Food: meals, eating, diets, nutrition

Cultural Exchange: American kids react to breakfasts from around the world

by cv harquail February 17, 2015

Cultural Exchange always feels more concrete when it’s translated into food. Food preferences, food differences, food customs, and beyond. With a hattip to Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing, here’s a video that reminded me of the first time I had fishpaste from a tube, on a business trip to Sweden. I wonder how many […]

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Eating On Duty: Managing Au Pair Meals

by cv harquail February 3, 2015

Au Pairs often need to make meals for themselves (as well as for host children) while they are on duty. We can’t (and shouldn’t) expect any caregiver to go for hours and hours without a proper meal. But when an au pair is ‘on duty’ with a primary responsibility for children, an au pair […]

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How to Get Your Au Pair Ready To Cook

by cv harquail September 12, 2014

Once your host kids get past the ‘oatmeal and smashed peas’ phase, it’s time for an Au Pair to do some real cooking. Even au pairs who’ve cooked in their home countries find cooking in America to be a bit challenging. Au Pairs need to figure out: How our appliances work What each of the foods […]

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“Pitching In”: What does that mean in your host family?

by cv harquail July 15, 2014

Print by OrangeTwist, available for purchase at Etsy

What does it mean to “pitch in” with host family chores? Pitching In (defn): To join the family in doing some everyday household upkeep, to help keep the household running smoothly In anticipation of an au pair question that will get posted later this week, I wanted to sketch out the basic advice (okay, my aupairmom […]

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Grocery Budgets for An Au Pair: What’s a fair amount?

by cv harquail May 12, 2014

Including an Au Pair in your grocery shopping means more than throwing another package of chicken breasts into the cart. For any of us (all of us?) with budgets and cost constraints, including an Au Pair takes more than figuring out ‘how much’ more food we need to nourish an additional adult. It also asks us to gauge […]

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Autonomy vs. Food Safety When The Au Pair Cooks

by cv harquail February 21, 2014

How do I give my Au Pair autonomy in the kitchen without worrying that my kids are going to eat something that could make them sick? Dear AuPairMoms — I need to find ways to teach my au pairs about food safety, without offending them. Any ideas? Here’s my story: AP1: Raw Bacon My son was […]

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8 Ways To Teach Your Au Pair About Food Safety

by cv harquail February 19, 2014

Milk left out on the counter. Raw eggs in salad dressing. Undercooked chicken thighs. And of course, the picnic lunch with macaroni salad but no ice pack. All of these are food safety disasters. If your Au Pair hasn’t been taught about food safety, though, he or she might think these are harmless mistakes. That […]

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Choosing an Au Pair: Will being “in recovery” from an eating disorder ruin my chances to Au Pair?

by cv harquail May 22, 2011

Would you match with a candidate who told you that she’d been treated for anorexia, and was currently healthy and in recovery? (Keep in mind that being “in recovery” for an anorexic is like being ‘”in recovery” for an alcoholic, in the sense that you are never “over it”, but always in the process of […]

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Candid, awkward issue: Choosing Au Pairs who are obese

by cv harquail January 26, 2011

AuPairMom is a place where we host parents (and au pairs) can talk about issues that only other host parents and au pairs can understand. Often, these issues are tough ones that touch upon cultural differences, style differences, political differences, and deep personal preferences. Every now and then, we get a topic that we want […]

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My Au Pair has Awful Table Manners

by cv harquail December 2, 2010

Dear AuPairMom Readers — What do you do when your (otherwise great, fabulous) AP has ATROCIOUS table manners – think smacking and chewing sounds not even heard at a trucker convention! Chews with mouth open, talks with mouth full of food, slurps drinks, smacks lips when chewing….it is REALLY LOUD. It is also setting a […]

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