Cooking & Disability: Making Quick Meals On School Nights

What I've learned figuring out adaptations in the kitchen

Slicing an apple using adaptive kitchenware. Photo by Lisa DiCarlucci

I was unsure what to expect when I began writing about disability and parenting on Substack earlier this year. 

The month I launched, I was approaching the kitchen for the first time, learning to cook lengthy recipes using adaptive kitchenware as I’m a parent with cerebral palsy of the right side. Noah had been attending daycare three days a week and our schedule was flexible. These routines have drastically changed since January but putting dinner on the table is just as important. 

What I cover on Substack hasn’t waned either. My commitment has only deepened. 

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Learning To Chop, Cook and Let Go As A Disabled Dad

A New Cutting Board and Taming The Tomato

How I’ll Make Noah Lunch For School

Reintroduction: A Substack on Disability and Parenthood

A Long Walk To School

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My day is planned around Noah as I'm a stay-at-home dad. Noah entered pre-kindergarten last week and that means dinner prep time is cut in half as I pick up the little boy from school at 3:00 p.m. instead of 4:30 p.m. when he was in daycare.

Entering the fall season, I’m figuring out how to edit big and small routines now that Noah attends school five days a week.

I also found it rewarding to figure out kitchen adaptations. It was heartening to write about all the tomatoes I sliced with one hand using a rocking knife on a cutting board that has metal spikes so those red things wouldn’t roll away. I didn’t have a concrete schedule when I began writing here. However, I kept going and found my rhythm where I now publish an essay every Tuesday. 

Now that I’m familiar with these cooking adaptations — I can deviate from them. These days, I’m sticking to easy meals that I’ve learned like salmon that bakes in the air fryer and pasta with a helping of vegetables. I’m trying to balance speed with healthy options too. It ends up that Noah prefers greens over proteins so we keep plenty of fresh vegetables in the refrigerator.

We also have bags of frozen veggies in the freezer because I need a side dish heated before Noah finishes dancing to “Pink Pony Club” in the next room.

I take him to school with Lisa who heads toward her train when we reach our village’s center ten minutes into the walk. Then, I circle back for pick-up at 2:30 p.m. In between those hours, I’m writing. I’m writing these essays, longer pieces for publications and doing work for my completed memoir manuscript. There’s also trips to the grocery store and gym where I’m learning to use fitness equipment that works for me. 

Heading to school, I’m not only thinking about the essay I’ll write when I get home, but the steps I’ll take to quickly arrange dinner for Lisa, Noah and myself. Lisa arrives home from work in Manhattan around 5:30 p.m. and I try to time dinner so we can eat right after she walks through the door and gives Noah a hug. 

Noah started helping with dinner by placing napkins and utensils on the table. He’s been learning to spread pancake batter with Lisa on the weekends too. Noah loves his time at the counter and he pretends to cook alongside me with a mini whisk and bowl that doubles as a hat when he’s done being a chef.

Noah helping to make pancakes over the weekend.

My computer is on the kitchen table during meal prep. 

I’ll type quick notes while pasta water boils. When the right words arrive, I have to record them somehow before I forget. I write paragraphs to myself via text message as I travel with an empty stroller reaching Noah’s school. If you ever see me texting myself, don’t worry, those sentences will most likely end up here a few weeks later. I find this method even faster than opening the Notes app. There are chapters of my memoir about disability and family upheaval I wrote on the 4 and 5 subway heading toward One World Trade Center. I had worked at Condé Nast before freelance writing and found my hour and a half commute to be the ideal time to work on my book. 

After school time won’t be for cooking only. They’re late afternoons I get to spend with Noah visiting the park before ladders at the playground are too cold for bare hands. 

There’s been changes since I started this Substack. There will be more.

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Noah’s favorite song this week: What’s better than shouting “hot lava!”

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Read more of my work here:

New York Times: With a Baby on the Way, It Was Time to Embrace My Disability

Writer’s Digest: Adaptations I Learned Writing a Memoir With Cerebral Palsy

USA Today: 'Dadda is disabled': How I teach my son about my cerebral palsy