Mom: How was your day today?Child: FineDo you get one word responses to your dinner conversation starters? Then take a listen to this episode with Jen Legra, the creator and author of the blog and website Drinking the Whole Bottle, where she spre...

Mom: How was your day today?
Child: Fine
Do you get one word responses to your dinner conversation starters? Then take a listen to this episode with Jen Legra, the creator and author of the blog and website Drinking the Whole Bottle, where she spreads her message of living life uncorked and infusing a spirit of celebration and fun into every aspect of life. In this episode Jen shares games her family plays to get the kids talking at the table. Her enthusiasm for food is infectious and she seriously had me laughing throughout this conversation.

Takeaways:

· Bringing mindfulness and intentionality to everyday activities, including meals, adds memories and fun

· An elevated version of a simple recipe can become a family favorite

· Make lunch packing easy so the kids can put their lunches together

Transcript of the Episode

Andrea Heyman 00:00

Adventures In feeding my fam is a weekly podcast discussing the challenges and fun around feeding your family healthy meals. I'm Andrea Heyman, and I've been a registered dietician for over 25 years. So I know the importance of good nutrition. But I'm also a mom of three so I understand the challenges and tumor that comes along with trying to make this happen. In this podcast, I'll share my tips, tricks and menus, but also share the stories and food prep failures that come along the way to interview guests. We'll discuss family through traditions, how to strengthen bonds around the family table, as well as their favorite family recipes. There isn't one right way to feed your family. But there are countless stories, you can take bits and pieces and learn from all of them. Welcome back to another episode of adventures and feeding my fam. I'm so excited for today's episode with Jen Legra. She's amazing. She's got lots of stories, and a great life perspective. She's the creator and author of the blog and website drinking the whole bottle, where she spreads her message of living life, uncorked and infuses spirit and celebration and fun into every aspect of life. She also mentors women, and invites them to show up completely to infuse magic fun and celebration into their business, family and best selves. To get a taste of the fun. join her and husband at their monthly virtual happy hour for a silly good time. Here's the episode I hope you enjoy. Welcome, Jen. I'm so glad you could make it to the podcast today. I think my listeners are really going to love to hear what you have to say because you always bring an energy and enjoyable enthusiasm to the things that you do. So welcome. I'm really glad you're here.

Jen L 01:59 Thank you. So nice to hear. I love getting compliments.

Andrea Heyman 02:03 So so I know you have two kids. Tell the listeners a little bit about your family now. And who cooks who plans the meals, that type of thing? How What does it look like for present day?

Jen L 02:17 So very different, very, very different than how my I'm curious, I have to actually ask my husband, I think his family was a little more sit down and have the meals together. But for me, it looks very different than than how I grew up with family dinners, or the lack there of the traditional sitting around. Right. I don't know how much of it is because our kids are still young. And so while they have after school activities for the most part, everybody's home by five o'clock. So we are and we're we're really on top of the family dinner thing and we make it a big habit and a big deal. Every night. We have like questions that we ask around our dinner table. We try

Andrea Heyman 03:09 I was gonna ask like, do you infuse some of your your fun? Oh, yeah, yeah, games and stuff into your family meals?

Jen L 03:18 We do. I mean, some of it's just for us, it's really about being intentional and trying to, you know, focus on our family, or even kind of inwards. Like, we have a few questions that we asked, the main game that we put on our table is called who loves who. And the only rule is that everybody has to get chosen. And so typically, and it's funny because the kids will as kids do, they will. It's like whoever mentioned the game first is the person who gets to start it. So they're always very like, oh, who am I to? so that they could start off. But so they will then pick somebody who's at the dinner table and say, I love mommy. And it has to be the reason that they give has to be like a specific reason for that day. So I love Mommy, because she helped me with bake cookies for my class. And then so then the turn goes to me. And then I have to choose somebody else and say I love Bobby or your dad because he gave me an hour break and just kind of like you know, let me take a hot bath or something. And so we go around the table until everybody's chosen and everybody gets a chance to pick somebody. And then it just adds like a really warm feeling around the table and then around the meal or whatever it is where and you know, sometimes you get stuck and one of the other stipulation. We've added that You can't, you can't say, I love Bobby because he made this feel because our my is like the main cook of our house. And so I'm like, no, that's not fair. We can't just love him because he makes delicious food. Yeah, buy something else. Hey, it was more than just to cook. Ray, they're still little. And so sometimes we'll let them get away with the more overall basic answers. But we do try to make it like Be specific. Like what about today is a reason that you love your brother or your father or your mother. So that's, that's one of the the ones that we do around the table. And then the other one, which I had gotten, there's a few more but the other one that will do sometimes I got from, I forget her name half her she's the owner of Spanx.

Andrea Heyman 05:54 Oh, right. Okay.

Jen L 05:55 I had seen a video that she did once where her father asked them, like, what was that? What did you fail at today? And she said, just like looking at it. Now. You know, in hindsight, she was exactly what you were saying was gratitude. She would like look for ways that she failed that day. And it was like a sense of pride. Like, well, you failed, but that's great. Like, let's celebrate that failure. And so we'll try to do that one every once in a while just to again, sort of almost like brainwash them into thinking, you know, gratitude is awesome. But failure also teaches you a lot. And so we definitely are very intentional around the dinner table, as opposed to how I grew up that it was kind of like, everybody was eating at separate times in different rooms, and not all together. You know, it's a way to, I don't know, it's just a way to communicate and something to get back communication outside of just like the typical, how is your day, which I think that question could usually just be like as fine.

Andrea Heyman 07:06 Well, it's not close ended questions. So that's fine as an appropriate answer.

Jen L 07:12 Yeah. And so yeah, that that's a big part of our meals and our dinner time together is that sort of being intentional, and like being there together, over Oh, and happens to be over a meal, which is always a win win, because we, we love eating in this house. And so then when we could add something awesome to it. And it's kind of taken on a life of its own, like will we've done some big Thanksgiving dinners, or we have a family that we've done a lot of New Year's Eve, New Year's Eve with, and the kids will be like, we play who loves to and it'll be a table of like, yeah, that's nice. So it becomes everybody's always like, Oh my gosh, like I love this game. Great thing I've done on New Year's Eve or Thanksgiving or so yeah, it's kind of taken on its own little life. And, and it's it's them, right? It's their idea, they bring it up. And so that's super cool. To to watch to see.

Andrea Heyman 08:17 I love that. And the way you talk about it just kind of brings me back to your entire concept of drinking the whole bottle. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you're doing with that?

Jen L 08:31 Yeah, so drinking the whole bottle. When I started it, the joke was that it was that it's a metaphor for life and a confession. And it came from a quote and this the metaphor part of it makes sense when you know the quote, and it's a quote by Paulo Coelho, whose most famous work is the book The Alchemist, but has another book where he says except everything life has to offer. All lines should be tasted, some should be sipped. But with others drink the whole bottle. I'm sure I mangled the quote, but it's essentially just yeah, it's it's essentially about frying everything and some things you're not going to like but you got to probably try those things anyway. And then with the other things that you that you do love, you know, sort of savor every drop of all of that. And so yeah, drinking a whole bottle has since the you know, the the newer tagline is sort of living life on court savoring every drop. And I think just looking through that scope for so long, because I've now had that website for about almost 10 years. I feel like a lot of what we do and the scope that we look through has to do with how can we savor these moments. How do we live life on court It doesn't matter if it's something quote unquote mundane, like sitting around a dinner table. There is a way that you could enjoy that and savor it and make it special and bring some kind of celebration to all of these little things that that you're doing.

Andrea Heyman 10:20 So what's your husband's specialty to make?

Jen L 10:23 And it's almost unfair. I hate talking about it, because especially like wives and I get it. I was lucky. Like, he just and I'm like, What are I make breakfast? Don't have our Forte's. He, he's such a good cook. But I'm part of it. I argue with him a lot. I'm like, you're but you like it? I get so stressed out when I'm making dinner unless it's something that I know really well. I always like I read the directions 36 times and it could be like macaroni and cheese from the box, boil water. And then I you know, and then I come back. I'm like, Okay, wait, boil water. Uh huh. It's just so stressful to me. And he's so natural. In the kitchen, like it doesn't stress him out at all. He just kind of like flows around there. It has a specialty God, I like a go to a regular meal. Right now. And that's because the kids asked for it a lot. But it's, it's essentially this like gournay version of macaroni and cheese. And, and it's evolved from a lot of different ways. And I will take some credit for it because I had this roommate in college, who, whenever we would be just like, tired and hungover The next day, we'd be like, Lauren, please make us your macaroni and cheese. And it was just, it was so good. Like she had her own recipe. And when I was pregnant with our daughter with our first I wrote Lauren and had been like years since I talked to her. And I was like, please, I need that recipe. I want my husband to make it. And so he started kind of making that recipe and then we would play with it. And then we got a recipe from Wolfgang Puck, I think that Yeah, we hang with that was another mac and cheese recipe. And so with all of these recipes, we've just sort of taken different things. And I mean, the kids are every week, we kind of include them in our meal planning to a certain extent because they would ask for macaroni and cheese every week. But they will always ask for mac and cheese to the point that if we're making like a special birthday dinner instead of saying like we order pizza, or you know the typical, I mean, macaroni and cheese is typical for kids, but it's just, it's an epic macaroni and cheese.

Andrea Heyman 13:07 Yeah, their definition of mac and cheese is like this elevated supreme version.

Jen L 13:13 Right? Right. And so actually, the funny story with that mac and cheese is we had neighbors of ours who are teachers at the same school that my husband is a teacher. Somehow we got on the topic of talking about his macaroni and cheese, and they were like, oh, like, would you would you be willing to you know, kind of not a real bat. But we can have like a mac and cheese off. And I was like, I don't think you wanna think you won a battle. And they were you know, so it became this epic, talking a lot of crap. And so we did end up it was like, let's get together and do a Sunday football. Every you know, whoever wants to be involved will bring their best macaroni and cheese. And we'll you know, we'll do sort of like a blind taste test. And so my husband's one and I was like I told you.

Andrea Heyman 14:09 so you involve your kids in the meal planning, then it sounds like

Jen L 14:13 we do pass them. I mean, it's I I feel like it's a good lesson overall. Like, we include them in places that we include them. But the bottom line is a labor of the adults and we make the decisions, right? So we include them and ask them what you would want to eat this week. Again, they will say macaroni and cheese every time. But at the end of the day, we also they might get like a meal in there, that is sort of their choice. But sometimes there's a spin on it or sometimes there's vegetables involved that they didn't talk about. But we also they're, they're really good eaters and I want to take some of the credit for that but I also just Think that they've always been really good eaters. But they'll I mean, sometimes they'll ask for like linguini and white clam sauce, which my husband also makes a really delicious version of that. So they'll lay, and they'll ask for that, which I think is so incredible to have a seven and eight year old be like, have linguini and clams.

Andrea Heyman 15:22 Yeah, but it sounds like you've gotten them involved in the process at a really young age. Do they ever, like help out with the actual food prep, too?

Jen L 15:32 Mm hmm. They do, actually, my son will often wander into the kitchen, which I think is such a beautiful thing, too. Like he sees his dad cooking. So he'll walk in often and say, like, Can I help you? And he does a lot of, you know, like, little, I'm always and again, this is a thing that would stress me out. Because I'd be like, No, you can't hold a knife, like. Whereas I think the dad aspect is like, Sure, let's do this together. And I'm like, I gotta leave the room. Um, but so yeah, they'll come in, and I do a lot more baking, and I'll be my daughter will ask to do more baking with me. And then our son has been really into helping with like prepping meals or and they and they both enjoy it. And then they get to sit down, and they have those bragging rights around the dinner. That's delicious. And they'll say like, well, thank you

Andrea Heyman 16:28 You're ordering your groceries online right now.

Jen L 16:31 Is a Yeah, a combination of both. We actually started earlier this year. And it was funny because my, my husband, in many ways, is, like stuck in the times and some, like, Why don't? Why don't we order food that we don't have to spend two hours of our Sunday like at the grocery store, he's like, no, grocery store, get all the things, okay. And so then every once in a while, we would kind of run low on time, or we'd be cleaning or something, and I'm like, Can I just order from the store. So we don't have that one less, one less thing we have to do this weekend. And he blocked me every once in a while. And then finally, even before COVID, and all of this happened, he was kind of like, um, this is divine. And I'm like, I Oh, I was telling you. And now obviously, with COVID, it's a little bit of both, we will do a lot of our ordering online, and then they you know, they'll deliver it. And then there's just some things that are hard to find or navigate on a website. And so he probably does a once a week trip where he goes to the grocery store, and all of his get up and gear and masks and all of that and get those few things that maybe we couldn't find or, or whatnot. So it's a little bit of a combination of both.

Andrea Heyman 17:59 You've got a hybrid going on. So since you live in Mexico Now, did your food choices change significantly? When you move there are not necessarily food choices, but the types of foods you prepare?

Jen L 18:17 Yeah. I think we've we've always really liked Mexican style food we definitely make more now. So I'm not I think our food choices kind of depend on the season. And like the thing that we're hung up on, like we had when when we started sort of isolating at home. We had like a month or every week. We're just like, oh my god, tacos, tacos, tacos, tacos. And now thinking about it. I don't remember the last and we had tacos. So I feel like depends on the other day, he found some recipe that was like tuna cakes. Which like, they're like crab cakes. But uh, and it was funny because my daughter and I were like, Oh, that sounds not good. And he was like, I made it and you're gonna have to deal with it. I was like, fine, but if nobody likes it right, this back and forth. And then he made it and I was like, I'm so sorry. It was so delicious. Really good. So yeah, I think we always have I don't know this sort of roller coaster of a food Riley we kind of plan out for the week and there's some things that are always Top of Mind that we end up putting in there a lot. And then somehow they rotate out and something else comes in and and on and on. It goes.

Andrea Heyman 19:46 Yeah, phases right.

Jen L 19:48 Yeah,

Andrea Heyman 19:49 You guys have any leftovers in your fridge right now?

Jen L 19:52 Yes, we there and actually what we're eating tonight is leftovers from there's this Mexican restaurant called last chapter. And it is just so good. And one of the bonuses of living in Mexico and ordering Mexican food is like we always over order, just like for much food. And but and it's still so cheap, we ordered so much food. And in the states I can't even imagine like what that would have cost us in here it was like maybe $30 or something. And that fed us. The other whenever was that we ordered it this week, like it fed us the other night. And now it will be a whole other meal for dinner again tonight. And it's just like, how do you even beat that, you know, like, it almost doesn't make sense for us to cook dinner. Or we could order from this delicious, authentic Mexican food restaurant and like the value is incredible. And they make this like, huge tub of this like, I'm going to call it like a tomato sauce. But it's like a red tomato tasting sauce. I'm not a fan of I don't like ketchup. I don't really like tomatoes. And somehow this sauce. I'm like addicted. I put it on my eggs in the morning. And I always over order that actually lunch like lunches have also become a thing that we've given to our kids to do. Because I don't know about you, but we freaking hate making lunch for school. or school. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we haven't had to do it for a while. But we started this maybe like last year, they were still pretty young. But I said to my husband, if we could just buy stuff that they could put together, then we don't have to make lunches anymore. And so we'll have the bottom shelf of the pantry. We'll have like the granola bars, some crackers, maybe gummies, like fruit gummies. And then in the fridge, we might have like mozzarella sticks. And we'll buy cold cuts and sort of things like that. And so every they don't necessarily love it. But Oh, well.

Andrea Heyman 22:13 I'm a huge fan of the grab and go lunch.

Jen L 22:16 Yeah, and I mean, that's what they're gonna most of the time. That's what they're eating. Like, they would come back those lunch boxes. And sometimes I'd be like, there's a whole sandwich in here. Like, why did I make this right when you eat it. And so we would call them into the kitchen at like six o'clock, this sort of night routine would start. And they would take out their lunchbox and they would make it however they wanted to make it and it usually was like a granola bar, some crackers, a take maybe like a couple of slices of ham and some cheese. But they would take and make their own little lunch. I am definitely more of the snack buying person. If it was up to my husband. He's like, cornflakes, no sugar, nothing. And, um, like it's definitely you know, they like my style better better than his but some will have like ice pops and stuff now just because I feel like that's such a fun summer tree. And like really, if that's the only treat we get this whole summer. Like so bad, right? It gets a pretty good you know, it's a I think that works out for both of us. Like we're not doing anything. We're we're pretty much at home all day, they can get an an IC, and call it a day.

Andrea Heyman 23:42 Well, that's awesome. I really loved hearing actually, in general, I like hearing how different people balance their food related tasks between family members. And I really have enjoyed hearing how you guys do it, too. If any of our listeners want to connect with you or hear more about what you're doing in your projects, how can they find you?

Jen L 24:08 Um, the easiest, quickest way right now to find me is probably Instagram. And the handle is at drinking the whole bottle. We have a whole website that has actually the dinner questions that we talked about earlier, there's a whole post where we talk about the for dinner questions that we asked around our table and you can find that on drinking the whole bottles calm. And then yeah, eventually the podcast will come out. And that will also be it's called Happy Hour.

Andrea Heyman 24:39 Our as in like the collective space our.

Jen L 24:42 Mm hmm. But it also says a podcast by drinking the whole bottle. So if you look up drinking the whole bottle as a podcast, it'll come up that way as well.

Andrea Heyman 24:52 Well, I will definitely be looking forward today. Yeah, thank you so much for coming. I appreciate your time.

Jen L 25:00 And I really loved doing this as you know, and thank you so much for having me. Like I'm always so honored when somebody wants to, like interview me or talk about, you know, how we celebrate and all of the intentional stuff, and just even watching what you've been doing through Instagram. I feel like there's, there's so much stuff that's there, and you're adding so much content. And it's just been so fun to watch that growth.

Andrea Heyman 25:28 And I really hope you guys enjoyed that conversation with Jen as much as I did. I don't know if you could tell but I was laughing through most of it. You can find all of her contact information linked in the show notes. So definitely if you're not already, please check out what she's doing. And all of her events with drinking the whole bottle. Stay tuned in weeks to come. I will be announcing some additional things that I'm going to be offering soon. So I hope I'm getting super excited and I hope you guys will stick around with me and join me for the fun too.