One of the ways people often offer to help is by making us meals. Anyone who has ever had a baby, or been ill, or suffered a loss, and had someone bring their family food, knows that it is one of the biggest blessings in the world. I am of course, very grateful when some dear friend comes and takes my very noisy children out of the house, while I hide in a dark room, but a meal has a way of blessing all of us, especially my husband, reminding us that we are not alone.
All of this is true, and beautiful but it got me thinking.
What if you didn't have to cook dinner every night?
For so many of us, the three most dreaded words of our day are "what's for dinner?" My four-year-old usually asks me this by 6:45 in the morning, just so that she can immediately respond with "But I don't want that for dinner," or "but why didn't you say corn dogs are for dinner?"
The planning, the shopping, the prepping, the actual cooking, it's all exhausting and tedious. The ruts we find ourselves in, the insurmountable attempt to find a balance between cooking something that is good for your family, but not something they will groan about, pick at, or throw up. Then there's the financial wizardry required to do all of this on a budget, to keep protein in their diet but not spend all your wages on meat. Organic or not? Grass fed, home grown, gluten-free, sugar-free, taste-free...the possibilities are endless and they all require time, money, and energy you don't have.
Perhaps one day, I'll make myself more useful and pass on a few of the tricks I have learned about planning meals and managing a grocery budget (it would be a pretty short post). But today I just want to comment on how glorious it is when I don't have to cook dinner!
I love to cook as hobby; I love to hostess, and feed crazy amounts of people, but that's a totally different ball-game. When you host, your guests are grateful, you justify cooking decedent, time-consuming dishes, you make time to make it fun. It is not the same when you are making spaghetti for the screaming masses, and all of them start crying when you put the "red stuff" on their noodles, saying all they want is butter. Or when they start hinting at the possibility of puking up their broccoli, which you took special care to try to make more palatable in the hopes that this time they would eat it.
So it's settled. If I were extremely wealthy, and money were not an object I would forgo shopping sprees, still drive my luxurious Ford Econoline 12 passenger van, and pool all our resources to justify my own personal grocery shopper/ meal planner/chef and only cook when I felt like it. Think of all the time you would have? Think of all those moments throughout the day as time marches on and you have that nagging voice in your mind reminding you that you still haven't decided what you're making. Think of the most arduous part of every day, that witching hour when homework needs to be done, and anyone under 3 starts screaming and crying and saying your name incessantly, but with no real need being articulated. Now imagine that you are managing all of that without having to think about dinner. Suddenly, it's not quite as absurd. I totally understand why people with expendable income, and small families eat out all the time. Granted I want the lovely scene around the dinner table, and I am grateful that my kids are in the habit of setting a table, eating with manners, as a family unit, cleaning up together and so forth, but the nitty-gritty of it is so exhausting. This is why a personal chef is the perfect answer. You're still at home, they still acquire all those lovely skills but all you have to do is show up. Maybe you'll even know for sure if all the kids washed their hands.
For now I will just enjoy the last few meals coming this week and be grateful that we are rich with friends who are selfless and giving, who do more than feed us, they spare me the drama of making dinner!
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