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Apr. 1st, 2021 10:14 amThis week, I started an experiment where I basically meal prep all my meals for the entire week on Sunday and then never actively think about food again. I'd been wanting to do this for a while, but had been reluctant due to my dad's historic insistence that a) Family Meals (Mostly Dinner) Are Important and b) Family Meals Only Count If We Eat the Same Things. I am fine with a) most of the time but b) is honestly silly, especially considering my long and absurd list of food aversions that make any shared meal where we eat the same things an often unsatisfying compromise. I presented the change to him as "I feel physically better when I eat a smaller meal so I'm going to try this for a while" - Dad is a dinner-is-the-largest-meal guy and also more sympathetic to food changes for reasons of health/wellbeing - and this explanation seemed to assuage some of his Feelings about having us all eat the same things.
So far, it is going great. Mom and Dad get the freedom to cook more things that I absolutely will not eat, I get to eat stuff I actually like at every meal, and I never have to have those terrible "what do you want to do for dinner?" conversations because I already know. The way I do things relies extremely heavily on my capacity to eat the same thing every day for days at a time, so it wouldn't work for people who want more variety, but it is working well for me.
It's not even a huge amount of Sunday cooking, really. I make one family-sized recipe for lunches - usually something like a soup or a stirfry to put over noodles or something else that keeps well in the fridge - and pack it into containers, and then I bake either a loaf of bread or a loaf cake on alternating weeks. Occasionally I make pickles or something. And then the week is:
Breakfast - still a bagel. Has been a bagel since I was 13. I see no reason to change this now.
Lunch - the aforementioned prepacked meal, almost always a small portion of raw fruit or vegetables, and a piece of cake.
Dinner - bread and butter/toast, raw fruit/vegetables, and small portions of one to two of the following: cheese, anchovies/sardines, nuts, pickles.
Again, only a week in, but I'm really enjoying not having to expend any mental energy on food beyond "do I want smoked gouda or almonds with my toast this evening?" I'll re-evaluate after a month or so and then determine if it's going to be a permanent state of affairs.
So far, it is going great. Mom and Dad get the freedom to cook more things that I absolutely will not eat, I get to eat stuff I actually like at every meal, and I never have to have those terrible "what do you want to do for dinner?" conversations because I already know. The way I do things relies extremely heavily on my capacity to eat the same thing every day for days at a time, so it wouldn't work for people who want more variety, but it is working well for me.
It's not even a huge amount of Sunday cooking, really. I make one family-sized recipe for lunches - usually something like a soup or a stirfry to put over noodles or something else that keeps well in the fridge - and pack it into containers, and then I bake either a loaf of bread or a loaf cake on alternating weeks. Occasionally I make pickles or something. And then the week is:
Breakfast - still a bagel. Has been a bagel since I was 13. I see no reason to change this now.
Lunch - the aforementioned prepacked meal, almost always a small portion of raw fruit or vegetables, and a piece of cake.
Dinner - bread and butter/toast, raw fruit/vegetables, and small portions of one to two of the following: cheese, anchovies/sardines, nuts, pickles.
Again, only a week in, but I'm really enjoying not having to expend any mental energy on food beyond "do I want smoked gouda or almonds with my toast this evening?" I'll re-evaluate after a month or so and then determine if it's going to be a permanent state of affairs.
