story of being taken to task on Twitter. Once we got past the laughter and awkward pauses to our topic, it was this: Would you use an app that directed you to restaurants that suited the needs of your quirky kid and family? The dad of a child with autism has a Kickstarter up to do just that, and we chatted about the relative value of online reviews (Catherine recommends a roundup of satirical reviews on Rage Against the Minivan for your review-dissing pleasure) and what things we'd really like to see rated and flagged (we'd pay good money to be warned away from establishments with self-flushing toilets, for example). We also thought back to last week's pre-emptive apology discussion in case we didn't get alerted to the presence of disapproving patrons.
Of course, the alternative to dining out is dining in, and it turns out we have problems with that, too; 75 percent of our podcasting crew hates cooking, which means that Amanda has to cook for everybody now. We discussed the stress of cooking with kids who are mostly interested in making a mess; of introducing new foods to picky eaters; of being tasked to bake dough that we don't understand; and of having a double oven when we don't even want to use one.
Our recommendations this week were also kitchen-related. Terri likes the cookbook A Man, a Can, a Plan; Amanda thinks we should all try the Fix-It and Forget-It cookbook; Catherine has articles on her site about easy dinners and easy breakfasts; and Nicole has a cheat for sneaking vegetables into your kid's food without actually having to, you know, handle vegetables.
Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episode and Kristin Eredics for our happy in-and-out music. (If you're reading this description somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)