Who’s the Cook?
Food is essential to us all and can be more than you banked on in a small town or rural community with respect to preparing meals. Someone has to be the cook. It is important to know who is available for this role and when. A schedule of the cook on duty is just as important and what is on the menu.
Food preparation and planning is one of the biggest adjustments to your new lifestyle. It is always easier if you are or can be a planner. Your nearest grocery store may be several miles away and you only have a chance to shop either once or twice a week. Having a basic kitchen set up is needed. (Will advise in another article on the basics for kitchen set up.)
For the most part you need to have a system that records your needed groceries every week. This can be a list on the refrigerator or a time when you actually plan meals and write out a list per the recipes you plan to make that week, or you can use an app to handle the list as you add it all week long. I would suggest to start this planning task that you have some idea of how many meats, fruits, vegetables, breads and beverages it takes to get through a week. A good refrigerator freezer in needed or even a separate freezer can be a good add to your household as you will be making purchases that you may want to freeze and then use. If you know you basic lists, you can then build in variety each week. When you are shopping you can view the number of items in each food group in the cart, rather than looking at all the items separately.
Cooking for those chefs out there is great fun! You will enjoy the time you have to cook in this type of lifestyle. For others, this can be a time management challenge and also something that could be shared each day or tasks that can be specifically assigned to the cook’s schedule at your house. Sometimes more than one cook in the kitchen is a good thing.
Later
Marilyn
