The Responsible Adults Friendship Club
How to take care of your friends who are taking care of everyone else
I started a merch store! Like me, it is a work in progress.
You can order Responsible Adult Friendship Club sweaters and bags! Or a Probably Worth Sharing T-Shirt! Designs are by me, printed on demand by AOW in Montreal. Because they are printed on demand they can take up to 10 days to ship.
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The Responsible Adults Friendship Club
I once dated a very wonderful man – after our first date I told my friends that it was the first time I felt safe in a relationship. I was with another Responsible Adult. The kind of person who can, and will, solve any problem for everyone in the room (though likely not for themselves). It was the kind of experience that changed something in my brain, that showed me what was missing in my relationships all this time.
And it made me appreciate something about the people I now surround myself with: they are Responsible Adults. We feel safe around each other, so we don’t need to be on red alert – anyone in the group can, and will, solve all the problems that come up.
Once I understood this, I started calling it The Responsible Adults Friendship Club. My friend Larysa is the President of our local chapter. We have sweaters (you can buy one here).
It is very difficult to be a Responsible Adult. I don’t mean the basics, like paying your bills (which seems to get harder every day). I mean being responsible for other people: for their feelings, their well being, their meals, their transportation, their appointments, their home, and if you’re their boss – their mortgage.
My friend Kelly – a Responsible Adult – says, “You have to care the whole time!”
Parenting everyone else since childhood
From a young age I was responsible for way too much. I had to translate my mom’s paranoid delusions for doctors, I had to help my dad through bankruptcy, I had to take care of my sister when she was in and out of the hospital. This started when I was a kid and kept escalating, creeping into my work habits, my friendships, and my relationships.
I had learned to love solving everyone’s problems (except for my own). I was made for this.
After much therapy, I realized that this was not healthy.
Last year I decided to go on a problem solving strike. I would no longer rescue people, starting with my family. I outright stopped taking on any responsibility for my family’s problems. My nieces, then 19 and 14, wanted our traditional family Thanksgiving dinner, which historically I plan, pay for, cook, host, and clean up by myself. I told them if they want Thanksgiving, they could plan it.
They said they would. You will be shocked to learn that we did not have a family Thanksgiving last year.
I did cook a full Thanksgiving meal for myself (and I gave my dad to-go boxes to give my nieces). Still, the girls were upset – which was not my problem to solve! For Christmas they promised they would plan it for real this time – and they did! With a lot of coaching from me. But it was nice to not be responsible for once. I learned not to care if the mashed potatoes were glue (they were) or where my oldest sister was (Who knows? Who cares? Not me.)
The girls tried to make me solve their problems, so instead I responded to everything they asked with a question.
“We usually have Christmas at your house.”
“Is there a question you want to ask me?”
“Well, where are we having Christmas?”
“You guys want a big Christmas, and you said you would plan it. So what question can you ask that will answer your question?”
3 days worth of not asking the obvious question…
“Uh… Can we have Christmas at your house?
“Sure!”
I was always going to say yes, I just needed to be asked.
Being responsible for less is a great feeling, but for the over-responsible among us, it’s difficult to let go. Unless there is another Responsible Adult around, it’s really difficult to believe everything will get done. Which brings me to today’s topic: how to help your friends be responsible for one less thing when life gets overwhelming.
One less thing
My friend Brett – a Responsible Adult – is going to become a dad very soon (like, maybe tomorrow soon?). Brett was my cofounder at FunnelCake. We spent every day for five years working beside each other, and another two years on Zoom. Brett was the person I could count on to fix any problem, to navigate any situation, and he was there to talk it out no matter how hard the reality of the business got. I would not have made it through startup life without Brett, and I am very grateful to have a Responsible Adult like him in my life. He’s going to be a great dad.
Now I have an opportunity to be there for Brett and his wife Jules (Jules is doing the actual hard work here. Hi Jules!) I wanted to help them in the way that I know how: by making them a freezer full of food so they have one less thing to be responsible for as they have a baby thrown into their lives.
So if you want to help the Responsible Adults in your life be responsible for one less thing, consider this my guide to making freezer food for other people. If you are a Responsible Adult without people you can rely on, I encourage you to create your own local chapter of the Responsible Adults Friendship Club.
And I know this is a wild suggestion, that I discovered only after cooking all these meals for Brett and Jules, but you can also make freezer food… for yourself! 😱
Escandalo.
Table of contents
When should you cook for people?
Packaging and portion sizes
How to freeze food effectively
Allergies, preferences, and value systems
Recipes by category
Helping people who aren’t physically close to you
My guide for helping people with food
I often make food for people going through a tough time. Someone died? Lasagna. Surgery? Soup. Breakup? Pastries. Food is my love language. I may not give you a physical hug (we haven’t got to that topic in therapy yet), but I will give you a hug through food.
What does this situation need?
You can cook for anyone, at any time, for any reason.
But there’s a few times you’re going to want to help people with more than one meal, you want to stock up their freezer. Usually it’s when they are going to be very busy, tired, and emotionally depleted: when someone dies, when someone is born, when someone is sick or recovering from surgery, breakups and divorce, and when someone is moving or renovating.
Here’s how I think about these situations:
Provide ready-made meals that can go from freezer-to-oven with little effort and not much cleanup. Chuck it in the oven, set a timer, and you’re done.
Skip recipes that requiring thawing – no one has the mental capacity to be prepared, and they will forget the next day the food is thawing in the fridge and throw it out with their sad container of baby spinach.
Opt for comfort food: these situations sap your willpower.
Keep meals high protein so they are filling.
Let them know your plans
Some people – not me – love surprises. But if you are showing up at someone’s home with one or many meals, it’s important to talk to them about it first, particularly if you don’t eat with them or their family often. Food is very personal, and if they are going through a health issue or pregnancy their diet may have changed. So before you run to the grocery store, here’s a few questions to ask your friend:
“I would like to make some meals for you, how much room do you have in your freezer?”
“Do you have any favourite comfort foods?”
“Is there anything you or your family can’t eat right now?”
“Do you have any food preferences or allergies in your home?”
Get ahead of guilt and shame
Many people – especially the Responsible Adults – are not used to being taken care of. It’s a foreign concept to them to receive love and care without the expectation that the other person wants something in return.
I’ve cooked for a lot of people over the years and there are two kinds of protests. The fake polite kind, such as:
“Oh, no you don’t have to.”
“This is too much!”
“Doesn’t somebody else deserve this more than me?”
The second protest is the “I do not want you to cook for me” kind, such as “We’re going to manage this situation ourselves. I appreciate the offer, but we have it under control.” Don’t push on this.
For the first group, I’ve started to head these off, mostly because I’m tired of people not believing they deserve to be loved or cared for. Everyone, including you, is worthy of love.
“This is something I want to do for you, because I care about you. You are worth the effort for me.”
“I can’t help you get past the grief/raise the baby/recover from surgery, but I can make you some delicious food so you have one less thing to worry about. I want to do this for you.”
If you’re on the receiving end of someone being kind to you, I suggest you flip your internal and external script:
Turn “I’m sorry that I need so much help” into “Thank you for taking care of me.”
Turn “I don’t deserve this.” into “Thank you for prioritizing me.”
Turn “You’re too good to me.” into “I’m so grateful I have someone like you in my life.”
How you talk to yourself and about yourself is really important. Be kind to yourself.
Packaging and Portion Sizes
The easy thing to do is to make a full size 13x9” lasagna and send it over. But I want you to stop and think about who this food is going to first.
Do they live alone? Are they a couple? A family?
Adjust the portions to the family size
A full size lasagna is 12 servings. I live alone, which means a full size lasagna for me is a commitment – it would be lunch and dinner for 6 days (which is past the general food safety rule of 5 days for leftovers). This means I will either throw out lasagna or not even bake the lasagna until I can share it with others. For couples, the same idea applies.
Think about portions as coming in three sizes:
Single servings, that you can take from freezer to oven (or microwave) – a bowl of soup, a single tiramisu, individual egg bites, cookies, or pastries. These are great for everyone – single people, couples, and families.
2-person meals, which fit into ~5 cup containers. These are perfect for single people (leftovers for 1 meal!) and couples.
Family-sized meals, which fit into 13x9 containers.
You don’t necessarily have to change your recipes, especially for casseroles, soups, and pasta bakes – simply use smaller containers and make more portions.
For Brett and Jules, I made them a mix of single servings and 2-person meals. Every new parent should be able to make a single chocolate chip cookie from the freezer at 3am. Whether Jules starts counting the chocolate chip cookie dough balls as it becomes depleted is another story. (Jules: I will make you more cookie dough if Brett eats all of it before you, like that time he ate all of the miso peanut butter cookies at work.)
Put the cooking directions on the packaging
Brett, bless his heart, has no idea what is about to happen to his life when this baby is born. My oldest niece was born when I was 16, my sister lived at home with us, and I remember the experience vividly.
Writing the instructions is very tedious and annoying, but so important. You want to write very clear instructions for things that seem obvious to you:
“Cook from frozen” or “Thaw in the fridge before baking”
“Bake at 350 for 45–60 minutes, until bubbling in the middle”
“Brush the pastry with a beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar before baking”
“REMOVE THE CARDBOARD LID BEFORE BAKING! I KNOW YOU ARE TIRED! THAT’S WHY THIS IS UNDERLINED! REMOVE THE LID BRETT! IT WILL SET ON FIRE!”
If you are using glass or plastic packaging, I recommend buying some easy-to-remove labels (because no one wants to scrub adhesive off a glass jar when they also have to sanitize baby bottles.)
Assume you are never getting your packaging back
I joke with my friends that all of my nice glass containers are distributed across Kitchener. I will never see them again. I am fine with this, as the imposition of my glass containers and plates reminds my friends not to use plastic. But I am also sad, because I liked them. (I want my glass containers back.)
Pick containers that can easily go from freezer-to-oven, or freezer-to-microwave, or in the case of soups, have no lip so they can be emptied without fully thawing.
Aluminum disposable containers: My preference is to use these disposable aluminum containers. They are affordable. They are sturdy. They can go from freezer to oven without any worries. You can write instructions on the cardboard lid. Your friends are less stressed because it’s one less thing to think about, feel guilty about, or wash.
While aluminum is infinitely recyclable, you do need to wash these to recycle them. In my region, the guidance is to throw out any aluminum with caked on food.
I used the EHomeA2Z aluminum trays, 5-cup and 13x9, which are made in the USA.
Glass or ceramic freezer-to-oven safe containers: Glass and ceramic containers are amazing, and the only environmentally friendly option. But they are expensive and you need to check they are freezer-to-oven safe: borosilicate, tempered glass is safe, but other glass will shatter with the extreme heat change. Generally for glass and ceramic containers you want to instruct people to put them in a cold oven, so they gradually warm as the oven pre-heats. If you go from a -30 freezer to a preheated 425 oven your container is likely to shatter (borosilicate glass has a 275 degree range of flexibility). Make sure you write this on every single container!
Glass jars: Glass jars are a great option for soups, stocks, chillis, beans, etc. You need to check that the jars are freezer safe, as some can crack in the freezer. I most often use Weck Jars, since they have no lip. This means when you go to cook food, you can quickly run the outside under hot water and the frozen block will fall right out.
Compostable vacuum sealed bags: Plant-based (PLA), food-safe vacuum sealed bags can be a great option, as they are single-use compostable plastic. VestaEco is a popular compostable option, around $1 each.
Vacuum sealed food keeps exceptionally well in a freezer since it doesn’t allow freezer burn.
It’s easy to transfer to a pot or pan to bake, since you can cut the food out.
If you freeze the food flat (see below), it takes up so much less space in the freezer.
You can, of course, buy the dead dinosaur plastic vacuum seal bags as well. But why would you?
Parchment paper: Parchment paper is great for single servings in one big container. When unbleached, it’s compostable. It’s non-stick. It’s great to separate layers, for example if you are wrapping burritos, layering egg bites, or pastries for single
Silicone ice cube trays: Silicone ice cube trays come in a variety of sizes, from 1tbsp to 2 cups. These are great for freezing soups, stews, stocks, etc. because you can pop them out as big blocks, move them to a different storage container (like an aluminum or glass container), and when it comes time to cook everything is already measured. The downside is that they are very expensive and you want to avoid cheap silicone. While quality silicone is biologically inert and non-toxic, it’s a forever material that will never biodegrade.
Plastic quart containers: Plastic quart containers are popular because they are cheap and easy, and many people believe they are infinitely reusable. I’m not a fan of plastic and food, and the aluminum containers are the same price. But you do you.
Silicone zipper freezer bags: Silicone freezer bags are expensive, not recyclable, and silicone is a forever material that will never biodegrade. Poor quality silicone can leach smells into food. It’s reusable, but that’s all it has going for it.
Plastic zipper freezer bags: The easy, affordable option that’s accessible to everyone. The main downside is single-use plastic pollution.
Freezing food with care
Yes, you can chuck basically anything into the freezer – but there are a few small things you can do to make sure the food holds up really well.
Make space: Clean your freezer so you have space before getting started. If you don’t have space in your own freezer, make room in your fridge and deliver the food to your friend the day or day after you make it so they can freeze it.
Make your trays sturdy and straight: You want a flat area so the food freezes in a sturdy, level way. It’s worth the effort to do this properly. If you’re operating with a chest freezer, set up a large baking sheet inside the freezer and do your best to make it level on top of whatever chaos is there.
If you are using large, flexible aluminum containers or vacuum/zipper bags, assemble your dish on a baking sheet and transfer it to the freezer on the baking sheet. Once full of food it will weigh several pounds, and thinner trays may be prone to bending, and possibly fall over and spill all your food onto the floor. Or it will freeze in a weird shape that will cause spills later, or be difficult to store.
Freeze individual items solid before transferring to containers: For things like cookie dough balls and fresh pasta, you can lay them flat on a small baking sheet – like a 1/4 sheet tray – and freeze them solid. The next day transfer them to a freezer-safe container or freezer bag. This will help prevent them from distorting as they freeze, and they will be less prone to sticking together.
Wrap single serve items: For single-serve items, like burritos, egg bites, or pancakes, separate them with pieces of parchment paper so they do not glue together into one giant mass that must be thawed before cooking. The last thing you want is to rip half the tortilla off a burrito when trying to make breakfast.
Freeze liquids in easy-to-thaw formats: Generally I like to freeze soups, stews, and chilis in compostable vacuum sealed bags. I lay the bags flat, so they freeze into a thin sheet. These can be easily stacked in your freezer, like file folders, and will thaw in 10 minutes in a bowl of water. The freezer bags are much easier to empty (since you can just cut the bag) compared to jars, which may have lips that require substantial thawing.
If you are freezing liquids in jars, I strongly prefer jars without a lip – like Weck Jars – since the frozen mass will easily fall out of the jar.
Leave headroom in your containers: Water expands when it freezes, and food is mostly water. It’s tempting to fill your containers to the brim, but you need to leave at least 1/2” to 3/4” at the top of your containers for your food to expand as it freezes. If you do not do this, metal containers will deform (and potentially leak while baking) and glass containers will shatter (rendering the food inedible).
Choosing recipes
Don’t impose your values when doing a good deed
When I was researching food to make for new parents, I came across this New York Times article. The article itself is fine, but what struck me was the comments – half the comments were people raging about the calories, the fat, the dairy. Where are the salads for new mothers?!
I have never been a new mother, but I can only assume new mothers don’t want salads. They are burning 500 extra calories a day from nursing. They haven’t slept in six months.
While you may be a health nut, it’s not your place to impose that on someone else – especially not someone who is healing, or grieving, or tired, or sad, or has no kitchen appliances. There is a time for salads, and there is a time for comfort.
Similarly, if you know one of your friends is on a specific diet – respect that. That is their choice, and it’s not a healthy relationship technique to sabotage them.
Ask about allergies and food preferences, then respect those
If you are cooking specifically for someone else and they tell you their preferences, and you ignore them, then you are putting your own needs before theirs. That is selfish and will ruin your good deed. “I just don’t understand why they don’t like olives?”
It’s not in your control to make them like olives. It’s in your control to respect their personal choices, and you should respect their personal choices if you want to have a healthy relationship with them and provide them with comfort.
Look, if you’re cooking for a dinner party and one of twelve guests dislikes olives – I get it. But this isn’t a post about dinner parties. This is a post about cooking for a specific person/people as a gift to make them feel better.
Recipes
I spent some time brainstorming with my friend Christina – a Responsible Adult – on what should go into this gift package for Brett and Jules. I did not make everything on this list, but I wanted to share it to give you some ideas. To keep this newsletter organized, I’ve linked to the recipes I developed on my website or to people who have a very reliable recipe I use all the time.
A few recipes are missing links, as I make these by feel and have not written down my own recipes yet, so Google these at your own risk. I’ll update the web version of this post as I get everything written down in a repeatable way.
Breakfasts
I tend towards breakfasts that are fast and easy, because no one has time in the morning. These are smaller, single-serving items you can reheat in minutes, or in the case of granola take no reheating.
Granola – store in clean glass jars at room temperature, it’ll keep for 1–2 months (and you can mail it!)
Egg bites – freeze individually, separating layers with parchment
Breakfast burritos – wrap in parchment so they don’t freeze into one solid blob.
Pancakes – freeze in a single layer, separated by parchment. Reheat in the toaster.
Waffles
Quiche – Freeze whole, in smaller single-serve pie plates, or as slices (I use Jessica Koslow’s recipe from Everything I Want To Eat, here’s a similar version by her in Bon Appétit.)
Pasta bakes
Pasta and pasta bakes are perfect for freezer-to-oven meals. They are comforting and delicious. These can all be frozen directly in their containers.
I also included a package of home-made pasta stuffed with beets and ricotta (recipe from Flour + Water). I was making it already for a dinner party, so I doubled the recipe to have extras. I froze the pasta on a baking sheet, then transferred it to a container.
Casseroles
Like pasta bakes, casseroles lend themselves perfectly for freezer-to-oven meals. These can all be frozen directly in their containers.
Chicken pot pie (follow the white bean pot pie recipe below, but replace the beans with cooked shredded chicken and top with puff pastry)
Shepherds pie
Enchiladas
Cabbage rolls
Scalloped potatoes
French toast bake
Sausage and egg casserole
Soups, stews, and chilis
Soups, stews, and chilis are always comforting. Depending on the final consistency, you may opt to freeze these in jars or freezer bags that are easier to transfer to a pot for reheating.
Shakshuka 🌱 – shakshuka is served with eggs baked in the stew, which should not be frozen. I added directions to add eggs after re-heating. It’s still good without eggs if they choose not to do that.
Minestrone 🌱
Chili
Breads
Sliced sourdough bread (see demo in this video, freeze after baking/slicing)
Feta-stuffed flatbread (I use Claire Safftiz’ recipe, freeze after cooking)
Tortillas (I use Rick Martinez’s recipe from his great book Mi Cocina, freeze after cooking)
Dinner rolls (KAF recipe is pretty good, freeze before baking)
Frozen croissant dough (freeze before baking, I make sourdough croissants with the recipe from Tartine Bread but I would also recommend Claire’s recipe.)
Desserts
I like to freeze desserts as single-serving options. Of course you can bake the whole batch, but this gives your person the option to have just one cookie at a time.
Brown butter chocolate chip cookie dough (I use Claire Saffitz’s recipe)
Oatmeal cookie dough
Crying snacks dough (adapted from Buttery French TV Snacks)
Scones (this is Marci’s recipe and yes you need all that baking powder, freeze before baking)
Puff pastry filled with jam (there is no recipe, it's just puff pastry… and jam. Follow the shaping instructions from the mushroom pastries. Freeze before baking.)
Single-serve crumbles and cobblers (freeze before baking)
Cinnamon rolls (I use the recipe from Modern Sourdough, your Googling may vary. Freeze before baking.)
People physically far from you
Many of my friends are spread out across the US and Canada – San Francisco, LA, Portland, New Jersey, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, Yarmouth. Often this means when my friends need support it’s difficult for me to be physically present or give them food that I made.
Delivery apps and gift cards are the easy, obvious option. But sometimes you want to do something a bit more personal, or even… ridiculous.
The cousin-cousin network
I have a few friends who know of each other, but do not know each other, in the same city. This has led to some projects, such as:
I ordered Tartine delivery to friends in San Francisco, who redirected it in a Lyft to friends in Alameda (where Tartine does not deliver), to help with recovery from surgery.
I had my friends wait in line at Arsicault, bakers of the best croissant in San Francisco. They don’t do delivery, so my friend Miles bought a dozen croissants to throw in a Lyft for my friends birthday (thank you Miles!).
Croissantmas
In 2020 I had learned how to make croissants at home. I made them every weekend with my nieces, leaving them on the porch for my friends to pick up. My friends around the world were watching this and sharing their jealousy they couldn’t be physically present to try the croissants.
For Christmas 2020, when everyone was in lockdown and unable to travel home or see family – the loneliest Christmas – I decided to overnight ship home-made croissants to my friends. It was a very funny moment. They had watched the croissants get made on my Instagram stories, and 12 hours later they showed up their doors.
Was it ridiculously expensive? Yes. Was it worth it? Yes.
Granola by mail
My friends have recently taken inspiration from my granola recipes and Croissantmas to do their own food-by-mail care packages. My granola recipes have turned out to be perfect for this task: granola is shelf stable, durable in transit, and customizable to make a personal gift. A friend of mine recently started sending granola to her sister every month. It’s been a fun way for them to connect – to discuss the flavours, enjoy the ridiculous nature of home-made food in the mail, and to support her sister through a challenging time.
Visit if you can
I have some other friends who are expecting, who live far away – so we made a plan for me to visit them and cook in their kitchen, which will be super fun! They are very dear to me, so the trip is worth doing.
Small gestures matter
It can be intimidating to cook for other people, but I promise you that the people you’re cooking for will appreciate the gesture. You don’t have to be ridiculous like me and make a full freezer of food.
One meal is enough!
And if you’re intimidated of cooking for someone who cooks really well (like me), don’t be. Home made food is special. Love really is a secret ingredient. And I promise you, the gesture means so much.
One of my favourite things every year is the wonderful 80s mom foods that my friend Kelly makes me every year for Christmas. I love ever last bite of it. It’s not the kind of food I make, but it’s food that love.
If you don’t know where to start, make my mac and cheese recipe – it’s relatively easy, low cost, and packs a punch of flavour. If you really don’t want to cook, there are great options everywhere – here in KW Dana Shortt Gourmet has deliverable freezer meal packages you can send to people when they need some extra care.
Help people do less.
Be a Responsible Adult. Join our club. We have cookie dough in the freezer.
Thanks, Marko, for the great advice, ideas, and techniques. Food is such a great way to show you care and to provide practical support. Your creativity, determination, and thoughtfulness are beautiful.