5 reasons I hate cooking dinner

1. Deciding what to make. It’s just pure laziness on my part but if someone would just tell me what to make everyday it wouldn’t be half as bad. Trying to find something that’s: healthy, tasty, quick, easy, low-fat, appealing to children, appealing to a man who doesn’t eat fish, can be difficult. Once I tried to make a monthly meal plan with coordinating weekly grocery lists. Then I had children.

2. Grocery shopping. Some of my friends say they like grocery shopping. They say they find it calming. I don’t know where they’re shopping or where they’ve stashed their children while they’re doing it but there are many things I find more calming than grocery shopping. Like a Tarantino movie, for example. My daughter sounds something like this at the grocery store: "I don’t want a cart!" (if we’re getting a cart) "I want a cart!" (if we’re not getting a cart) "I want to sit in the cart." "No, I want baby to sit in the cart." "No, I want to stand on the end of the cart." "No, I want to walk beside the cart like a big girl." Two seconds later she tears off down the aisle causing other patrons to abruptly stop their carts lest they run over a small girl whose mother should obviously know better and put her in a cart. All this while I’m pleading, “Mama just has to find one more thing Sarah! Just one more thing!” Now where do they keep the water chestnuts? With the canned vegetables? Is a water chestnut a vegetable? Canned fruit perhaps? I finally find them… with the Asian food. Go figure!

3. Nobody likes it/eats it. Here’s the dinner scenario at our house: I’ve chosen some crazy recipe off the net they’ve claimed is fast, easy and “sure to please.” I’ve braved the grocery store. I’ve managed to find all the esoteric ingredients. I’ve washed, sliced, diced, steamed, pan fried, broiled my little heart out, trying to time everything to come together so we can all sit down as a family and enjoy a nice, home cooked meal. I place their dishes in front of my darlings to a chorus of “What’s this?” “I don’t like that.” “This smells weird.” To be fair, my beloved husband (who is a very good chef and actually likes cooking) is always encouraging and the most negative thing he says is, “Um, I wouldn’t say this one is a do-over, babe.” Much better than what my father would say when we were kids. After my mother would try some new recipe she found in the newspaper, Big Al would push his chair back and pronounce, “If that’s dinner, I’ve had it.”

4. Everyone would rather be eating Sponge Bob Alphaghetti anyway. Right? I mean, who am I kidding. Nobody but me is worried about four food groups.

5. You have to do it all over again the next day. Oh joy. Somebody pass me the can opener.