Food and Cooking
Planning Ahead • TV Dinners • Sort of Cooking • Slow Cookers • Actual Recipes
Writers need to eat, but planning, shopping, cooking, and eating all cut into writing time. Writers have also been known to get absorbed in their work and burn their food.
Disclaimer: Since this is based on my own experiences, it’s rather single-writer-centric (i.e., I don’t know how to feed kids). Also, what works for me might not work for you. Like a critique, take what’s helpful and ignore the rest.
Planning Ahead
Develop a repertoire of recipes, from real food to quick “emergency” stuff, and keep ingredients for them on hand.
Make up a master grocery list on the computer, print out a copy, and magnet it to the fridge. When something’s running low, circle it and buy it on the next trip. Before shopping, check *everything* on the list quickly so you don’t run out of rarely-purchased items. This does require buying whatever’s on the list.
Plan meals before you shop and add those ingredients to the list. If you keep your repertoire at hand, you only need to plan a few meals. I shop once every two weeks and eat a lot of leftovers, so I only plan two meals each shopping trip.
The writer who likes to cook may want to do so only once or twice a week, and make extra for leftovers. I like to try new recipes. If I like it, it gets added to the repertoire.
There’s a fair amount of info on the web on Once a Month Cooking, which is exactly what it sounds like and requires a lot of freezer space.
TV Dinners
TV dinners, while more expensive than cooking from scratch, are cheaper than calling for takeout and more interesting than eternal cold cereal. They now come in versions for diets from Weight Watchers to Atkins to none. Coupons and sales are readily available (at least in the U.S.).
What to Look For
TV dinners that have one large chunk of food (meat, enchilada, whatever) tend to cook unevenly. Dinners in which the meat is cut into chunks and mixes with pasta and vegetables heat more evenly.
Not all TV dinners actually contain veggies, so choose carefully, or be prepared to add your own on the side.
Sort of Cooking
Eggs. Quesadillas. Canned beans.
Slow Cookers
Cook while you write, without burning down the house.
Actual Recipes
Real food, reasonably fast. These are recipes I’ve made up. I sometimes comment on other recipes on my LiveJournal, in entries with the “food” tag.
Pseudo-Asian Chicken with Soba Noodles
Brown, on both sides, some boneless skinless breasts in olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Meanwhile, boil water and add soba noodles and green beans. Also meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix about 1 cup chicken stock, several tbsp soy sauce, minced garlic and ginger and black pepper to taste. When the chicken is browned, dump the sauce on it and partly cover the pan. Add some sliced bell peppers. Let it simmer until the chicken is done.
Modified March 25, 2007
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