Can You Solve These Impossible Family Dinner Brain-Teasers?
Riddle: Your spouse wants something interesting and different. Your kids only eat something that isn’t interesting or different.
Hey, whiz kids! Put on your thinking caps, because this set of mind-bending puzzles is the hardest one we’ve encountered yet. It was submitted by Jane Dempsey from Madison, WI, and is supposed to have taken its inspiration from real-life events! (Cool!)
This challenge will test your riddle-solving, math skills, spatial awareness, street smarts, and so much more! In fact, NO ONE has successfully worked out this challenge fully, making it a heretofore UNSOLVABLE challenge. The puzzle-maker has included some in-between steps, tips, and tricks along the way, in case they help! Good luck!
THE CHALLENGE
It’s 5 PM and you need to feed a family of five in ninety minutes.
Your spouse wants:
something interesting and different.
You want:
something healthy.
Your kids will only eat:
something that isn’t interesting, different, or healthy.
Question:
Can you make a meal that satisfies everyone?
Supplies:
You check your refrigerator and pantry, finding the following supplies at your disposal:
-Leftover chicken
-One slice of American cheese (date of origin undetermined)
-Mustard
-Ketchup
-Giant bottle of rice wine vinegar
-Bread — wait, nevermind
-Freezer-burned spinach
-Sprinkles
BEGIN!
(STEPS AND HINTS SHOWN BELOW)
Step 1: Solve the following riddle: When is a dinner interesting, different, healthy, AND uninteresting, not different, and unhealthy?
Answer: There is no answer.
Step 2: Waste thirty minutes looking online for ideas. Now you are hungrier, less adept at coming up with ideas, and only have an hour left.
Step 3: Regret not starting a slow-cooker recipe this morning.
Step 4: Oops! Turns out that leftover chicken is a single ham bouillon cube, and the dog licked it. Nobody saw it happen, though. Do you:
A) Keep the dog and get rid of the cube?
B) Keep the cube and get rid of the dog?
C) Keep both and make ham-and-dog soup?
D) Realize that hunger has begun to compromise your decision-making abilities?
Answer: Shake yourself out of the stupor and hug your dog.
Step 5: If you want to go to the store, now is your last chance.
Step 6: You decide on a recipe. However, it has been made by a Czech mommy-blogger for a family of one.
Math! Scale this recipe to feed a family of five for one night, plus leftovers.
1/2 teacup honey
15 mL water
1 L + 5g milk
4 kilos organs meat
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World Languages! Though these ingredients have been Google-translated into English, you still do not know what they are. Determine their meaning.
- courgettes
- khmeli suneli
- chlebicky
- grandpas
Answers: irrelevant
Step 7: You realize the time is now 5:45. Your slow-wittedness has made your choice for you, and you can no longer go to the store for any of these exotic ingredients.
But you can make one of the following pantry dinners! They save money and reduce waste. Choose one from below:
A) Vinegar sprinkles
B) Spinach next to cheese
C) Learn how to harness the mold in bread. (Is that how sourdough works?)
D) A bottle of mustard
Answer: You really need to go shopping.
Step 8: It is 6 PM, but you must go to the store anyway. Take one child with you. Leave other kids at home. Wait —
Question: Is an 11-year-old capable of babysitting a 6-year-old? You have sixty seconds to answer.
Answer: Sure, they’ll be fine. (Probably?)
Note: You may have left a lighter out somewhere.
Step 9: Get groceries.
Step 10: Round down on charity while checking out. Kid saw.
Step 11: Return home. Get out frozen pizzas.
Step 12: Throw away salad plastic.
Step 13: Using these incompatible oven instructions, how can you get dinner made without it taking all night?
Answer: Some kind of time travel or Hermione’s watch or something.
Step 14: Using the image below, divide this pizza into slices that will seem fair to three children and another adult. (Use as many cuts, appliances, and protractors as you need.)
Step 15: In a stroke of luck, the children have figured out where they will sit: Ashley wants to sit somewhere that has a lot of leg room (she would also like one slice of pizza). Paul does not want to sit next to the baby, hates pink, and wants two slices of pizza. The baby gets cut-up bits of pizza, or it will die. The person who wants the blue plate is everybody.
Using the diagram and grid below, find a solution that will make everyone happy.
Step 16: When kid asks if they have to eat salad, say “yes,” but also don’t follow up to check.
Step 17: You have not offered dessert, but a child has somehow eaten some anyway. The other children are in unendurable pain from the unfairness of this act. With the wisdom of King Solomon from the Bible, what is the fairest way to resolve this conundrum?
A) The dessert-eater is to be punished.
B) The non-dessert-eaters shall be recompensed with the same amount of dessert.
C) Because there is no more dessert, a new dessert shall be bought so that the non-dessert-eaters may eat the same amount of dessert. Because there is so much new dessert left over, the offending dessert-eater is allowed to try the new dessert.
D) The dessert-eater shall be cut in half.
The answer, confoundingly, is C.
Step 18: It’s 10 PM. You’ve given up on all of your goals. You are, however, alive: a goal you didn’t realize you had until halfway through this process.
Congratulations. I guess.
