Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

What Does Your Week Look Like?

Holy week and spring break are upon us (happy Passover!) but instead of making briskets and hams and considering Easter eggs, I am in the midst of the plague–my little family is juggling sinus, throat, and tummy viruses at the moment. Lots of fun. Hopefully this will all clear up in time for dying the eggs and eating the Peeps, but in the meantime I thought I’d post about how a non holy/spring/virus-packed week of meals plays out.

In my household, every week is different. I know some people who excel at planning every dinner ahead of time, coordinating the shopping and the scheduling so that the actual cooking is not done in a blur of confusion and missing ingredients (Am I crazy or didn’t I buy chicken thighs? Goddamn it, who ate the last hunk of parmesan cheese? Is everyone OK with beets for dinner? How long have these frozen shrimp been in the back of the freezer…oh I’m sure they’re fine.)

I try and be a planner, I really do. But more often then not, dinner is an exercise in improvisation. I always try and food shop with several possible meals in mind: I go in thinking about what I might need for at least 3-4 dinners and then I see what looks good in the store and make a final decision based on what I feel like making So basically my strategy is half Martha Stewart practicality, half mood ring.

I think there is a happy middle ground between rigorous menu planning and a hapless pantry raiding. I would never want every Thursday to be “pork chop Thursday”, but I also don’t want every Thursday be “I’m stumped, butter and pasta with frozen peas it is Thursday”.

So here is what a typical week of dinner looks like for us:

Monday