The family meal. What is it, you ask? It’s a meal that is prepared for restaurant staff before their dinner service starts, providing them with necessary nutrients before their busy shift. Here at Food Network, ours takes place at lunch-time. Starting now, I will be giving you a sneak peek at what we feed our staff in the Food Network Kitchens on a weekly basis.

Yes, we do eat in Food Network Kitchens, and yes, it’s really good. Family meals are always interesting. They consist of different types of meat or poultry pulled out of the freezers, as well as vegetables, filling salads and an occasional dessert. These items are left over from various shows and recipe developments for Food Network. This week, Esther Choi (pictured above), took charge of Family Meal and asked our new intern Emily to assist her (more like an initiation). Esther is especially good at making Korean food.

The menu: Duck Lettuce Wraps With Kim Chi Pickles and grilled cheese sandwiches.

An odd combination, yes, but we had left-over duck in the freezer from a recipe that someone was testing to be paired with Food Network’s wine, entwine, and Vanilla Ice was here making grilled cheese sandwiches for DIY Network on Saturday. We try to be a bit healthy on Mondays so Esther chose lettuce for wraps instead of making steamed buns. As for the grilled cheese sandwiches, we had a wide variety of cheeses to choose from including Swiss, blue, fontina and fresh mozzarella. (Vanilla Ice chose good old American slices for his.) Not only can he rap and flip houses, he can also make a mean grilled cheese sandwich.