Dinner Time

Have you seen or heard about the latest food trend? Girl Dinner? Apparently, it’s on fire on TikTok.  I don’t have or know how to use TikTok, so I heard about it the old-fashioned way: through my newsfeed.

It’s described as something the opposite of a guy dinner, ie, protein, starch and vegetable.  You know, something we used to just call dinner.  Not sure when the genderization of mealtime took place.

It’s something usually light or snacky, consumed by single girls, or girls when they are not with their partners.  It’s built for one person, to be consumed by one person.  Kind of like an appetizer spread, tapas or mezze, but think size-wise, for a party of one.

It’s the antithesis of cooking.  It’s not cooking. It’s prepping.  It’s pouring wine, slicing cheese, rinsing grapes, slicing bread, and a bowl of popcorn. 

As my friend Christine pointed out to me once, there are five steps to making dinner: Planning, Purchasing, Prepping, Cooking, Cleanup.  The 3 P’s and 2 C’s if you will.  Almost sounds like a droid from Star Wars.  Anyway, I guess this eliminates a few of the steps in that process, liberating us from the chore that sometimes cooking can become.

Funny, because I too have experienced this.  But I didn’t call it Girl Dinner.  I called it, Empty Nester No Longer Have to Cook for Kids Dinner.  And both my husband and I very much enjoy this new way of eating.

When we first became Empty Nesters, we tried ordering those home meal kits like Blue Apron or Home Fresh.  We loved this because it eliminated 2 of the 3 P’s.  I’m including Purchasing, because, yes, we purchased the meals, but we didn’t have to physically shop for the meals. 

We were disappointed that we still had to Prep the meals though.  We are still looking for a home meal kit that eliminates that step too.  Everything already chopped, diced, sliced, peeled, rinsed, minced.  All that would be required would be to pop it in the oven.  I guess that is called a frozen meal, or a TV dinner if I am going way back, and you can find those in the freezer section of your local supermarket.

We have since moved on from these meal kits though and dinner now has become a mix of approaches.  Some nights we have Fend For Yourself.  This means that we each scrounge up something for ourselves with whatever we have on hand.  We may eat our individually scrounged up meals together or not depending on who’s hungry at what time.  Sometimes we do cook.  The general rule of thumb there is, one person cooks, the other cleans up—so dealing equitably with the 2 C’s.  Sometimes we go out or order in.

The underlying theme or thread though to all these approaches is the same as Girl Dinner.  The freedom from HAVING to cook. 

Marie Antoinette may have said, “Let them eat cake”.  Now they say, “Have some popcorn and a glass of wine and call it dinner.” Works for me.

Bon appetít everyone.

 

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