Honestly, I feel like my life is primarily about food management these days. I have one family member who goes to school five days a week and dances six days a week and who therefore needs eleven proper meals a week to eat on the go. And I have another family member whom I live with for less than a day a week who is covering a emergency room, a nursing home and two medical practices pretty much singlehandedly and who needs to eat too. And these two people I’m trying feed live 90 minutes apart.

So here’s the what I’m trying. During the latter part of the week, I cook up a simple bulk meal. Something I can manage in Nelson where I have a small bare-bones kitchen outfitted for two part-time residents. Soup or a basic curry or something. Fiona and I eat some on Friday and/or Saturday, and I freeze a couple of servings which I subsequently take back to New Denver for Chuck.

On Saturday I grocery shop for a couple more bulk recipes that are better cooked at the New Denver kitchen, wherein there are large pots, multiple pans, colanders, small appliances of various sorts, decent counter space and a dishwasher. Saturday night I arrive back with all the groceries and head to bed. Then on Sundays I cook two double-size meals, freezing a couple of dinners’ worth of each to take to Nelson for Fiona and me, and setting aside servings for Chuck.

Finally, Fiona and I cook a regular Sunday dinner so we can eat as a family that one day. (Except when Chuck can’t, which is pretty regularly, but we try.)

Anyway, there’s a collection of sticky notes on the outside of the fridge, one for each entrée that has been prepared, five dinners in this case. (There are also a couple of extra things … dessert and snack options.)

And on the inside of the fridge –>

there are bags and containers bearing matching sticky notes. On a good week we can leave him with four to six meals.

And then there’s the grocery bag of frozen portions that we return to Nelson with.

This makes for a lot of cooking on Sunday, and a lot of neon pink post-it notes, but it seems to be working reasonably well. Because we come back to Nelson with about four freezer meals, that saves me having to do much major cooking in the 50’s kitchen during the week.

With luck this will keep all of us from starving or getting scurvy this year.