Last week I heard this interview on NPR’s Fresh Air with the wonderful Ruth Reichl, former New York Times food columnist and editor of the recently closed Gourmet Magazine (November is their last issue). Reichl is also a working mother who took the job at Gourmet in part so she could be home more evenings with her family.
As a regular reader of the magazine, I saw a marked change in the publication’s style under Reichl’s leadership. It became political and friendly to working people who might not have the time to bone their own fish or find obscure ingredients. Each month offered a number of recipes that could be completed in less than 30 minutes, alongside more exciting and time-consuming special occasion dishes.
In the interview Reichl talks about how she makes cooking work every night, despite her intense schedule, and how important that has been for her family life. She says that it’s not usually the cooking the takes time –there are many wonderful recipes that require relatively little preparation. It’s the grocery shopping and meal planning. I couldn’t agree with Reichl more.
Two years ago, when I made the pledge to try and cook at home as many weeknights as possible, I quickly figured out that grocery shopping and finding a recipe could delay dinner by and hour or more. It also took up valuable time in the evenings that I wanted to spend with Baby Bee. So I rejiggered to minimize the time I spent at the store, ensure I always had staples in the house, and give up recipe-searching (though I still got a lot of inspiration from reading Gourmet and Cooks’ Illustrated on my morning commute).
How do you give up grocery shopping? Reichl suggests doing one big shopping trip on the weekend. Another possibility is to sign up with a CSA, or a delivery service like Urban Organics, Greenling, or Spud. Just limiting the time you spend choosing and buying produce will keep your shopping trips shorter. Some services even provide add-ons like eggs, cheese, meat, herbs, and bread. These may cost a few dollars more than you would usually spend, but your time is worth the few extra dollars — and you will eat more fruits and vegetables.
Another thought: especially if you have a child in preschool for part of the day, but even if you don’t, there’s no crime in asking a sitter to pick up a few things for you. Of course, you wouldn’t want your sitter to spend long periods of time at the supermarket, but it’s much easier for her to do some light grocery shopping in the middle of the day when lines are short than it is for you. You can keep her trips short by making a clear list — even including brandnames — the fewer choices that your sitter has to make, the less time she needs to spend in the store.
Finally, many communities now have online grocery delivery services like FreshDirect, NetGrocer, Peapod, and even some bricks and mortar stores like ShopRite. The best of these allow you to create a list of items that can be easily replicated each week without you “shopping” each time. Many of these services deliver in the evenings and on weekends, but you can also have a sitter or an older child home for the delivery. This is especially great for ensuring that you have staple ingredients like canned goods, beans, rice, pasta, olive oil and vinegar in the house.
The most difficult thing for me was giving up my tradition of searching the internet and my many cookbooks for recipes each time I want to make a meal. I still do it on the weekends or when planning a special meal, but most of the time on weeknights I wing it based on what we have in the house. Some combo of grain or potato, protein and vegetable — and if all else fails, pasta with tomato sauce. Just make sure you have parmesan cheese.
Related links:
- Epicurious.com will continue to house Gourmet’s recipe archive, and has a great feature called “Everyday Cooking” that offers tips and ideas.
- Mark Bittman’s blog and cookbooks are a great source of inspiration to me. Bittman helps you adapt what you have in the house to many simple, delicious and interesting recipes, and has recently been helping me to cut down on our meat consumption.
- Craig “Meathead” Goldwyn writes about Who Killed Gourmet Magazine in The Huffington Post.
- From The Mama Bee archives: Not Julie or Julia; why I’m not crazy about some of the recent journalism on slow food.
3 Comments
October 21, 2009 at 4:18 pm
I actually enjoy cooking and try to get in several meals a week. Peapod has been a god send—food delivered while I’m pecking on the computer.
October 26, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Goodness, I never realized cooking (almost) every night was such a chore! I do it all the time, and I have a heavy travel commitment. Not trying to bang my own drum (or whatever) but anything can be done, it’s just a matter of priorities. I do a huge shop on the weekend, I buy enough to last the entire week! Including perishables, I believe the hype of worrying about food spoilage after 3 days is baloney. I have no fear of cooking chicken on Thursday that I purchased the previous Saturday, no one has gotten sick (knock on wood).
I may have a bit of a bonus, I am a pretty good cook and I don’t really need to follow a recipe unless I am doing something quite spectacular. I just don’t believe in (too much) fast food, processed foods, etc. I cooked whilst in graduate school, and saw no reason to stop once I graduated and started my family.
I also did something else quite revolutionary, I kept my kids in the kitchen with me while I cooked. There were no trips to the ER for burned or chopped limbs, when they were babies they played nicely on the floor in the corner out of the way, when they were toddlers, they played with the magnets on the refrigerator door, now they steal the veggies while I cook. It’s very easy to turn this time into good “quality” bonding time with the little ones.
just my two cents.
October 26, 2009 at 6:16 pm
I agree…Finding the time to shop is more the issue than finding the time to cook. Sometimes I make a large batch of something like quinoa on the weekend and then use it for 3-4 meals during the week. If you need more easy and healthy recipes or ideas on how to bring your kids into the kitchen with you check out our web site, http://www.meatlessmonday.com, look under “Topics” for “Kids”.
Thanks,
VP