What's for dinner?

When I was growing up my mother never had any idea of what to cook for dinner. She had a small repertoire of evening meals—fried steak, fried potatoes, and salad; roast and potatoes and carrots; fried chicken, mashed potatoes, & cream gravy. Vegetables were green beans, peas, corn, or asparagus all strictly from a can; where else would a vegetable come from?? But every day there was the question of what to cook for dinner. So when I married 40 years ago we were starting cooking from ground zero. Fortunately I was given two cookbooks—McCall’s and Better Homes & Gardens—and could follow directions. With a few notable disasters, JMM thought I was a really good cook and I never chose to enlighten him. I found it efficient & economical to plan meals a week at the time and then shop once a week. This has been my “system” for many years.
So what’s to ruminate about? Enter the food patrol. First it was vegetarianism which theoretically has a lot going for it; however, when reality rears its ugly head, the fact is that I could never find enough vegetarian meals that JMM, TSM, & I would actually eat. Next on the scene were the whole grain purists who grind their own grain.; not being that pure, I thought buying a bag of Gold Medal Whole Wheat flour would be satisfactory. I was wrong, enter the organic-or-die crew. OK, Whole Foods has organic whole grains and my soul was redeemed…temporarily. The latest tormentors are the Buy Local or Grow It Yourself and Save the Planet crusaders. Frankly, all the farmers I know grow either rice or cotton and none of them sell their rice or cotton at the local Farmers Market. (Actually, there isn’t a local Farmer’s Market; there are 2 approximately 35 miles from me but what would the purists say about my CO2 emissions by driving 70 miles to buy pure and even then it might not really be organic?) Maybe my mother had the right idea—just buy it and fry it.

Quote for today:

Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones. Phillips Brooks