Yesterday I was having a conversation with a friend over a cup of tea. The topics varied, but we focused on some of my food projects and their current directions. When the blog came up, an interesting comment was made and it’s stuck with me. The response regarded the weekly menus. My friend said something like, “I like the weekly menu posts because they remind me that I need to do better.” I want to discuss this a bit – specifically, the purpose and expectations of the weekly menu posts.

For the past 5 months or so I have provided an entry devoted to weekly menus. The premise is simple: we plan our meals for the week so we save money and prevent wasteful last minute shopping. The food for the week is purchased on one day, all most always over the weekend. Now this may be the goal, but there are underlying realties. For example, maybe we don’t want to eat the meal on the menu that evening; or maybe neither of us have the interest in cooking. When we just don’t care (and this happens), we eat out or defrost a previous meal, or sometimes scrounge something together with random ingredients in the cupboard.

All the while we have expectations for ourselves. I need to eat certain foods and this prevents eating out most of the time. My wife and I both want to eat healthy meals more often than not. We want to eat seasonally but are not as strict as we have been in the past. We want to eat meals from scratch, but sometimes we don’t want to spend more time in the kitchen. There’s a balancing act here – aspire to live by certain values vs. being human and finding comfort in laziness.  We also want to spend a certain amount of money. We may get lazy but we don’t have the finances to eat out everyday. Hence the meal planning, the leftovers and all the frozen food in the basement.

When I write the weekly menu post I have two goals in mind. On the one hand, I want readers to see what we eat in our home on a weekly basis for less than $100 a week. It’s difficult to know what the average household spends on food since most people don’t keep track. It depends so much on the number of people and what they like to eat and if they like to cook. For the two of us who want to eat ethically-raised food and I like to cook, we spend a bit less than 20% of our income on food costs. Note that the average American household spends less than 10% on food.

The other intention of the menus is to show the ways in which one can meal plan. Sometimes, though not regularly, I discuss some of the meal planning strategies that come to use each week. I do not expect others to eat like we eat. I do hope that others will see what we are doing and maybe be inspired, if anything, maybe think more about the opportunity to cook a meal at home. By no means are we a model for “how to eat healthy,” but I want others to acknowledge and attempt our way of life. The more our friends cook, the more food there is to share! That’s what it’s all about – community building.

All of this said, before I ramble any more, let me share the plan I put together for us this week:

• Nutted brown rice pilaf with greens
• Steak tacos (no recipe yet)
• Coconut braised beef (too good to not make again!)
• Penne with broccoli

I’d also like to mention that on Sunday I’m going to a ‘competitive potluck,’ for which I am very excited. The theme is New Age casserole! I can’t share my idea just yet, but I promise to write about the event with pictures to share. Next week is also the last week of my elimination diet (hard to believe, I know). After next week, I’ll reintroduce a food item one at a time and see how my body reacts. I’ll have more than this later.

For now, have a great weekend! Cook a feast, share it with loved ones and enjoy some R&R.

Related posts:

1. No Idea (weekly menu 24)
2. Kale, how I love thee (weekly menu 5)
3. Asian Madness (weekly menu 9)
4. New York, New York (weekly menu 1)
5. Walking the Talk (weekly menu 16)

Tags: seasonal eating, weekly menu