cooking dinner is hard

There’s a viral clip of an interview with Aretha Franklin where a reporter asks her, “What are the biggest challenges for you?” She replies: “Trying to figure out what to cook for dinner nightly, ya know? Just night after night. What is it going to be tonight?”

Same, Aretha. Same.

We’d add that not only do we have to decide what’s for dinner, we then have to cook it, sometime between work, housework, exercise, carpool, homework, sports practice, bedtime routines, etc.

Over the years, we’ve learned a lot about how you all approach cooking dinner. We know some of you meal prep on Sunday, some of you cook while the baby’s napping, some of you whip up dinner right when you get home from work. But we wanted to know more! We love hearing how other people do life — we are constantly picking our friends’ brains to learn how they make their homes and family systems and businesses run. If a person has some wisdom, we want to hear it!

So today we’re peeking inside 12 What to Cookers’ kitchens, to learn when and how they cook dinner in the midst of busy schedules. From a single gal who works long days in a clinic to dual-working parents with multiple kids, and beyond, we hope you can relate to and/or learn from them as much as we did!

1. Becky from Raleigh, North Carolina: We are a family of three, and our son has sports or Boy Scouts six days a week. We eat home-cooked dinners six nights a week, and have one fun takeout night. We LIVE on what we call “two nighters” — we cook enough of a meal that we eat the leftovers (as is, not repurposed in a different dish) on the second night. I make two “two-nighters” that cover four dinners, and my husband covers the other two dinners with his own “two-nighter.” We both do our cooking totally solo to allow each other the room to do other things during that time. We cook right before we eat on the nights we’re cooking, though I am a huge fan of afternoon prep, such as chopping veg or making any accompanying sauces.

2. Allie from Houston, Texas: I’m a single, 30-something nurse working an 8-5 clinic job. I grocery shop Saturday mornings (always treat myself to a fun drink!) and then cook my lunches and