
Inside The S.F. Family Life Of Sarah Picard & Jessica Battilana
Written by Katie Hintz-Zambrano
Photography by Molly DeCoudreaux
From their beautiful, classic San Francisco home to their loving philosophy when raising their boys (Ellis, 6, and Sid, 4), there’s a lot to adore about mamas Jessica Battilana and Sarah Picard. The two have rich, diverse careers—Sarah works in biotech and Jessica works as a part-time chef at her children’s school, as well as a cookbook author—and it’s inspiring to see how they split up their parenting duties in order to best support each other and their lively family. Take a peek into their home below, and read along as they talk about raising two wild boys, the importance of family dinner, “mom guilt,” and Jessica’s brand-new cookbook, Repertoire: All the Recipes You Need, which—despite coming out just this week—is already a best-seller. Bon appétit!
- Jessica: "We bought our condo in 2009. At that point Sarah was traveling a lot for work and so I actually came to see it for the first time myself. We’d already been outbid on five other properties, so I was learning not to become too attached to anything. We got lucky; this was around Thanksgiving so the market was slower, and the previous owners had already purchased a new home elsewhere so they were eager to sell. I didn’t realize it when I first visited, but I later figured out that I’d actually been in the home before—it was owned by a food photographer with whom I’d collaborated on a project. Sarah was in Singapore when we signed all the papers to purchase our place, and then I went to join her for a trip through Vietnam. We flew back to the States and moved everything to our new house the same day—we were so excited!" Jessica wears an Everlane t-shirt and Imogene + Willie jeans. Sid wears an H&M tank top and Janie and Jack jeans. Sarah wears a Zara top, Levi’s jeans, and Dieppa Restreppo boots. Ellis wears a Bobo Choses sweater and Gap pants.
- Sarah: "Our home is pretty small for a family of four, but fortunately Jessica and I are both organized types who tend not to accumulate tons of things that we don’t need and/or love. Often we prefer objects that have some history and I really enjoy the process of shopping on Craigslist and second-hand stores, so it can take some time to track down a new piece of furniture. Like bedside table lamps—we’ve been talking about finding the right ones for at least the last year!"
- Sarah: "We try to keep it corralled, but our house is small, so it’s not uncommon to find Legos under the dining room table, Matchbox cars—well, everywhere—and other kid stuff around. It’s their house, too, but we do ask them to clean up at the end of the day and get everything back to their room."
- Jessica: "I love that our two-mom family is not an anomaly here in San Francisco. We both grew up in very homogenous states (Vermont and Maine), so I appreciate that our kids live in a more diverse environment. I love that we can be in the country or at the ocean or in the mountains relatively quickly, while still living in a city. But yeah, we talk about moving back East often, since both of our families are all there. Maybe Portland, Maine? But we’ve gotten so soft on winter!"
- Jessica: "We all love Rintaro, our friend Sylvan Brackett’s Japanese izakaya. He’s a brilliant cook and a dad of a five-year-old, so he understands what it’s like to eat out with small kids. They make a kids’ bento box that our boys love. I actually don’t really love clothes shopping, but I find things I like at Onyx. For special occasion jewelry, there is no better shop than Metier in Hayes Valley. I will always and forever love Zuni Cafe. Everything Michelle Polzine makes at 20th Century Cafe is perfect (especially the bagels)." Sarah: "Here are a few places we always go back to: Verve for coffee and amazing cookies. For tacos: La Taqueria and Nopalito. For shopping, I love Held Over on Haight, for well-priced second-hand Levi’s."
- Jessica: "Unfortunately we have no family living out here, but we’ve got a good group of friends and have finally developed a great network of babysitters."
- Jessica: "What a gift it is to see these kids grow up. I can’t wait to see what they’ll do, who they will be." Sarah: "When kids are babies, parents always experience a bit of mourning along with the excitement of each milestone, and I definitely remember looking at other people’s older kids and wondering how it could be possible to love these large, crazed creatures as much as a tiny magical baby. But of course you love them insanely in all of their stages, even when they’re constantly quoting Garfield and making fart jokes! It is exciting to know that your kids are always changing, and that you will always love them as the people they are."
- Sarah: "Sometimes we feel nervous that we’re bringing them up in a world that seems meaner, angrier, and more out of control than the one we grew up in. We feel nervous that we won’t always be able to protect them, that growing up means they’ll have to learn to fend for themselves. We hope we prepare them well."
- Jessica: "Our six-year-old is Ellis William. Ellis has no particular significance, though in the months before his birth we did visit Ellis Island and were reading all of the names in the registry for ideas. Then one of us said, 'What about Ellis?' William is my father’s name, as well as the name of both of my grandfathers. Our four-year-old is George Sidney, though we always intended to call him Sid; in Sarah’s family there are a lot of Georges, and there is some precedent for naming a boy George but calling him by his middle name. Sarah’s brother is George Wyatt, but goes by Wyatt."
- Jessica: "Ellis is 6 and Sidney is 4. They both love books, particularly non-fiction books, particularly ones about animals. Animals are a huge area of interest; they requested a trip to the desert for spring break so they could see Gila monsters in the flesh. Legos are a new but deep interest. Remote-control cars are big. Ellis can now ride a two-wheeler, so he likes to go biking. And they’re starting to get into music—Sarah and I are taking very seriously the responsibility of introducing them to good music. Lately they are into Michael Jackson. As the baby of the family, Sid enjoys the idea that Michael—the youngest of the five—was always the best singer and became the most famous."
- Jessica: "Yes. And we both also knew we wanted to be pregnant, so Sarah carried Ellis and I carried Sid. It has been really special to be on both sides of the parenting equation, as the non-birth parent and the birth parent." Sarah: "I think for a time during our twenties we pretended we were uncertain about having kids, because it seemed reasonable to at least perform the exercise of making a conscious decision about it together. But I was always pretty sure it was what we both wanted."
- Jessica: "The sweetest thing is that they’re really quite close. Ellis does not remember life before Sid, and there has never been any jealousy. They are interested in a lot of the same things. The most challenging? Whew, boy. It is hard to have two little boys! They are wild. I remember when Sidney was first born (and Ellis was only 2) I thought we’d made a huge mistake having them so close together. Everyone was so needy! Nobody was sleeping! But, as a good friend once told me, 'Surrender.'"
- Sarah: "Well, when the kids were babies (especially Ellis, since he was the first), I read basically every single available publication/message board on the topic of baby sleep, searching for some sort of guidance or at least commiseration. Ellis didn’t sleep through the night until he was at least two (just in time for Sid’s arrival). My take away was that the books didn’t really help and I probably should’ve been napping instead of reading. Also, I remember worrying that Ellis would always struggle with sleep problems since I’d ruined him by nursing him to sleep for almost three years. He’s now our champion sleeper. He sleeps through a lot of bedtime shouting from Sid!"
- Bedside reads.
- Jessica: "I am the middle of three kids. I was raised in rural Vermont. My parents have been married 40+ years and my mom was a stay-at-home parent for the bulk of my childhood. We did not have a lavish childhood but it was a happy one." Sarah: "I grew up as the second-oldest of six kids, in small-town Maine in a big, run-down farmhouse that was in a constant state of home renovations. Compared to a lot of kids, we had a lot of responsibilities around the house and we knew to behave well in public, though there was a lot of wild behavior at home. I struggle to understand how my parents kept us all in line so well." Sarah wears a Madewell top and vintage Wranglers. Jessica wears a Black Crane jumpsuit. Ellis wears a Gap t-shirt and pants. Sid wears and H&M tank top and Feathers underwear.
- Jessica: "I think Sarah and I share a similar philosophy about parenting—the goal for us is to raise independent, kind, happy people. We talk about and work on the kindness piece a lot. How can we help others? How can we be a friend in our community? How do we speak to one another respectfully? We talk to the kids about the idea of an internal compass that points to True North, helping to guide their decisions about right and wrong. We also value openness—if our kids ask us a question, we owe it to them to give a true answer that’s within their comprehension level."
- Jessica: "Sometimes I think I’ll look back on this period of life as one huge blur. It all goes so fast, and it’s all so busy! But I love my work and never wanted to give it up, and I think it’s nice for the kids to see the two of us doing things we care about beyond them. There’s never enough time. We do the best we can." Sarah: "The fact that we really are equal partners in the parenting role helps so much. My work life would be so much more challenging if I had to take on the bulk of the parenting and domestic responsibilities."
- Real life.
- Jessica: "I write cookbooks for a living, and have a part-time job as the lunch cook at my kids’ school." Sarah: "I work at a company that develops treatments for rare diseases. I work in Quality, which means my main objective is to ensure that our patients receive safe, effective products."
- Jessica: "I grew up in Vermont. Sarah grew up in Maine. We both went to Mount Holyoke College (where we met). I studied history and Sarah was a biology major. We lived together in Boston for five years before we moved to San Francisco. We’ve basically been in the same fields since college—Sarah got a biotech job in Boston right after school and I worked in the food industry (as a caterer, private chef, and later, food writer)."
- Jessica: "I appreciate working for myself. It’s nice for one parent to have some flexibility, especially with little kids. As I said earlier, I never wanted to give up working entirely, but I wanted to be around a lot when the kids were little, to be there to make dinner and pick them up from school. Sarah works a more traditional 9 to 5 job, so I’m glad to be able to pick up some of the slack on the other life stuff. And she, in turn, has a job that allows us to have some of the significant perks of full-time corporate employment, like health insurance." Sarah: "When the kids were very young I really valued the stability of my job—I’d been doing it for a while and understood the expectations and I had flexibility to make my own hours, to a large degree. If I hadn’t had kids at that point, I probably would have been ready to move on from that job sooner, but I’m glad that I didn’t."
- Jessica: "I try to be gentle with myself. The way I see it, we’re all just doing our best. That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re doing THE best, but that we’re trying everyday to be present, to be good. So, I don’t ever really feel guilty, though there are certainly times that I wish I’d handled something differently." Sarah: "There are definitely times when I worry that I give them too much sugar or that I ought to play Legos with them more often, but I don’t struggle with a pervasive sense of guilt. I think these kids have it pretty good!"
- Super Sid!
- A peek into the boys room, which joins to their moms' room.
- Sarah: "The room has evolved a bit as the kids have gotten older—we only recently moved the kids into a bunk bed. Before that, Sid was in a toddler bed and Ellis was in this great Jenny Lind-style twin bed that I had found on Craigslist and repainted. I was very sad to say goodbye to it! I spent a lot of time looking for the right bunk bed—I wanted something simple and not too high off the ground, since I was nervous about the kids wrestling off the edge of the top bunk. I don’t think this one is perfect, but it was about a quarter of the price of my first choice, so this one won out. The room has always had the light walls and light rug, which I realize is a horrible idea, but this one is machine washable and has held up pretty well! I like the neutral floor and walls with the crazy colors in the artwork and toys and books."
- Jessica: "That portrait was done by my cousin, Kate True. She lives in Boston and also did a painting of Sarah and me when we were married. I commissioned the one of the boys as a Christmas gift for Sarah this year."
- Jessica: "I want them to be kind, and honest, and to believe in the importance of working hard for the things you want. I also want them to appreciate the value of a home-cooked meal, eaten together." Sarah: "I want them to always care about each other. They are so close now and I hope that never changes."
- Jessica: "I don’t, really. The more moms I know, the more I realize that most of us are struggling, that it’s not simple or easy for anyone, even if they’re making it look that way. Having my own children certainly has made me appreciate my own mother more, because this shit is not easy." Ellis wears a t-shirt from Target and Bobo Choses pants. Sid wears a Zara t-shirt and Gap leggings.
- Jessica: "I’m really beginning to settle into the idea of a uniform. I’ll turn 40 this year; I know what looks good on me and what I like to wear. I could probably wear the same thing every day and be totally happy, so I’m moving in that direction, a sort of effortless, classic style." Sarah: "I used to be more concerned about looking cool and interesting and different from other people, which is to say that I tried a bit harder. I’m not sure if it has to do with having kids as much as just growing older—I still care about clothes, but I feel less concerned about standing out."
- Jessica: "White t-shirts, dark jeans, chambray shirts, basic cashmere crewneck sweaters." Sarah: "Boxy tops and sweaters, cropped jeans, white sneakers or black boots."
- Sarah: "I do most of the shopping for the family, and while I think Sid and Ellis are just beginning to develop opinions about the clothes they wear, I definitely have ideas about how their individual styles differ. Sid pulls off hot pink really well; Ellis loves animal prints."
- Jessica: "Sarah and I are good about giving one another breaks. You need breaks. You need to do things that you like to do, that remind you of the person you were before you had kids. So, we’ll give each other time for exercise, for nights out with friends, whatever we want to do."
- Jessica: "I’m hopeless in this department. I barely wash my face, but when I do, I like the Earth Tu Face face wash. I do wear sunscreen everyday." Sarah: "My routine isn’t super involved. though it does typically take me a few minutes longer than Jessica to get ready to leave the house! I really love my very un-glamorous drugstore face cleanser and SPF moisturizer, both from CeraVe. For makeup, I use a little tinted moisturizer to cover my rosacea—Erborian BB Crème au Ginseng is really great—some eyeliner, and that’s about it. My favorite beauty product was a gift from Jessica: a solid botanical perfume from In Fiore that comes in this pretty brass compact."
- Jessica: "I started running in my early 30s and was surprised by how much I enjoy it. When I’m out running it’s all about me—nobody can bother me or ask me questions. It’s like a spa for my brain. I often spend the time thinking of challenges I’m having, or working on a lede for a story, or just zoning out." Sarah: "Regular exercise has always been important to me—I want to keep healthy to keep up with these kids, and I definitely feel negative emotional effects if I go too long without some good physical activity. I run most days and have been trying some new Lagree pilates classes lately (it’s so hard!). On the weekend Jessica and I will often trade off on our exercise time—Jessica will go out for a run and we will make a plan to meet up in Golden Gate Park. I will drive there with the kids, we’ll all hang out together for a while, and then I will run home while Jessica drives back with the kids. We also go on family hikes pretty routinely. The kids complain intermittently, but they also really enjoy it. And trail mix with chocolate chips keeps them motivated!" We sure do love that Peace Towel!
- Jessica: "Yes! It’s called Repertoire: All the Recipes You Need. I’ve coauthored five chef cookbooks but always wanted to do my own book. After my kids were born I realized that if I wanted to avoid eating cereal for dinner I had to turn to my repertoire of slam-dunk, durable recipes, the ones that I could cook by heart. So, the book was born out of that, and it’s a collection of those recipes, the type you can cook and cook again, week in and week out." Sid wears a sweater made by Jessica's mom and See Sun pants. Ellis wears a sweater also made by Jessica's mom, a vintage Levi's jacket, and Uniqlo pants.
- Jessica: "I love the recipe for Beans and Greens. The Greenest Green Salad has an awesome Green Goddess dressing that is so good. The Repertoire Chocolate Cake is the very best birthday cake you can make. The Garlic-Butter Chicken is a weeknight staple in our house. Out of the entire book, our kids most request the Spaghetti and Meatballs, Vermicelli with Pork Meatballs, Black Beans and Rice, and Crispy Chicken.”
- Jessica: "Our kids are not picky, fortunately, but they can be just as deranged as any kid, deciding one day that they don’t want to eat something they’ve eaten their entire lives. I’ve been wrong about so many parenting-related things, but I was determined to never make separate meals for my kids, because that is bananas. So, some nights they grudgingly eat what I’ve made, and other times they eat it with gusto. It’s my job to give them varied options, even if they don’t love them all. It might be easier to make them buttered noodles every night, but it would also be easier to plunk them in front of the television for two hours every evening and we don’t do that, either. Children certainly aren’t born liking only chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese. I also think it’s hugely important to eat together, and to let the kids pick their favorite foods sometimes, too. Our boys have an understanding that each of us has a say in what we eat."
- Jessica: "One good knife that you get sharpened frequently. Everything else falls under the 'nice to have' category, though I do really like my Microplane."
- Jessica: "My job is easy to understand, so yeah, they get it. I’m not even sure what Sarah does for work, so I suspect they don’t either!" Sarah: "I don’t know that they understand my work, but they can point out the window and identify my office building when we drive down 101!"
- Jessica: "I think it’s important to be good role models, period. But yes, I think we feel the burden as women to make sure that we are raising boys who will become thoughtful, sweet men, who understand that there’s no one perfect woman’s body, that no really does mean no, that they have extraordinary privilege simply because they are white men, and that this privilege comes with the responsibility to speak up and advocate for others." Sarah: "We definitely make an effort not to let the kids hear our vanity-related conversations about wrinkles or cellulite. I don’t want them to think that we (or women in general) put so much value in youth and beauty."
- Jessica: "It’s a big deal for me. Barring something exceptional, we eat together every night. I grew up eating dinner as a family and it’s one of my best memories of childhood." Sarah: "Every night at around 6pm we sit together and eat. The kids help set the table, everyone tries to sit on their bottoms for the duration of the meal, and we talk about all sorts of things. While I agree that it’s important to us, it also feels like a really natural, un-exceptional thing." Jessica wears a Madewell top, Levi's jeans, and a Courtshop quilted jacket. Sarah wears an Everlane t-shirt and vintage Levi's.
- Jessica: "They do. Before I took the job I asked them and they were both enthusiastic about having me there. And I love being there—it’s nice to catch glimpses of them throughout the day."
- Jessica: "I want to travel as a family more. Career-wise, I’ve been starting to think about another book..." For more on Jessica, Sarah, and their family, check out Jessica's Instagram feed. And be sure to scoop up the new cookbook, Repertoire: All the Recipes You Need.
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