If your house is anything like ours is right now, your cooking revolves around the very finicky tastebuds and moods of a mini-dictator. Yes, he has adorable wispy curls and his gap-toothed smile makes you find new corners in your heart for jack-o-lanterns, but, man, he is stubborn at meal time. So we have to get really creative, by which I mean crafty and manipulative.

Besides playing around with tastes and textures, I thought it could be fun to make some bite size treats. And, wonder upon wonder, I found a fantastic, heavy-duty non-stick mini-muffin pan at Sur la Table. Yes, I love SLT, but I don’t love having to pay $35 for a piece of kitchen equipment that’s, let’s face it, completely superfluous. It doesn’t help that it’s almost impossible not to feel like a pretentious ass just saying the store’s name. South Park gets it right:

But that store is like crack to a cooking addict. And so imagine my delight when I found the perfect pan in the clearance section for just over $10!

Ben used it to make some banana-yogurt muffins this weekend, and they turned out predictably adorable and bite-sized. The recipe is inspired by Chobani’s greek yogurt recipe, but he just used regular whole milk yogurt since we have cartons of the stuff on hand for said picky child.

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Banana-Yogurt Muffins

 

• 1/2 cup whole milk yogurt
• 1 c all-purpose flour
• 1 c whole wheat flour
• 1 t baking soda
• 1 t baking powder
• ½ t ground cinnamon
• ¼ t salt
• 4 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 c packed light brown sugar
• ½ c canola oil
• 1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease your muffin tin, unless it’s amazing and non-stick like the one above. Whisk the dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, beat the rest of the ingredients with an electric mixer. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mixing on low until combined. Pour batter into the muffin cups and bake until golden brown, about 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

These fared well with our 21 pound boss for about a day, and then he figured out what we’d been up to. This morning we chased him around with some muffin bits in hand, until we finally called them “bread” and he about-turned, snatched them up, and stuffed them in his mouth. Your guess is as good as mine.

 

There could be a lot of reasons I see everything through a race lens. I have a biracial son, for instance, and I know I’m going to get questions about why a whole lot of folks who look like his mother seem to live differently than the folks who look like his father. I’m also a political scientist who focuses on race politics, so it’s my basically my job to see race everywhere.

Or maybe I see race everywhere because it really is everywhere. In the world of public policy, practically any issue you can think of can be challenged to demonstrate racial equity: education, healthcare, employment, climate change, you name it.  Racial disparities are real and impact the opportunities that children of color, for instance, have compared to their white counterparts.

After having my first child last year, I started working on a book that looks at the politics of pregnancy. For the first time I thought I’d not have to apply the race lens. I’m completely consumed in the world of restrictions and regulations on women’s bodies: Can you choose whether you have a doctor or midwife? Can you try for a vaginal birth after having a cesarean section? Can you eat salami? Can you continue your anti-depressants? I thought, if anything, the world of epidurals, midwives, and soft cheese wouldn’t trigger questions about equity?

Turns out I was wrong. As I read debates, pored over legislative history, and talked to dozens of friends and acquaintances who have been pregnant themselves, my race lens has followed me. I quickly saw I couldn’t escape it because a pregnant woman’s race can play an important part of her pregnancy— different races have different access to prenatal treatment, quality hospitals, and safety, for instance.

Yes, some people concern themselves with whether they can eat deli meats during pregnancy while others worry about being victims of violence. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ranking what I think to be valid concerns—trust me, as someone with cult-like affection for Potbelly’s, I am not judging and it most certainly was on my list of concerns. But what makes the latter group more troubling to me is that it is composed disproportionately of women of color.

Research on intimate partner violence (IPV), for instance, has shown that black women report higher rates during pregnancy (Hispanics report slightly lower rates, and enough research hasn’t been done on Asian or multiracial women).  It doesn’t seem to require a study to show that violence is decidedly bad on a pregnancy, but, yes, we have research on this too:  surprise, surprise, the majority of women who experience abuse experience it multiple times during pregnancy, and they are more likely not to receive prenatal care until the third trimester. There are odd details in there too, like most of the injuries occur to the head. And then race appears again—this time concerning white women, for whom the “frequency and severity of abuse and potential danger of homicide [is] appreciably worse.”

And then there were the rates of teen pregnancy that also differ by race and ethnicity. Here too, young women of color experience pregnancy at disproportionately high rates. See the chart below.

Pregnancy, Birth, Abortion, and Fetal Loss Rates Per 1,000 Women Aged 15–19 Years, by Race and Hispanic Ethnicity — United States, 2005

 

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010.

Pregnancy at such a young age influences whether new mothers will stay in school and finish the education that will eventually offer better job opportunities at higher wages in the workforce. As any parent knows, being pregnant and then raising a child will certainly make finishing school at the same time feel impossible. And so we have the dropout rates that we have—when young women get pregnant, school supports are rare (though they are wonderful when they DO exist!) and new mothers end up dropping out. And this precipitates a cascade of negative effects: without a high school diploma, women become economically insecure members of the workforce.

I fortunately did not have to worry on either of these fronts during my pregnancy. I have the good fortune to be in a supportive, healthy relationship with my partner who believes that parenting is just as much a father’s responsibility (and joy!) as it is a mother’s. I am also, woefully, one of the overeducated—the ones who prove that the education-as-it-correlates-to-income curve is, in fact, curvilinear. At some point more education (like a Ph.D.) seems to reduce wages, as many of my underemployed friends will tell you.

But, particularly on the anniversary of the March on Washington, it is important for me as I reflect on the politics of pregnancy and parenthood to think about how all mothers are not endowed equally. When Dr. King described his ideal society, presumably he meant a world where women, of any race, were enabled to lead healthy pregnancies.

When my son asks us inevitable questions about race, my husband and I are going to be honest with him and talk about race and class and the continued segregation that makes these categories determine the level of opportunities available to children. It would be great if the rest of the country could try and do the same.

This past weekend, as I enjoyed an outdoor concert in the area, a very pregnant lady handed me a little piece of heaven: the SO Delicious mini ice cream sandwich made with coconut milk. It was part of a promotion to share the merits of a vegan lifestyle and they handed out some literature with the treats.

Replacing what can often be pretty unexciting and stale vanilla ice cream with a creamy coconut milk-based faux ice cream is a thought conceived in heaven. I could easily imagine a similar dessert on one of Tom Collichio’s plates, but of course his dish’s slices of “bread” would be made with chocolate unicorn tears.

As I skimmed the pamphlets that Prego McPrego handed me, I thought about how many times, in the process of working on this book, vegetarian and vegan women I know have mentioned that they are worrying about their diets during pregnancy. Sure enough, the literature in my hands addressed this.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics is cited three times saying “a well-planned vegan diet is safe for all stages of the life-cyle including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence…” I want to be on board with this, because, again, I like the idea of women having enough information to make intelligent decisions about how they will handle their pregnancies.

But a vegetarian diet is decidedly different from a vegan diet.

One common nutritional concern during pregnancy is vitamin B-12 (cobalamin), and it is most commonly found in what vegans call “flesh foods”–or meat products. Here is the top 10 list of foods highest in B12. Yeah, vegans can’t have any of it. And why do we care so much about B12 in particular? Well, for adults it’s a pretty great nutrient whose effects range from protecting us against certain types of cancer to potentially reducing depression.

But, for babies in utero, it’s pretty crucial. B12 is associated with a lot of the crucial development they need. Neural tubes, for instance. So one of the main concerns with a vegan diet is that vegan mother might suffer from B12 deficiency. One of the most common symptoms of which, by they way, is fatigue and loss of balance–nothing an already pregnant woman needs more of.

The AND endorsement of a vegan diet refers to the American Dietetics Association’s position paper on vegetarian diets. In this paper, the ADA actually says that vegan mothers will have special needs and draws an important distinction between vegetarian and vegan diets. A “well-planned diet” for a vegan would consist of foods different from vegetarian diets, namely in its use of “fortified soy and rice beverages, some breakfast cereals and meat analogs, or Red Star Vegetarian Support Formula nutritional yeast [look for a post on this product in the future!].” Coconut milk beverages, to circle back to this elixir of the gods, can be enriched with B12 and a couple of cups can provide your daily nutritional requirement. Alternatively, a pregnant vegan would have to take a daily B12 supplement, not too different from the majority of pregnant women who take prenatal vitamins of some sort.

The position paper provides a pretty great summary of the research done on vegetarianism or veganism during pregnancy. Basically, vegetarians have it pretty easy–you can plan your diets to get enough B12, iron, folate and vitamin D. Vegans, however, have to be particularly diligent on getting the nutrients their baby needs. My take is that it is completely doable. Just do a little research, like the position paper in question.

The frankie is my favorite street food from my childhood summers in Bombay. Right next to the McDonald’s down the street from my grandparents’ flat, there was a frankie stand. You would pay a guy a few rupees and he would give you a small coin that signaled either chicken, mutton or veggie to the man you handed it to through a small hole in the wall. A moment later a hand would emerge and give you the most delectable snack– spicy (always mutton for me) filling wrapped up in a tawa-fried, egg-coated roti. My cousins and I would eat them on our walk back home along Linking Road, with juices running down our elbows, and quickly mop our faces before adults could figure out what we’d been up to.

I wasn’t really allowed to have frankies. One, I was of a weak Western constitution, and two, well, did you hear about the hole in the wall? But it didn’t really matter. I ate them so often that I figured after the first dozen or so, I’d beaten the odds.

And now, in adulthood, I make my own frankies whenever I have leftover, spiced meat. My shortcut is that I use store-bought rotis, particularly the Spring Home Roti Paratha that is readily available in many of the large Asian grocers in the DC metro area. This time I had some leftover masala raan, an Indian-spiced leg of lamb that I slow cooked for 8 hours. Given that my shortcut frankie isn’t even brushed with egg (a nice touch, but one I’ve learned to forsake in a household where my mother is deathly allergic to eggs), I’ll give you the recipe for the lamb instead. It’s delicious fresh, of course, but the tender, slow-cooked leftovers pull into wonderful frankies. To assemble the frankie, though, just pan-fry a roti (if you’d like the egg-coating, just brush each side with a beaten egg and flip), fill with meat and veggies of your choice, roll up and enjoy!

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Masala Raan

 

• 2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper
• 1 tbsp ground coriander 
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp ground fennel
• 6 green cardamom pods, husks removed and discarded, insides crushed
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp minced garlic
• 1 tbsp minced ginger
• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• 4-5 lb leg of lamb, stabbed all over
• 3-5 red chillies, dried or fresh
• 4 sprigs rosemary
• 4 whole cloves of garlic
• 15 whole cloves
• 2 large onions, sliced
• 1 – 2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 cup water or stock

 

Combine the first nine ingredients. Add four tablespoons of olive oil and stir to make a paste. Rub the paste all over the leg of lamb. Set aside to marinate in the fridge for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight. Allow the lamb to come to room temperature for 1 hour before inserting cloves, rosemary, and red chillies into the meat’s slits. Spread the onions, garlic cloves and rosemary sprigs over the bottom of a slow cooker. Place the lamb on top, sprinkle with salt and douse with the water or stock. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours, or high for 4-6 hours. Try to baste every hour or so, if you’re not using the slow cooker for convenience in your absence in the first place.**

Speaking of the wonder of leftovers, one of the most inspiring social campaigns I’ve seen recently fights child hunger on the streets of Bombay. Share My Dabba is a fantastic initiative that takes advantage of one of the most efficient food delivery systems in the world. Over 200,000 dabbas (lunches) are delivered to people across the city each day. While this adds up to 120 tons of food each day, more than 16 tons are left uneaten, so SMD started handing out sheets of stickers to see if their patrons would be willing to share their food with the city’s 2 million starving children. A little red circle with the simple word “share” designates the dabbas with remaining food. Once the tins are collected again after lunch, those with the stickers are sorted by volunteers and shared with hungry children.

I used to work at a school that provided a home and education to impoverished children in Bangalore. Mealtimes were my favorite–they were spirited and loud and the kids always used to light up (unless bittergourd was on the menu). This program reminds me of Ananya’s efforts to make sure that children who were hungry were fed, period.  If you’re anything like me, you won’t be able to watch this video without getting teary. And, hopefully, without donating to this wonderful initiative. Please consider it. And please let me know if you do!

Alissa Quart has a piece in The New York Times today that looks at the financial burden, and often impossibility, of child care on American families. Given that one of my chapters tackles exactly this topic, it piqued my interest. Why would a book on the politics of pregnancy discuss post-birth child care? Because we put our son on a daycare waitlist five months into our pregnancy—twenty months later, our number (a pessimistic 35) has not budged.

The first day cares were established during the Industrial Revolution in both countries, because women simply had no choice but to leave their homes and enter the workforce. Horror stories of children being tied to bedposts all day while their mothers worked in factories became so common that the crèche was established in France in the mid 1800s. News of this arrangement spread to States soon thereafter.  In France this child care system was seen as a state investment in helping create responsible new members of society, and enabled mothers to participate in the workforce with confidence that their children were in good hands.

In the U.S., however, born more out of necessity and continued for dubious reasons such as “Americanizing” the children of immigrants, child care never developed as an institution that could help socialize children into well-adjusted, independent and developmentally advanced individuals, as it did in other industrialized nations.

How might things have evolved differently in this country had our government established an agency that oversaw child care facilities, similar to the Mother and Infant Protection service that the French state formed after World War II? What might it take to convince our state that child care is a responsible investment, given the huge social benefits to not only children, but their working parents and the economy as a whole?