Dear Weeknight Dinner,

I hate you.

At the end of a day that begins with shuttling children to school after preparing and packing various other (less annoying) meals, and continues with manically running errands, that includes agitatedly tapping my foot behind the woman using a check to pay at Target (why didn't you just bring a bag of pennies for Christ's sake?), then drags on as I gather children from school, and chauffeur them to various after school activities, I finally, FINALLY, end up back in the kitchen exhausted. All I want to do is sit down, for what is probably the first time of the day, and have a glass of wine. Instead, I have the pleasure of supervising two children doing homework, while trying to corral, in a separate room, my third child, who, not having seen his sisters for six hours, is desperate to share the details of his day. While doing this, and sifting through the piles of forms the girls have thrown at me from their backpacks, trying in vain, to prevent their being misplaced, I have to put together a nutritious, balanced meal. That's you.

Nothing really puts the shit icing on my cake of a day than getting to overcook the broccoli while cuing up another episode of Octonauts (some free babysitting, why thank you, Nick Jr!), or scorch the chicken while ejudicating possession of the shamrock eraser at the homework table. And let's not forget, like some bizarre fine dining restaurant, where the decor is dominated by abstract crayon drawings, and your server is a cranky thirty-something wearing yoga pants, I have not one, but two dinner seatings. One for the kids, and one when H gets home. This requires the meals I prepare have a moderately kid-friendly element, while, at the same time pleasing the palette of my food snob of a husband, and be microwaveable for reheating. Simple!

What I really want to do is scramble a dozen eggs, throw the pan on the table with three forks and collapse on the floor. Then I want to call H and tell him to eat a hot dog on the train while he watches whatever show he's downloaded onto his ipad, all the while, trying not to think of the radical difference between what he's doing at 5:30 and what I'm doing. Instead, I cook the damn lean protein, whole grain and vegetables, and for my efforts, spend the meal watching my oldest drown everything in ketchup, and #2 eat three bites and say she's full, and Little Man refusing to eat whatever form of healthy flesh I've given him because it isn't batter-coated and deep fried. At this point they know better than to complain. Recently, LM made the mistake of calling whatever I was trying to cram into his craw "yucky". The girls began silently gesturing with desperate eyes, furtively shaking their heads at him, as if to say, "Are you nuts???? She's crazy, man. Just shut your trap and eat!"

Save me the defensive yammering, Dinner. I have tried all of the time and work-saving tricks in the book to no avail. I have tried prepping for the weekday meals on Sunday. That was short-lived, since a mild Sunday morning hangover is a deterrent from spending hours chopping vegetables, and I don't want to spend two of the forty-eight hours H is actually around each week in the kitchen. Another idea, cooking one component of the meal that can be served many different ways, such as roast chicken, to be used in soups, sandwiches and salads, resulted in complaints from H along the lines of eating prison food. And the crock pot. Oh, the crock pot. There are two issues with this kitchen gadget. One, you have to actually remember you are planning to use it and start dinner eight hours ahead. I usually remember around noon and I wind up dumping the contents of the crock pot into a regular pot and boiling it, trying to get the chicken thighs to cook. Delicious! And two, my beloved complains bitterly when he sees this device darkening the kitchen counter since he will be served some sort of ethnic stew. Or as he calls them, "chick peas, vegetables, weird spices, and no meat". Did I mention he's a food snob?

My life is like an never-ending season of Top Chef, with very specific parameters, limited time and picky judges - except I don't get to drink in the stew room or win a Prius. I'd like to see Marcel survive in my kitchen, topping the food with various secretions and ejaculates. I wish Tom Colicchio would send me home.

But instead, Dinner, you and I will continue to wrassle every night, with my victory over you being lauded by my family with a resounding, "What is this?"

Screw you,
MM