Stay up well past your bedtime.
Put in a full day of work the next day, and then head straight to Cardio Karate, where you punch, jab, block, and round-kick your way into exhaustion.
Do not go home directly to shower and make dinner. Instead, go to not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR markets to pick up your food for the week. (Because tonight you really do need cream cheese from Zingerman’s, English peas from the Produce Station, pork chops from Sparrow Market, and organic raisin bran from Trader Joe’s.) Go home and put away the groceries. Rather than cooking up something from the ingredients you just brought home, notice half a head of raddichio that should have been eaten last week, feel really guilty, and decide to start experimenting.
Chop and fry some applewood smoked bacon. Put aside and wipe out that pan. Rifle through the fridge, stealing tastes here and there of said bacon. Heat up olive oil in the pan and add some chopped shallots. Then . . . uh . . . add that sad radicchio, and sautee until soft. Realize that you still have no idea what you are cooking.
Spot some open but past-drinkable Pinotage on the counter and decide to add that to the pan. Bring to a boil and simmer until nearly all liquid has evaporated.
Taste.
Get depressed.
Add salt.
Realize that you should probably put a pot of water on to boil, because dinner must just end up being buttered noodles. When the water boils, drop in some penne with a shrug. Really–what do you have to lose?
Open a can of plum tomatoes, chop a few, then several more, and throw them into the radicchio mixture. Warm through for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally. Toss in the crisped bacon — well, what’s left of it.
When the penne is done, drain and add it to the bacon-radicchio-tomato-shallot sauce (?) and combine. Dish some out, grate some parmesan cheese on top, open a bottle of wine, and promise yourself not to make a habit of such desultory dinners.
Go to bed a little hungry and incredibly exhausted, yet plan tomorrow night’s menu (pork chops with braised fennel) before your head hits the pillow.
Here’s how to not cook dinner at my house last night:
Look in the fridge and feel overwhelmed by all the odds and ends. Contemplate loss of creativity.
Pull out odds and ends (leftover chicken, lamb and beef; three kinds of cheddar cheese; aging apples and grapes; leftover corn for the toddler) and think that if you arrange them on nice plates it might seem like an assortment of tapas or spring picnic fare. Stick a frozen Trader Joe’s wee baguette in the oven to thaw.
Arrange odds and ends on plates and cutting board. Decided they still look like odds and ends. Pull mostly thawed baguette from oven. Pour out some three day old wine that wasn’t very good in the first place.
Eat odds and ends while toddler loudly complains that everything is offensive and removes all items from plate, one by one with air of grave injury. Convince toddler to eat dinner of grapes by making him think it’s fun to spear them with a fork. Pour out rest of bad wine.
Share dessert of gummy bears with toddler. Resolve to do better with remaining odds and ends tomorrow (big salad with baby spinach and arugula, hard boiled eggs — leftover from Easer — feta cheese, olives and roasted red peppers).
Put protesting toddler to bed. Watch American Idol and feel unclean yet chilled.
You guys are all better than me.
Contemplate salad that you planned to make. Decide you’d really rather have dinner at Lupa. Too bad about that. Realize you have had pasta 3 of last 5 nights.
Pull out cheese, crackers, eggplant dip. Make quesadilla for 3 year old. snack on cheese and crackers until intense hunger sated. Ask partner what we are eating for dinner. Hear reply that its “I don’t know”. Find bag of chessmen cookies. eat a bunch of those.
While 3 year old begs to watch Dora, decide to order chinese. Partner goes to get it. eat greasy scallion pancakes and swear not to get them again. Despair over ever getting interested in food again. Remember that the farmer’s market will start soon.
Pull out a beer after 3 year old goes to bed. Fall asleep on couch, transfer to bed 1 hour later and wake up feeling like no protein was involved.
[...] But better. Definitely better. [...]