NO CHEF

 

Once, long ago, when shopping in a cavernous new grocery store on the other side of town, I had an infant and a toddler corralled (barely) within a full cart of groceries. The baby was "hangry", so he was wailing away in his carseat plunked in the cart. The toddler was in the child seat thing in the cart, reaching for and grabbing everything he could from the shelves, sending me scrambling to pick up after him or pry some random "treasure" (like a bar of soap or whatever) from his clenched little fist, resulting in a screaming tantrum.  

Grocery shopping on a good day is one of my least favorite activities.  On that day, I'd had enough.  Two-thirds of the way through the store (and my list) I parked the cart of groceries in the middle of the aisle, grabbed the carseat, took the hand of the red-faced toddler, and exited the store.  I couldn't take it one more minute.  This past Monday was sort of like that.  Only it was just me, no kids, but I was still in a state of "I hate this!" mommy-frustration confusion.  

Hub has been working for years with groups addressing climate change.  He is an integral part of one group that meets 1-4 hours weekly on Zoom, organizes and presents at forums and educational events, lobbies for prioritizing climate-related content to their organization's curriculum, co-facilitates several 9-week courses on adaptation and resilience in the face of climate collapse (with strategies for making it all less awful.)  This all takes a great deal of his time and energy and untold hours at the computer.

On top of that, of course, there is life at home:  me (I can be a handful), maintenance of our home and our gardens/property, occasionally seeing friends/family...you know, life stuff.  He is great at keeping all the balls in the air, but he pays a price and eventually feels the stress of it all.  In September he was particularly busy and the stress was boiling over.  I asked what I could do to be supportive.

He has been our family shopper and executive chef for a long time.  I've been his sous chef.  I'm a pretty good chopper and prepper; I am not a great cook.  I don't like it. When those squalling kids were young I did all the shopping and cooking, but over the years I phased myself out and Hub took over, especially once the kids were out and he was retired.  I thought he liked to shop but he recently told me he really doesn't like it, but neither does he dread it, which is an improvement over my feelings about the chore, but still. He does enjoy cooking but the every day grind of it gets old.  (I know.)  So, to be more helpful, I offered to take on the shopping and cooking indefinitely.  Yikes!

I have a list of every dinner since my start date on September 23rd.  I keep this list as an "attagirl" I give myself every time I look at it.  I feel a sense of accomplishment.  Maybe even a bit of pride.  I've not made anything fancy -- I'm not foodie gourmet.  But I've hauled out some old cookbooks and done Google searches for various things.  I've made entirely edible, even tasty dishes that we've both enjoyed.  I have not hated it.  But there is that daily grind.

On Monday I didn't have time to create my menus for the coming week, but I had to get some things from the store, so I went with a list of a few staples, and a few speciality items for two cookbook recipes. Unfortunately, I hadn't done a good inventory and didn't have a meal planned for every day.  I am a grab and go shopper, and I am NOT an intuitive cook, so I found myself without a recipe to buy for and with no desire/ability to create meals based on what I found at the store, so I found myself frustrated, going up and down aisles with no clue what I needed or wanted, and ended up with a cart of random items that seemed paltry but also ended up costing nearly $100 somehow.  

I went to the self-check. (I know I'm supposed to boycott that, but if the other line is forever long, I don't boycott it because I just want to get out of the damn store!)  I fumbled around with looking up produce items, weighing them, scanning the unscannable bar codes, putting up with the machine yelling at me to put my items in the bag when they were already in the damn bag, and then got reprimanded for trying to buy non-alcohol beer for Hub (it's store policy) with an expired license, that wasn't really expired but the DMV had punched a hole in it when I went in to renew it, making it void.  I was supposed to have brought some print out of a temporary license with me.  Duh.  By the time I got out of there I was near tears.  But I pulled up my big girl panties and headed to Costco for the items I needed there.  I survived, barely.

When I got home, Hub was sympathetic and appreciative.  Maybe 8 weeks is my limit; maybe it's about as "indefinitely" as I get when it comes to shopping and cooking.  We discussed a plan to share the burden. It might even be fun, we thought, to shop and cook together!  (Cooking maybe; shopping definitely not.  We have extremely different shopping styles.  As noted, I'm grab and go for just what I need in the moment.  Hub is the complete opposite -- he's price and compare, distracted by impulse buys, and likes to "stock up".)

So I'm not sure how the new plan will go.  I do know that it won't really be implemented for awhile, because Hub still has a lot on his plate. (HAHA  Good one!)  Maybe it will be a New Year intention.  Until then I'll keep my dinner list going to motivate me and I'll try super hard not to freak out in the grocery store.  I'd hate to start throwing canned goods.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Photo Credit:  somewhere on the internet..sorry, don't know; don't sue me. 🙏🏽