Experiment No. 8: The Big Pot

The Basics

We’re Trying to Solve: Reducing the daily 6 o’clock dinner scramble
Target Audience: Families, housemates
Ages: 3 and up
Category: Household chores
Estimated Time: 1 to 1 ½ hours
Difficulty Level: Easy (some prep)

Having a healthy meal on the table every night can be a big source of stress for families. During the holiday season, that pressure can grow, when you’re getting home from work after dark, and likely have a number of family obligations in the evenings. Here’s one experiment to help families not only share dinner load but take the stress out of the daily dinner scramble and even have some fun! The goal here is to get the whole family involved in cooking one big meal before the craziness of the week has started and enjoy that dinner a few times throughout the week when you’re most pressed for time.

As always: Make sure to be clear who “owns” which particular mental or physical task involved in getting dinner on the table. Being explicit about this is the first step to making invisible labor visible!

Directions

1. On their own, family members spend a little time through the week thinking of a delicious Big Pot dish that would be fun to cook together and could provide several dinners throughout the week. For inspiration, peruse cookbooks or websites like Allrecipes.com, which has a number of suggestions for One Big Pot Pot meals. Older siblings or family members can help little ones find dishes they like.
2. Gather the family, perhaps over dinner on Friday, or breakfast or lunch on Saturday. Each family member shares their suggested recipe. The family votes on which recipe to cook, and which nights to have the Big Pot meal and leftovers.
3. If the family is having a difficult time choosing a recipe, or there’s an even number of family members, choose a Big Pot Chef to make the final decision. (The Chef position can be a rotating position from experiment to experiment.)
4. Make a plan for dividing up the grocery shopping, the food prep, the cooking, and the clean-up, and set a time to cook together. Let people volunteer and play to their strengths. Make sure the division of work is fair, and that no task is going unseen. Make sure every task has a backup person, so everyone is accountable.
5. Enjoy shopping, prep, cooking, and clean up. Notice how it feels to do the work of the family together. If you’re worried about having the whole family together at once, then do it all in one morning, afternoon, or evening, so you have everyone involved and don’t lose some participants so the work falls on the usual suspects.
6. As you eat your Big Pot meal, everyone takes a moment to say thank you to everyone who contributed! Talk about what you noticed, or what you liked about the experiment. Do you want to make this a weekly or monthly ritual, so weeknight dinners aren’t so stressful?

Connect With the Better Life Lab

Are you going to try this week’s experiment? Do you have a story about how you and your own family solved a problem with the work at home? Is there a specific challenge you’ve been trying to tackle? Can this experiment be improved? Please let us know via this form, at bllx@newamerica.org, or in our Facebook group for BLLx Beta Testers.

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