Dinner, again?

I wimped out on dinner again tonight. The options in our refrigerator were: Niman Ranch pork chops purchased three days ago and begging, IMPLORING, to be cooked; the sad remains of a roast chicken; an item from Costco that involves a pouch of brown stuff to be poured over de-pouched chicken breasts and microwaved to become--ta da!--Chicken Marsala. And a plastic tub of dish known locally (our house) as "fart muck"; brown rice, lentils, chicken broth and a bunch of herbs. It's supposed to lower your blood pressure.

There was a family vote, 2-0, unanimous in favor of going out. We had plenty of food, but a complete and utter lack of will to deal with it. Most night, though, we grimly collaborate, throwing together some kind of meal, usually including a vegetable one of us hates (him/Brussels sprouts, me/broccoli) due to the colon cancer prevention angle. A brief hiatus for eating, and then the dismay of being faced with a messy kitchen. Each night I think, "Am I going to have to do this again TOMORROW?"

A group of quilt-maker friends are off shortly to a week-long orgy of sewing at Pt. Bonita on the Marin Headlands: quilt camp, all meals provided. It's barracks-style accommodations and the weather tends to be chilly, but they get to turn off the part of their brains that deals with food. They don't have to think up dinners, buy the food, cook it, or clean it up. All they have to do is eat. That part would be bliss.