Kale Chips and a Second Trip to Trader Joe's
Headed into Week 2 of Teen Cooking
On Friday, I arrived home from a 5-day trip to New York. The kitchen was not in shambles. My two teens had done a good job of cleaning up after their cooking adventures.
We were also mostly out of food. But by itself, that’s not abnormal since I’m the one who does grocery shopping and that’s typically a Friday morning or Saturday morning event. So by the end of the week, we’re almost always out of food.
T, my 16-year-old, is in charge of the grocery shopping for the week. Q, my 14-year-old, will be attending a camp this week, so his grocery needs are different. He has to take lunch to camp, so it will be things like sandwiches and fruit (same as my 8-year-old, who also goes to camp).
Due to my fatigue from the trip, I told T that we would go shopping at Trader Joe’s in the afternoon on Saturday (instead of morning). I expected T to make something simple for lunch, and was surprised when they pulled kale out of the fridge. T and Q had planned to make some type of potato soup during the week that involved kale, but the potatoes were accidentally turned into French fries by my husband when he made hamburgers for dinner. It’s a perpetual problem in our house: we buy food for a specific purpose, someone else doesn’t know the purpose, the food gets eaten during another meal.
Anyway, with the extra kale, T announced that they were going to make kale chips. They found some instructions online (not hard: kale, olive oil, salt, oven). I took a nap, and when I came downstairs, the kale chips were mostly gone.
T said that they weren’t seasoned properly, so they will try again with the remaining kale.
T and I then headed to Trader Joe’s. I had my grocery list for the week, and T had their list. I gave T $40 in cash, plus the few remaining dollars from last week’s trip. We had separate carts to make it clear what I was paying for and what came out of the lunch budget.
At one point, T asked if we could get watermelon juice for the week. I said sure, go ahead and put it in your cart. T balked, wanting to put it in my cart (the groceries paid for out of our full grocery budget). I said no, I thought this should come out of the lunch budget, since it wasn’t something I was planning on buying. T sniffed and said, “Fine, then you can’t have any.”
I reminded T that the lunch budget was not “their” money, but rather money that they were responsible for managing for the summer. Typically, I have to spend more on groceries in the summer since the kids are home (and I’m not paying for lunch at school). Same money, just managed by T and Q for the summer. I told T that if they wanted the juice to be fully “theirs,” they could pay for it out of their allowance.
I’d planned to follow up on this point more, but when we got to the checkout, T was short by a few dollars. That felt like enough of a budget lesson for one day. I’ll clarify the whole “family grocery money that you get to manage” on our next trip.
I share all kinds of tips in my newsletter — entirely separate from this project. You can check out past issues and sign up here.