The Right Tools for Dinner

I am pretty good about planning most aspects of my life.  This especially applies to long-term matters.  I started actively planning and saving a little for my retirement when I was only nineteen.  In another example, I started planning, and even collecting a few materials for my house a couple years before beginning construction.

But…I have a couple pretty big holes in my planning fabric.  I think dinner is my biggest hole.

I am not very good at planning dinner, either in the short-term or long-term.  Sure, I think about meals, but only in a fleeting manner—the same way I think about purchasing toilet paper or laundry detergent.  And, because I am presently living alone, making big plans is problematic.  Given all that, my planning is mostly on the surface.

As expressed in Mitch-speak, my planning is “surfacy”

Yesterday evening, same as every other evening, I required dinner.  This thought occurred to me a good twenty minutes before I normally eat.   Once the thought of dinner squirmed up through my maze of thought-blocking processes, I gleaned through the pantry and found: pasta noodles, catnip, chewing gum, plastic Solo cups (what?), and tomato paste.

In the refrigerator: apples, lemons, mustard, butter, olives, and something mysterious experimenting with itself in a sandwich bag.

My last hope?   The freezer. 

My lack of planning also extends to the simple task of freezing food for later.  Where a smart “single-ish” person might freeze leftovers in single servings, I usually throw big piles into my freezer.  Upon opening the freezer, I found: frozen butter sticks, cubed ice, sweet potato fries, more ice in a super-frosty bag, and a big chunk of frozen stew in a gallon zip-loc bag.

Stew, then!

The block of frozen stew was enough to feed an entire family.  After clunking the block stew on my kitchen counter, I realized I needed to break off only a small hunk.

After a few seconds of attempting to whittle at the frozen stew with a small and then big knife, my electrician’s instincts took hold of me. 

I needed some tools from my garage. 

Posted is a photograph (captured with my smarter-than-me-phone) of the tools I used break off a chunk of my dinner.

—Mitchell Hegman