Please don’t ask me what’s for dinner!

A recent post that rolled by on my Facebook news feed featured an interview with the one and only Aretha Franklin. The interviewer asked what she found most difficult during the course of an average day. I expected The Queen of Soul to say balancing work with a personal life or keeping her personal life private or finding music worthy of her talents.

Aretha surprised me by saying the hardest part of her day was thinking up what to make for dinner.

Night, after night, after night, she said.

I feel that, sister!

After forty plus years of slinging food onto the dining table, I’ve had it, too. The thrill is gone, and I’m not sure it is ever coming back. I feel like a marathon runner who has hit the wall. I just can’t bring myself to make one more decision about dinner.

I’m done. Finito. No mas. Don’t make me!

I’ll drown in my own tears if I have to decide between chicken or beef one more time. Ain’t no way I want to spend another night choosing between broiled chicken and baked chicken. Mediterranean, Italian, Chinese or American? And don’t get me started on side dishes.

Ain’t nothing like the real thing when it comes to home cooking. I get that. A house is not a home without food. Cooking deserves a little respect. But being in charge of the menu no longer makes me feel like a natural woman.

OK, I’ll stop with the Aretha tunes.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not tired of eating. I just want to sit down at the table and have something fabulous appear before my very eyes without my input on any level. But the fabulous meal has to be one that satisfies my tastebuds that day. That’s why, when I win the lottery, I need to hire a cook who’s psychic.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I didn’t inherit any cooking genes from my mother. I cannot remember my father ever saying anything kind about his mother’s cooking, either. No requests for meatloaf like Mother used to make or fond remembrances of holiday meals. The only thing I know is that my father refused to eat anything creamed. Apparently, his parents went through a phase where only creamed vegetables were served. Once, my mother served creamed corn with dinner, and my father hit the roof.

 “You know I can’t stand this,” he shouted. It was one of the few times I heard him raise his voice.

“But, honey, they were only ten for a dollar,” my mother said.

“You can throw them all out. I won’t eat it.”

My mother grumbled under her breath all evening. I have no idea what she did with the remaining cans, but I never saw a creamed vegetable again. (Thank goodness!)

It’s not like I ever cooked magnificent seven-course extravaganzas that demanded the full faculties of my brain. My children were more than happy with brinner: pancakes with scrambled eggs. The one year I grew vegetables, I harvested my tomatoes and made sauce. I rolled out homemade noodles. I proudly set this abundanza on the table, and my boys poked at it like the Oracle at Delphi studying entrails to decide what empire to attack. They were happier with the cheap spaghetti sauce recipe I had gleaned from my college roommate who had gleaned it from her brother. She called it Finnish firefighter sauce and had nothing to do with good Italian cooking. Its base was bacon grease.

Once the boys started playing hockey, we progressed to chicken tenders at the ice rink. I had one child who only ate yogurt and blue box macaroni and cheese for dinner for three years which was a step up from the buttered noodles he had the year before.

But, still, the decision making every night was mine and mine alone.

My husband doesn’t get it. He is of the opinion that since I’ve been doing so well at it for so long, I should be easily able to just keep going, like cooking on an automatic pilot. In fact, it should be easier now because I’ve got all day to plan and do the actual cooking, and there’s just the two of us.

During the pandemic, we used one of those food services where they deliver the ingredients to you, all perfectly proportioned. I still had to decide what meals to order, and we stopped because the pressure to choose was too great. Too many choices. Too much to think about.

The same with my cookbooks. I have a full shelf of recipes above the sink, plus more books tucked away somewhere in the basement. But I open one up and am immediately overwhelmed by the options.

Let’s face it. It’s so much easier to throw hot dogs on a grill than make risotto.

The arrival of my grandchildren has brought this trauma to a boil. I babysit my grandtwins on Mondays and Tuesdays and often don’t get home until 5 pm. The last thing I want to do is think about what to make for dinner. Hubby is of the opinion that I should plan the meal ahead of time. But how do I know on Sunday what I want to eat on Tuesday?

My solution? Hubby should prepare dinner on those two days. After a stammer or two, he agreed that this was a reasonable idea.

Say a little prayer for his sanity as he has to decide between pizza and take-out shawarma until his brain hurts.

I see some coin flipping in his future.