The trick you need to know for restaurant meals with kids 🍷🍽️

An off-screen savior from our trip to the Dolomites 🏔️🃏

Greetings from the Italian Dolomites!

I’m so excited to share a snippet from this adventure with you 🤩.

Arriving here is always a homecoming (to one of my homes).

Since we were children, my mother has brought us to these mountains, continuing the legacy of her ancestors. She spent summers with her grandparents and cousins in Italy, split between Venice and the Dolomites. Her parents’ ashes are scattered amidst these peaks, and her grandfather, Gino, climbed the Marmolada (10,968 ft) in flannel and wool, with hemp ropes.

My great-grandfather, Gino Bonvicini, in the Dolomites.

The first time I saw this picture of him I understood my own fixation with high peaks, whether rock climbing, mountaineering, or hiking.

My twin sister, Dimity, caught the bug in her late 20’s and promptly met her husband, Nolan, also a climber.

So you can imagine when we’re here, our necks are perpetually craned, scouting lines on the sublime rock faces every which way we turn.

They’re especially taunting on this trip, because climbing them is out of the question. 😭

We’re traveling with a party of fourteen immediate family members, that seems to grow daily as new relatives and friends catch wind of our reunion. Seven are children.

So… no climbing. Too complicated.

But! Climbing is not the only attraction here.

People flock to the Italian Dolomites to eat in the refugios.

The refugios make recreation in these mountains special year-round.

They are small mountain restaurants and/or inns that serve food, which is nearly always outstanding, made even more exquisite by the views.

The local cuisine is influenced by its Austrian neighbors, resulting in hearty dishes like creamy polenta with mushrooms, house-made spaetzle with venison bolognese, fresh ravioli stuffed with spinach and nettles, paninis with speck and melted local cheese, and cold beer, wine, strong coffee, or a spritz.

But, enjoying these meals with kids who are hungry, impatient, and struggle to stay sitting and speak in restaurant-friendly voices is challenging, to say the least. After all, they’re kids!

Can you relate?! 🙋‍♀️

And yet, we’re committed to eating out with kids, and enjoying it.

Plus, there’s often no other recourse while traveling.

So to ensure that we will have our cake and eat it too, we resort to our exhaustive list of table games that keeps everyone occupied - and above all - connected.

(It’s worth noting that we employ lots of these games at home, where sometimes, getting the kids to stay at the table and share family dinner is even more challenging without social pressure.)

One of the most simple, timeless tools for table games is a deck of cards. 🃏

I prefer card games for eating out, rather than at home. A pack of cards can be easily stowed in a purse or pocket, and a restaurant table is the perfect space for playing card games while waiting for meals (whereas at home, we typically sit down to a ready meal). Cards can be quickly stashed away when the food arrives.

On this trip alone the kids have played at least four games (that I’m aware of), plus learned two magic tricks and practiced building a house of cards. They’ve also learned the basic of how to use an Italian card deck.

Fun fact: Did you know that tarot cards - tarochi - come from Italy?

Today I’d like to offer one easy, fun game that everyone can play, and continues to be a family favorite: Go Fish.

This is an excellent game for learning basic math and can be played with as little as two players. Our youngest, Cora, began playing this at age 4.

If you have children who are younger, you can bring along a doodle board or their favorite fidget toy.

We’re entering a new chapter where there are enough kids who can play cards together, that typically the adults are left to their own conversations.

But not always, and honestly, some of the best conversations and laughter come from playing together!

So jump in!

I hope this little trick helps you enjoy a well-deserved evening out.

Buon appetito!

♡ Emma

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Go Back-to-School on the Right Foot!

Many of you have already returned to school.

In Upstate New York, we begin after Labor Day … and you can guarantee I’ll be using a meal plan to help transition smoothly.

Meal plans are my #1 tool for simplifying dinners while ensuring we eat healthy, delicious meals. Meal plans save time, money, and stress!

If you haven’t sampled my free meal plan yet, you can download it here.

If you missed the August Meal Plan, it’s my BEST one yet and you can access it, along with all past meal plans and the upcoming September plan when you subscribe (just $5.95/mo or $59.99 annually).

It’s worth very penny to let me do the planning for you.

I was absolutely blown away by a message from a paid subscriber, Heather, who majorly upgraded the focaccia recipe in the August Meal Plan with this gorgeous picture of vegetables! She said I could share it with you all, and added “I had another recipe I was going to try but yours is PERFECTION - easy and yummy!” (Shout out to my Italian mamma friend Giulia who taught me how to make this recipe!)

This is why I do this work. I want to help you sift through all the recipes and noise on the internet and give you reliable, easy recipes you can make at home and feel proud of!

Seeing your recreations makes it 1,000% worth it. I love love love it, and I love you all for being here.

Grazie mille!!! (Thank you very much!)