“What’s for Dinner?”


The innocent sounding sentence that fills me with dread and gets me hyperventilating even more than; “Just listen to me before you say anything”
It is not because I want to reply “whatever you are making.” I like cooking, really I do. I just despise deciding WHAT to cook every night. I can rustle up a pretty decent plate of food if only someone would tell me exactly what to cook – and Chicken Man has purchased the ingredients of course.

Use a recipe book I hear you say. Problem with recipes is that they list ingredients that I have never heard of and they tell me to do things to food that sounds positively indecent. They also expect you to use more than 2 pots. For 1 meal? That is just excessive. Besides – if you have outsourced your shopping to your husband like I have, you cannot present him with a shopping list that has any variables to the routine. Crickey, I can’t even ask for coriander without him demanding a picture, full description and a rough idea as to what aisle he will find it in.

And then one has to consider what the family members eat and don’t eat. If I could find enough recipes for mince, rice and pasta and serve that every night for a year I would not get a word of complaint from Chicken Man. As long as it is accompanied by a salad, Chicken Man would be quite happy.

The Alien was such a dream eater. I started feeding her everything we ate from about 6 months old and she happily devoured olives, feta, calamari…basically anything except prawns. Since her abduction she suddenly doesn’t laik this and doesn’t laik that. Flippen hell, I am tempted to feed her what I never fed her as a baby. She can darn well eat jars of Purity baby food which all taste the same whether they are beef or chicken, pasta or dessert. I believe a lot of superstars are partaking in this baby food diet so The Alien will be only too happy to oblige. Imitating role models is important to teenagers.


And me? I’ll pretend I am rich and famous and eat what every self respecting South African celebrity eats. Nuke-able Woollies meals for one.

Great, my “What‘s for Dinner” dilemma has been partially sorted. Thank you. Now, what happens when I have guests over for dinner….????

7 thoughts on ““What’s for Dinner?””

  1. I have become a Masterchef follower of note and have even started serving rice in little round stacks because my kids think it makes me so cool – we have not yet reached that Alien stage and mine still think I could win Masterchef bless them.
    But I would kill for the mystery box or the challenges where they tell you what to cook! Because if there is anything I hate more than washing dishes it is deciding what to cook!
    I hear you loud and clear!

  2. Hee, hee. I love Masterchef too, Les. Only problem is that no matter how much I watch it – I still cannot make mashed potatoes without lumps. I therefore now believe that Masterchef is a fraud! Thank goodness for Smash.

  3. Whaaahaahah!! Very funny, Alma! So good to know I am the only one with this daily dilemma! : )

  4. Thank you, Helen. You are definitely not the only one. A universal problem for all Moms by the sounds of the feedback I have received.

  5. Great reading Alma….really have a good giggle to myself. Thank goodness I am not asked "What's for dinner" I would have to unpack the oven with all my art materials stored in there! Inger

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