What are you planning to cook for dinner tonight, or am I incorrect to assume you have planned ahead that far? I don’t usually plan dinner very far in advance. I am most ambitious at the grocery store, particularly in the produce department. All those pretty colored veggies make me think of healthy recipe ideas and devious tricks for sneaking vegetables into my children. So I buy more than I prepare.

Several obstacles thwart my dinner plans. Although I’m getting better at accounting for it, my children eat dinner with their father twice a week. So there go two nights of cooking. Then my children’s evening activities interfere with a sit down family meal – so I might take a short-cut on the cooking. Ragu and pasta always please. Then it is just one regular week night left and I have all those veggies to prepare. The amount of chopping and sautéing involved sometimes doesn’t balance the various irritations and activities of my day, so I order out or go out.

On the nights my children eat with their dad, I usually opt for a simple dinner, like popcorn and wine, or Cheerios, or Triscuits with cheese. I do try to cook a healthy meal for my kids at least once a week. If I cook more than that, it probably means I’ve had company.

So I have really enjoyed the Ex’s new hobby of gourmet cooking. If he is in town twice during the week for dinner with the kids, he tries to cook one meal at my house for them. (He lives too far for a weeknight at his place.) So I make myself scarce and often return to a lovely dinner, fed kids, and a clean kitchen. Last week it was pecan & panko encrusted chicken, fresh corn sautéed in olive oil and garlic, basmati rice, and steamed broccoli. Wow, huh? Usually “encrusted” food in my house means something else. I think my divorce is stranger than my marriage.

So when the salesman knocked on my door today offering to sell me the best in frozen steaks and fish, I assured him he was at the wrong house.