1 week Ago
When your kids get picky about dinner, just order “takeout.” “It’s such a fun thing,” Alex MacLaren, who cooks homemade meals and serves them to her unsuspecting children in restaurant takeout containers, tells . MacLaren showed her trick in a captioned, “Telling my kids we got takeout but really, I just packed food I cooked in takeout containers.
” In the video, MacLaren announced to her children, “We ordered in food, this is an Italian place,” while unpacking a brown paper bag. “They sent us a lot of food, you guys!” Removing the lids from tall containers and silver serving platters, MacLaren shared the menu: beans, tortellini minestrone soup and chicken cacciatore with rice. “It looks like they put the sauce right on the rice,” said MacLaren.
“Guys, does this look so good?” adding, “Who wants soup and who wants chicken?” The children cheered, “Me,” “Chicken!” and “I want the big one!” TikTokers said MacLaren’s ruse was near-professional. MacLaren tells TODAY.com that her children, ages 3, 6, and 7, aren’t finicky, but they get excited about restaurant food.
“If my oldest thinks she’s getting a sandwich from Subway, she would eat it, but if made it, she’d say, ‘What is this?’” explains MacLaren. Months ago, MacLaren ordered takeout containers from Amazon to pack her daughter’s lunches; then she realized the trick would also work at dinnertime. MacLaren lives by the rule, “You plate, they pick.
” She serves a variety of kid-friendly food, and while she expects her children to eat fruit and vegetables, she doesn’t worry if they don’t finish all their meals, as long as they’re fed. MacLaren has pulled the takeout trick on her kids three times. So her children don’t always expect restaurant-quality food — “Takeout is a treat in our family,” she says — MacLaren, who runs a cooking channel, pretends that restaurants send free food in exchange for social media advertisements.
“I have to be pretty darn tired to order takeout,” she says. , MacLaren opened a takeout bag from a “Greek restaurant,” claiming an establishment had sent over garlic pita bread, chicken skewers and a Greek salad. “I’m so excited!” exclaimed one child in the video.
When their sibling remarked, “Wait, that’s the same container ...
” MacLaren quickly interjected, “All the restaurants use the same containers.” “I bet you I could make this,” MacLaren told her children in the video. One child answered, “I’d rather a restaurant.
” Mom casts a knowing look at the camera. MacLaren says most people like how she makes dinner fun. “I’ve gotten comments like, ‘You’re lying to your kids’ but gaslighting is a pretty big part of my parenting strategy,” jokes MacLaren, adding, “Why are we overthinking everything?” Elise Solé is an experienced writer and editor who specializes in parenting and pop culture for the TODAY audience.
She’s a former New Yorker who lives in Los Angeles. She loves true crime shows, gummy candy of all types, running and hanging out with her son and husband..
