Aretha Franklin was asked what some of her greatest challenges were and her answer, you guessed it, “What the heck am I going to make for dinner tonight?”
This made me laugh out loud while simultaneously pulling the chopping knife out of it’s holder and manically waving it at the pantry and fridge, as though all the food in there were to blame for my inability to come up with something to feed our faces, for the fourteenth thousandth time.
I’m coming up to my fourtieth wedding anniversary this June. Were I to make dinner every single night that would add up to 14,609 nights, including leap years. Now, if you roughly consider vacations and calculate how often you eat out, in restaurants, take out, at friends and family and the odd picnic factored in that would mean it would be approximately a hundred times a year, which makes it somewhere around four thousand nights over fourty years that I haven’t made dinner.
Now, math is not my strong suit so bare with me here, when I add it up and subtract it out and find the square root of the hypotenuse, I figure I’ve made dinner, JUST dinner, about 10, 609 times! Lordy, lord, that is a lot of cookin’ and that doesn’t include the years prior to being married nor factoring in a couple of years in a pandemic when restaurants were all closed and there was no delivery where I live.
Making meals is not a choice, it’s a necessity. We all have to eat so there is no getting around having to decide what to eat, every dang day, and it’s made even more difficult when there are more people to cook for than just yourself. Having said that, I’ve spent many evenings alone and after awhile, a decision still needs to be made, then the food has to be made, and so the vicious cycle continues. I suppose I could try living on popcorn for dinner every night but eventually, I don’t think that would bode well in the end, figuratively or literally. Yikes!
Here’s a healthy 5 minute meal when you are by yourself: Hollow out a yellow, orange or red pepper, mix a can of tuna with a tsp of olive oil or mayo or both. Add a sprinkle of salt and pepper and Everything Bagle Seasoning (or your seasoning of choice, sriracha, red pepper flakes, whatever you like). Fine chop one green onion and one celery stalk, if you have them, and throw it in the tuna, mix again and spoon it into your pepper. Healthy, delicious, crunchy, and EASY! If tuna is not your thing you can make egg salad.
If you love to cook I believe that makes the entire process so much easier. There is a definite satisfaction in taking raw food, herbs and spices and with a little, dash, sprinkle, chop, sauté, sear, roast, bake and chiffonade, it not only satiates the appetite but also imbues a feeling of accomplishment. There is joy in creating, in turning radishes into roses, bread into herbal landscapes, cutting boards into stunning charcuterie or cheese into evergreen trees. I made a fabulous Christmas tree over the holidays replete with rosemary twigs, olive ornaments and topped it with a zucchini star. A veritable work of edible art!
Many people use cooking as a way to relax. They turn off the day’s stresses, don their cashmere loungewear and get lost in the process of creating. Some of us listen to music, some of us watch TV, some of us relish the silence so we can hear the sizzle of a sirloin, the bubbling pasta water, just about to boil over and the pop of a cork as we open the perfect wine pairing, allowing it to breathe before dinner is served. Sounds so boogie and idyllic doesn’t it?
Then there is reality, which most of us are living. Coming up with a minimum of a meal a day can just simply be a chore. Another thing on the check list that you are too tired to even think about, but you must. After a long day at work something needs making so you just get to it. There has been no forethought, you’ve got an hour and fifteen minutes before Kiddo Number 3 has to be at her dance recital, Kiddo Number 2 is lamenting over their English assignment and Kiddo Numero Uno is pouting over not being allowed to get the new iPhone 27…oh, sorry, there’s only 17 iterations, my bad. To top it off the dog is barking non-stop at absolutely nothing and the cat is upchucking hairballs on the silk persian carpet. Here is where I ask, “why would you even have a silk persian carpet in the first place?” but then I remember, that would be me.
You would think I have a hard and fast solution for you after making 10,609 plus dinners, but I don’t. You’ve read the magazines, the social media posts, the cook books. You’ve watched the cooking networks, the myriad of shows that tell you how to turn out gastronomical delights the whole family will love in 30 minutes or less. You’ve copied recipes, made notes and you‘ve even gone so far as to buy the special ingredients needed because, once they are in the pantry, meal making will be magical.
Sadly, and not to burst your sourdough fermenting bubble but, it’s not true. The bottom line is, no matter how much you love or hate to cook, hate is a strong word, you have to first figure out what to make and in the famous words of Hamlet, “aye, there’s the rub.” As an aside, a Rub is a dry or wet coating of spices, salt and sugar that is rubbed on meat cuts to marinate, tenderize and flavour them. Think jerk or barbeque or peppered…I’m hungry now.
It’s not just the cooking itself that’s the issue. It’s the grocery list you write up, you know, the one you spend ten minutes writing out while delving into the fridge and food cupboards to see what you need to pick up and then promptly forgot when you left the house, only to remember when in the grocery parking lot. No, just me? I didn’t think so.
Tip: I put the list on my phone because my life would end if I don’t have my phone with me, so chances of forgetting it are slim to none. Okay, I exaggerate, I wouldn’t die, proven by the fact that I’m still here to write about it after forgetting my phone, but there would be a serious withdrawal problem. Just sayin’…
Maybe you’ve decided to go the order online and pick up at the store route or really blow the budget and have your groceries delivered. I’ve been known to take hours just to get my order done online. I tend to read every label and compare pricing per ounce or millilitre or pound or kilo, because in Canada we don’t have just one system of measuring and weighing. We also don’t have one language and then there’s all the nutritional information and the symbols and where the product is from. Doing your groceries is a full time job these days.
Then they ask for substitutes just in case they are out and how do you want the groceries contained, bagged or boxed or bring your own? The questions seem endless and finally the order is in and you pick it up or it’s dropped off and you’ve received bananas instead of avocados, four items are not in stock but they’ve charged you for three and they are the ones you needed for the dinner you finally decided to make tonight. Perhaps it is easier and less time consuming to do it yourself?
Today you have the opportunity to mitigate much of the dinner decision dilemmas by wading into the world of pre-made meals and/or pre-packaged meal boxes, with recipe included and delivered to your door. It is convenient and easy and yes, I’m all for it if that is suitable to you and your lifestyle. You still have to fill out the boxes as to the kind of meals or food you prefer, how often they are delivered and do the cost comparison between making it yourself or having it already cooked and frozen. Which company should you use? Who’s got the best reviews and prices and freshness and options for dietary requirements? I suppose once you’ve found the right fit it can be a great alternative, but it still takes some doing.
Personally, I like having leftovers and you can’t have them if you don’t do the cooking. Leftovers are a must in my house, especially when it’s a holiday meal that can be remade three times over three days. There is something so homey and comforting when you haul the mashed potatoes, stuffing and gravy out of the fridge, heat it up and sandwich it between two slices of that homemade sourdough you were nursing, don’t forget the cranberry sauce, then bunging all the roasted and steamed vegetables into a pot with your homemade broth and whipping up some heartwarming soup. I’m hungry now…
Our work hours dictate when we do our groceries and for most people it’s on their one of two days off a week. Once you’ve spent the prerequisite time it takes to get them done and the groceries are now home, you haul them into the house, unpack them and put them away, but not before the inevitable, “the fridge should probably have a good cleaning” and “the pantry needs an overhaul” and six hours later, all the expired items are dumped and sorted for recycling, the produce is washed, cut and placed in the appropriate containers for freshness and longevity, the scraps are boiling on the stove to make veggie stock, the first glass of wine has been poured and you are so exhausted there is no way in hell you can even get your head around actually cooking dinner, let alone deciding what to make.
“Who’s up for pizza? Pineapple or no…?”
“Geez Mom, of course pineapple. Pizza and pineapple just get no R.E.S.P.E.C.T!!”
Happy Cooking!
Love Kiki
Xoxo
“Dinner is not what you do in the evening before something. Dinner is the evening.”
— Art Buchwald
Artwork Credits Unknown
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