Do you feel like you think about food all the time? Some times I feel like I do. And not always in the good, exciting, engaged, try new recipes, lazily browse cookbooks and sunnily putter in my kitchen kind of way. I've been living away from home for almost 20 years, married for nearly 12 (as of next week!) and a mother for eight. You'd think that somewhere along the way this cooking and feeding of my family would have become, if not necessarily effortless, than at least relatively predictable and painless.

Instead, more often than not, our regular weeknight cooking feels exhausting, laborious and frustrating. And I like to cook. Cooking soothes and relaxes and refuels me as much as the food itself does. So clearly, as with so many things (like being still), I'm not getting something right here. Meals had a regular rhythm when I was growing up. My dad cooked a couple nights of the week, and my mom cooked a couple nights of the week. You guys, help me out. What kinds of things did we eat during the week? I remember details better than whole meals. I remember setting the table and pouring the milk. I remember asking what was for dinner. I remember frozen Lima beans or corn steaming from a plastic bag in a pan of boiling water on the stove. I remember some kind of french-style green bean, the smell of which always sent me into a tail-spin of misery (sorry Mom!). We ate together in the dining room every night and rarely went out.

Friday night was "McDonald's Night." It cracks me up now to think that we had fast food once a week. A regular thing. Even "McDonald's Night" was tinged with ritual. We all went to get the food together and brought it home to eat at the coffee table in the living room in front of M*A*S*H* and Barney Miller. Our dog Muffin had her own place mat (a napkin) because she drooled so much waiting for her french fries. It was the only time she was fed from the table.

Saturday mornings my mom worked,
so my dad and I went to the grocery store together and Saturday night
they cooked together. I don't remember those meals very well either, except that they were more intricate and we were all involved. I remember mostly the feeling of well-being. All of us in the kitchen, snacking on goldfish crackers while my mom and dad cooked, Phoebe Snow or Al Jarreau on the record player, three or four albums stacked up. It was the one time during the week that they drank wine (Ha! That cracks me up now too!), and I'd have coke in a wine glass and feel so grown up.

Somewhere along the way I learned to enjoy cooking. Somewhere among the frozen corn, garlic powder and Parmesan cheese in a green can ("Lauren, it was the seventies, we didn't know any better," my dad reminds me."), I started cooking. There was the great funnel cake debacle of seventh grade home ec. Knowing how tired I am when I come home from school in the evenings, I can just imagine how my dad felt when he got home from work to find me making funnel cake at 4:30 in the afternoon...the batter was everywhere. (Dad, I am SO sorry.) The summer after college I did a lot of cooking for my mom's psychotherapy practice. I made a lot of messes, but they had food in the kitchen between sessions, right Mom? Right? I was trying to re-establish myself as myself somehow. Cast adrift between my college life and life after, knowing nothing more than that I liked to cook and that I wanted it to be with Neel. Through every stage of my life, cooking and writing were the constants. Sometimes burned and messy, but those things stayed and stuck.

So I'm not quite sure why I feel like I'm getting it wrong now. Why cooking feels more laborious and chore-like these days. But I walk in the door worn out and just as inclined to throw up my hands and say, "Let's go out," as dig around for something to make. In the early days of my marriage to Neel, my mother-in-law (back when she actually had conversations with me) once asked what kinds of meals we ate. When I told her, she said, "Really? Is that enough for Neel?" So maybe that one well-placed, disdainful comment put me on the path of feeling the need for a bells-and-whistles dinner every night, not just Saturday night. So there's enough for Neel. Whatever. Seriously. That man appreciates good food, but he's just as happy with a piece of cheese microwaved between two slices of bagel.

It's more than that though. Making a home for my family has always been so important to me, one of the most important things I could ever do really. And cooking is such a significant part of that. Nourishment is about so much more than food, but food... feeding your family and your friends is how you show it.

I want us to sit at the table every night. I want to have more than one or two dinners a week in me before throwing in the towel. I want a repertoire of meals we can fall back on each week. I want it to fall somewhere between bells-and-whistles and corn from a can. So here's my plan. A friend of mine bemoans the nightly question from her husband, "What were you thinking about for dinner?" And that's where I think I fall down. I don't want to think about dinner. I want to come home and make it and eat it. I don't think I have it in me to summon the energy to think of the meal and cook it all on the same night. So this week I did my meal planning for the whole week on Saturday and we did our grocery shopping then too. I tried going super-Type A and making a list of each meal and the night we'll have it. There are some old stand-bys as well as some newbies on there. I picked recipes that will nourish us quickly and easily, maximizing our time together. Because we had so much fun last month, Neel's writing another grant, so I may do all the cooking this week and next, but if not, he can just look at the list. It may be too rigid, and I know I'm a total dork, but for now, I want to see if this structure gives me a little something that I need.

So one night we'll have these, already a favorite around here and last night we tried something new. Leek custards, from Local Flavors by Deborah Madison and a squash salad loosely inspired by Orangette.

At the last minute I discovered a sad lack of tahini to make the vinagrette, so I improvised, using my all-time favorite salad dressing recipe. The results weren't too bad, for being on the fly.

So Tuesday. Squash salad and leek custard. Despite the surprises once we got here (no tahini), I have to say it felt pretty nice to come home and know exactly what to do. And tomorrow, Neel says he'll cook and he'll know exactly what to do too. We may be dorks, but we'll be dorks with nice dinners. Let's see what the rest of the week brings.