10 School Lunches That Fanny Packed

Plus a recipe for a savory "lunch" pancake when you're in a pinch

Hi friends,

Since packing school lunch continues to be a challenge for most of us, we thought we’d do another installment of our lunch chronicles with a glimpse into Fanny’s 2.5-year-old kid, Cecily’s lunchbox. As per usual, there are too many goddamn compartments to account for, leftovers feature heavily, roasted vegetables are ubiquitous, and not every morsel is appreciated equally by said lunchbox’s owner, but hey.

A major takeaway from three months of packing lunch is that most of what’s uneaten from the lunchbox is not necessarily reviled—maybe just ill-timed? Or subject to the whims of toddlerhood? Fanny’s daughter will generally quite happily eat leftovers in the car en route home from school. And even though a preposterous amount of food is often left behind at lunch to age into an inferior after school snack, Cecily’s teachers recently told Fanny that “Cecily is always really excited about her lunch”—which was enough spiritual fodder to propel Fanny through some of the more crushing feelings of defeat.

Also in today’s post: a recipe for a savory protein pancake made with beans and pesto that is a great solution when a) you overestimated how much pancake batter you would actually need (that’s us, 100% of the time) or b) you opened your fridge and a tumbleweed rolled out of the crisper.

Dig in,

Fanny + Greta

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This was the first lunch I packed for my 2.5-year-old daughter when she started full days of school in January and, looking back at it now, it’s a real testament to my blithe optimism. Homemade hummus in the upper lefthand corner made from a days-old batch of the best chickpeas, with raw sliced carrots and cucumbers to dip in it, as well as Top Seedz crackers and homemade Kale Chips, along with an entire peeled roasted tiny honeynut squash… and what I think were some cubes of leftover Japanese sweet potato for good measure?? Oh, and strawberries in the center. My daughter (henceforth “C”) ate a third of the hummus, 1.5 squash halves, the strawberries (duh), most of the crackers and chips, none of the sweet potato and most of the veggies.