My family is one of those irritating ones. You know the type? They like to be fed every single day, and most days, they require this feeding to take place three times a day.
Coming up with enough time to shop, prepare meals and clean up the unavoidable aftermath is one thing and somehow I find the time for it. Some may argue that calling the local Thai and asking them to deliver is a cop out, but hear me out. Although this one call does wipe out the inevitable list of chores that goes with actually preparing the meal yourself, it does not solve the problem we face every single day, at every single meal.
What the hell should we eat?
Usually I am eased into the day. I send Mr Pencil off to work to fend for himself and forage whatever paperclips and staples he can find to sustain himself nutritionally (being a pencil, I do encourage him to stay away from erasers and over zealous sharpeners). Myself, I am happy to eat the same thing every single day for breakfast (an egg is summer and porridge in winter – you know, just in case one day you are tempted to make me breakfast) and so I am easily satisfied. But then there is Little Pencil. And this is where the choices start. Luckily breakfast is fairly limiting – eggs or cereal? Easy you think. But no. Think off hand of how many ways you can cook an egg. And now close your eyes and imagine the cereal aisle of your local supermarket. There are a lot of choices implicit in eggs or cereal.
And then my day gets worse.
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As my mind slowly eases back into function after conjuring exciting and palatable ideas for school lunch, recess and nibble, it is brought quickly back into chaos by the thought of dinner. Don’t get me wrong – I love to eat, I even love to cook. But what? What on earth can I cook every single night that will pass off as original, nutritious and healthy but still keep us all happy?. Mr Pencil has high cholesterol – he shouldn’t eat meat but loves chicken. Little Pencil is iron deficient and needs to eat meat – he loves chocolate. I am verging on vegetarian and really do not like to eat chicken – I do however, love cake.
You see where I am going?
Okay now pretend, and I stress that this is a pretence, that we will all eat the same thing. How do I prepare it? There are thousands of recipe books around and hundreds of these are in my own cupboard. Yet every single time I am faced with cooking dinner (ie around 350 days a year) I struggle to think of what to prepare and how to prepare it.
So I take out the Thai take away menu with its limited selection of 58 choices and I close my eyes and point three times. And just like Dorothy I am home and hosed, dinner is prepared and I can start thinking about breakfast.
While I understand the implications for kids with nut allergies, I think it’s ridiculous that’s school’s outlaw nutella! The allergic kids need to learn to avoid those foods themselves! That’s what they did in my day! have looked at any other choccie spreads? Milky bar? Might not have nuts? I also get this issue of *deciding* what to make! I love to cook, but never know *what* to cook! But at least mr pencil eats paper clips during the day, that’s ONE less meal to think of!
Yes, these are serious issues indeed. The thing that worries me most though, is the impact of the staples on the digestive tract of Mr Pencil and what will happen to him if he walks through a medal detector at the airport. Also, since he is apparently trying to lose weight, have you considered the the Weight Watchers points value of a box of staples?
Oh dear – all too common in this household too.
I’m with Emilykd with outruling Nutella – it is wrong for kids to swap sandwiches anyway, apparently.
So why does it matter what is in them, hmmm…?
Dinner though oh dear – home made pizza, or wraps – warps are good here and the ingredients can get put back in the fridge for lunch the next day, or pasta plus 3 different toppings, as we all like different things.
dinner is hard.
food is hard.
sigh.
Best of luck