“I simply adore doing meal planning, prep, serving, and clean-up”, said no rational person ever.

To those of us who find the joy of cooking to be a smarmy concept, I feel compelled to share some of the methods I have used to combat such a hoax through my 70 years of experience in the kitchen.

To illustrate, I have a pretty effective four-step method of meal planning.

In step one, I go to the refrigerator, open the door, and look inside. Contained within, I often find many items which may have seen a better day, but have not been discarded. This is entirely due to my sensitive nature. At my age, it kind of hurts my feelings to think something should be thrown out just because it’s a bit old and moldy and smells bad.

I follow wholesome parameters, of course. If that carefully Saran-wrapped bowl contains something grayish with green spots on top that may have started life as chicken with pasta, I would normally avoid serving it. Or if the product has an odd color, is forming foam on top or seems to be sort of breathing, just set it aside for your child’s next science fair project. That is because you must never ever eat food which is actually moving. It could be very detrimental to your health and it may well be the source of ringworm or the dreaded toenail fungus.

Often though, there’s something inside the refrigerator that doesn’t look too dangerous to warm up and serve, and my work is done! Dinner is served! Bon appetit! (A French expression meaning “Eat this or starve. It’s your choice.“)

If not successful finding some treasures to serve, however, I proceed to step two and go directly to the freezer. The trouble with step two is that it’s something I should have executed yesterday when that rock-hard frozen pork roast would’ve had time to thaw.

Feeling around, I keep hoping to find something friendlier, like a package of frozen hamburger. I can usually beat frozen hamburger into submission by dropping the package into a big bowl of cold water where it can leisurely recover it’s warmer personality. In meal planning, I consider hamburger to be one of my best and most faithful friends. (My social life is really pathetic.)

There’s a lot you can do to hamburger, but one of the things you cannot do is cook it and then serve it in all its bare, unadorned glory. You have to put it IN something. That’s when I launch step 3 which takes place in the pantry. That’s where I can often find a compatible companion for the hamburger. A favorite of mine is a can of Cattle Drive Gold Chili with beans. If you heat it up, add the cooked hamburger to it and sprinkle some raw onions on top, it’s delicious, and you have the added benefit of finding that it’s good for your bowels. I call it Hamburger Surprise.

Step four is for-when-all-else-has-failed. This step is made up of several options:

Option (a). Search for the nearest Golden Arches. Nobody ever turns down a quarter pounder or a Big Mac. For the vegans, you can get fries with extra tartar sauce.

Option (b). If the milk hasn’t curdled, get out bowls for the Cheerios, and serve with a flourish. As always, attractive presentation is important for an enjoyable meal.

Option (c). Suggest to your diners, the value of fasting tonight as an effective means of diet control, and how nice it will be to shed all those extra pounds of flab generated by the output of my well-known cuisine (at least for those who had managed to eat any of it).

Well, that’s how I do meal planning and it works for me. But here’s one more approach you might consider using.