Recently, a friend said that to me—“I don’t cook. I warm.”--and I was like, “Me too, Mamacita!”
I find myself WAY less inclined to engage in full-blown food prep. I’ve also kind of soured on Cooking’s handmaidens, Grocery Shopping and Meal Planning.
This is an interesting development, because, for a very long time, as a younger woman, I devoted a LOT of time, energy, and attention to Planning Meals; Shopping For Meals; Prepping Meals; Serving Meals; and Cleaning Up After Meals. Sure, there were nights when we had popcorn and banana milkshakes for dinner; I mean, who doesn’t? But I took the responsibility of feeding my family pretty seriously. It seemed a fundamental, essential way to care for my children, to nourish them, to help them stay healthy. Also, I LOVED doing that stuff! It was fun to me.
But then: Shazam!! Menopause. And frankly, I think we can reasonably blame the hormones or their absence for this behavior shift. (Again.) I started to think, Why is dinner Mom’s job? Where is my job description written down anyway? I suspected there was a lot more flexibility than I had allowed for, and that I could free up a lot of time and mental energy by shifting to quesadillas and salads from beef stew and a long, slow-cooked Bolognese. The whole food-prep tarantella lost its sparkle for me.
My own kitchen footprint is pretty minimal these days. If I have breakfast, I’ll have an egg, or egg-drop broth with greens, or a smoothie. Lunch is not very compelling to me—unless it’s an opportunity to see a friend or friends—although I will often eat some nuts or cheese or celery during the day. And dinner for me means a green salad and some cooked protein. Or a two-ingredient chaffle. Or just a salad by itself. (True, salads don’t require warming; that’s part of their charm. But I’m happy to substitute chopping for warming.) I love the simplicity, and the awareness that something can be delicious and nutritious and not be time-consuming.
I went shopping at Trader Joe’s the other day, and noted that I now go almost exclusively for the stuff you warm, not cook. I got frozen chicken lime burgers (delish) and frozen angus burgers; frozen cauliflower crust pizza; and those Madras lentil packets that you drop into boiling water for five minutes. I certainly do not want to spend more time prepping a meal than eating it, which is something I did for many years.
Had you raided my cabinets twenty years ago, you would not have found any prepared foods except for condiments. This was really a thing for me, a matter of pride or commitment or dopiness or something, and I’ve been intrigued about how easy it was to let that go.
Occasionally, I do have a yen to prepare something more involved. (This hankering, unfortunately, doesn’t necessarily coincide with Thanksgiving.) It happened about three times this past winter, always on a day when I didn’t go to work. I’d dust off the Dutch oven and chop and brown and braise and simmer, and that’s fun every once in a while. Just not every night.