This week’s Happy Half Hour is dedicated to picky eaters and the people who parent them. Our guest, Kendra Vallone Matthews, founded Hidden Foods Co., a packaged foods line designed to sneak in nutrients without compromising taste. The golf-pro-turned-casual-cook eventually became a hidden food expert while using her kids as taste-testers and balancing the cultural expectations of her Italian heritage.
To that last point, it’s no mistake that Kendra’s first product for Hidden Foods Co. was jarred pasta sauce. She admits to feeling the weight of her ancestors’ culinary traditions. Yet, she found herself, at times, resorting to jarred sauce out of necessity—sacrilege for someone raised in a culture where making red sauce from scratch is almost a religious duty. “Volcanoes erupted in my honor,” she jokes, “because I was using jar sauce.”
This shortcut led Kendra to a significant breakthrough: She developed a method to “hide” nutritious ingredients in dishes that even the pickiest eaters, like her son, would enjoy. This innovation led to her successfully experimenting with other foods and formulations, becoming Hidden Foods. The packaged food integrates vegetables, vitamins, and proteins into familiar and comforting eats like pasta sauces and pancakes. Launched in early 2023, the brand is already available on Amazon and in Seaside Market and Harvest Ranch markets, offering solutions to parents desperate to improve their children’s diets without the nightly dinner table battles.
Kendra explains that Hidden Foods isn’t about substituting entire meals or forcing children into new eating habits. “The idea isn’t to replace all the healthy foods you want your kids to eat, but to help out during snack time or those moments when you just need something quick and easy,” she says.
We discuss how food habits are formed and evolve in ways that are often linked to broader cultural shifts. We touch, too, on how convenience food shaped childhood diets in the 1980s, with Troy joking that if his DNA were analyzed, “it would just be a series of golden arches.” In a world where fast food and convenience often trump nutrition, Hidden Foods offers a creative alternative that’s, as Kendra puts it, “Nonna-approved.”
We also discuss food news: Chef Drew Deckman, whose restaurants have garnered a few Michelin stars over the years, just opened his new restaurant, 31ThirtyOne, in North Park, with his son as its executive chef. Market on 8th in National City is transforming into a Mexican food hall under new ownership. Japanese fast-casual chain Pepper Lunch is expanding with five new locations in North County by 2025, and, in Chula Vista, Alba Restaurant Group is introducing three new restaurants, including an Italian trattoria and a barbecue spot. Lastly, chef Tim Kolanko at The Kitchen, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s onsite oceanfront restaurant, is launching a special dinner series focusing on seasonal ingredients, starting with a corn-themed menu in September.
