What's for dinner?

I can’t take it anymore!

I will only say this one more time!

I really don’t care!

You would think it is fairly easy. The days of eating only what you can bring home every evening are long gone. We no longer have to hunt and fish in order to feed ourselves. We don’t have to saddle up the horses to go into town. Life is a little more convenient. All we have to do is walk into the kitchen.

Yet for all our convenience in the modern world it seems as if deciding what’s for dinner has become more and more difficult.

At one point in our society’s history we had learned to deal with this problem. While hubby was off slaying dragons, honey would spend her morning figuring it out.

Today, it appears there must be a committee meeting to determine our meal choice. But why?

It’s not like I don’t make it easy. Here is why: My job involves quite a bit of travel. When I travel, while I do have a budgetary restriction, my job provides me plenty of flexibility. If I have a craving for fish, I eat fish. If I have a craving for pizza, pizza it is. The truth is I buy more for convenience. What is close by and gets me back to the hotel sooner? That’s what I am eating. 95% of the time – I simply don’t care.

More than 50% of the time I don’t even have the privilege of eating my wife’s cooking. When the opportunity presents itself to eat something homemade, I am happy to eat it. Like when I’m traveling, its about convenience. If she cooks it and puts it in front of my face, I am more than likely going to eat it (unless it is chicken cacciatore).

When the inevitable question arises “what should we have for dinner?” it’s like living through that movie Groundhog Day. My answer is virtually always the same, “I don’t care.”

If I did care, if I do have a craving or a special desire (which happens about 3 times per year) I will say so. Otherwise, yep, you guessed it, I don’t care.

Actually, my habit of asking is two-fold.  I figure he travels so much and often gets stuck eating at restaurants he didn’t choose that I like to cook things he wants/likes.  Don’t feel too sorry for him though – we have a running joke about this – he doesn’t have to hide his trips to the strip club (something he got “stuck” doing a couple times years ago with the person with whom he traveled) but he does have to hide if he eats a good meal- like a sushi extravaganza. a really good filet mignon or a REALLY nice restaurant (The Precinct or The Palm Restaurant).  May sound a little twisted to you – but since I don’t get to go out to many restaurants, much less NICE ones, it is a touchy subject for me.

You can guess that when Jack’s in town, the last thing he wants to do  is see the inside of a restaurant.  The kids and I like going out to eat sometimes as a treat, but since Jack wants home cooked meals, we’ve learned  to go out when he’s out of town to get a Subway meal or Panda Express occasionally.  I still miss the “sit down” restaurants though.  Let’s not even get started on Jack’s point that “restaurants cost money”.

Back to the subject at hand – I remember a week that Jack was in town and I tried to cook his favorites since he’d been on the road so much.  I planned filet mignon on the grill one night – but when he came home and saw what I was planning, he got a sheepish smile and said he’d already had a filet the week before.  We  rarely splurge  on filets rather than eat themas  often as we used to so we can save a little money and really appreciate a good piece of meat.  I was totally deflated that I planned  a really good meal – and he’d just eaten it recently.  It’s not his fault – but it just bummed me out.  The same week, I planned spiced shrimp – but of course it turns out he’d had a night full of sushi the week before.  Not quite the same, but again, I try to spread out our seafood nights so we can really enjoy them.  That’s it, I threw in the towel – I was done. I was frustrated with the dinner duplication nightmares.

I hate figuring out “what’s for dinner”.  Maybe I’d feel differently if I had a larger choice of meals from which to choose.  We’ve discussed pre-planning a week or month of meals and shopping accordingly.  Jack read that you save money when you do this – so of course now we need to give it a try.  What if this is supposed to be a taco night but one of us really wants chicken?  I can tell you that I loose a lot of cooking enthusiasm when I have to cook something I’m not in the mood to eat.  Jack isn’t very sympathetic about this – it’s just food, who cares?  I care when I’m the one busting my ass to put a meal on the table for the family.  Each day, I have to figure out something to eat for dinner – it’s my daily chore that I dread.  Often, I’ll ask the family for ideas, since nothing is screaming out to me.  It helps me if one of the kids begs for “fried” chicken – it may not be my personal favorite, but if they are in the mood for it, that gives me a little encouragement.

Since I’m sitting here bitching about my pathetic lot in life – I know it’s pretty sad – I’d also like to vent my frustration about lunch meals.  We are fortunate enough that we live less than 5 minutes from Jack’s work so when he’s in town, he comes home for lunch everyday.  I thoroughly enjoy being able to sit and have lunch together – without the kids.  But it causes a little frustration too, because Jack expects a prepared lunch meal.  Sometimes it works out because we can share a pot of jambalaya or leftover pasta.  But more often than not – I just find something to eat when I get hungry – maybe a salad, or soup or sandwich.  I gather he doesn’t like coming home and having to “wing it” for lunch.

Ok, I”m off my high horse and ready to hear how you do it.  Am I being a witch for asking what he’d like for dinner?  Would it be better if I asked Jack what he ate while he was on the road, and be sure not to duplicate what he’s already had?  Share your thoughts and ideas with us.