The Mental Load of Meal Prep: An Interview with Feast & Fettle Co-Founder
Raising a family is a unique and individual experience that often has different highs and lows depending on the person. But one thing is constant: We all need to feed our families and getting there carries some stress (regardless of who you are).
Our friends at Feast & Fettle, a local service that delivers meals prepared by professional chefs, are doing incredible work to help alleviate this pain point for parents. We’re thrilled to share how the business came about and announce an exciting workshop for our local parents this month!
Join us as we explore the layered complexities of The Mental Load of Meal Prep at our LIVE workshop on September 19th at 6:30pm in Cambridge, MA. Sponsored by Feast & Fettle, this event welcomes real-time conversation with experts in the field who will bring validation and solutions to the table.
One of our panelists is none other than Feast & Fettle Co-Founder, Maggie Mulvena Pearson. Learn more about Maggie and the mission behind Feast & Fettle below.
Q: You were a private chef and nanny ahead of launching Feast & Fettle. Can you talk about your initial inspiration and goals behind building your meal-delivery service?
A: Sure! So the first family I worked for as a private chef was the same family of five who I was also nannying for. And that experience of being heavily involved with making their meals was really informative for me in understanding how much of a pain point mealtimes can be for a lot of parents. When you have a million things to do every day just to keep life on track (I’m talking work, laundry, commutes…) it can get tricky to find time to just connect as a family. Answering the what’s-for-dinner question when you don’t have a plan and scrambling to make creative, nourishing, approachable meals 21 times a week can really set things over the edge of capacity.
As I began private cheffing for more and more families, I saw how my cooking removed that pain point for my clients. Not having to worry about grocery shopping or meal prepping gave them back literal hours each evening to spend time with one another. There was time to actually sit down to dinner all together before the whole bedtime hustle, and it made a difference in people’s lives. This experience was really the catalyst behind the launch of F&F. I was looking for a way to reach more households, and over time I decided the logical next step was to build a local fully-prepared meal delivery service with a weekly-curated menu. And over the years, Feast & Fettle hasn’t changed so much as it’s just grown exponentially.
Q: In starting out, who did you see benefiting most from a service like yours?
A: My co-founder Nikki and I have always worked to make our service as accessible as possible for families, and from the beginning we had family and couples plans. Eventually we added singles plans, but to this day most of our members have kids.
But going back to our early days, I honestly built the service with predominantly mothers in mind. And don’t misunderstand me, it’s not that I think moms should be the only ones in charge of feeding their families. It’s just that they’ll really often assume that role even if no one’s assigned it to them. Considering all the other invisible labor women tend to carry out, I wanted to offer a true solution for serving nutritious meals that moms wouldn’t have to think twice about.
Plus, my private cheffing clientele grew from a community of female physicians—so moms have kind of always been at the center of the conversation at F&F.
Q: The F&F mission is to “nourish everyday life.” How did you becoming a mother impact that mission?
A: It just reinforced everything we were already doing. I mean, I’m a member of the service myself, and getting fully-prepared meals dropped at my door after having kids was and is a lifesaver. In becoming parents, my husband and I learned how time becomes so restrictive and precious—and it helped me understand the majority of our members so much better. Cooking and meal-prepping becomes SO much harder when you have kids, even if you’re like me and you still really want to cook. Before my boys started school, Feast & Fettle was what kept my family and me from surviving on solely cereal, crackers, and takeout. And I’m a trained chef!
Also, so many F&F staffers have young children, so we’re always looking at our service through the lens of a busy parent.
Q: What sorts of pain points do you experience when cooking and meal-prepping for your own family?
A: I love this question because, being a chef, I don’t get it a lot. But like almost any parent, my biggest pain point while cooking is my kids just being chaotic. I’m trying to focus on my task but also keep them away from the oven, the stove, sharp things… It’s ridiculous trying to do it alone. Plus, my chef background often makes me overthink dinner first before I realize it could have been simpler. Even though I know that picky eating is developmentally normal and I have a lot of techniques to curb it, I still find myself wanting to share special dishes with my kids—and it’s kind of devastating when they just immediately shut it down and refuse to eat any of it.
It’s also just hard because the need never goes away. Everyone needs to eat and that won’t ever change. I think parents are mentally tasked almost no matter what choice they make. Maybe one day you’re beating yourself up over serving fast food because you don’t have the time to make a good dinner. Maybe you’re serving the same thing over and over and you feel bad about the lack of variety. Or maybe you’re even pulling out all the stops and making something really nutritious and satisfying, but that still comes with a ton of time and stress. If it makes anyone feel any better, I didn’t cook all week because things were crazy, and cooking is literally my profession. At the end of the day, we all have to give ourselves grace because we’re doing the best that we can.
