In Which I Nearly Refuse an Invitation

Here's what happens at my place on Saturdays:

I plonk myself down the couch and surround myself with all manner of cookbooks and magazines. I page through the cookbooks and peruse pretty pictures and imagine what's getting shrively in the fridge and needs to be used up. (In an ideal world I would get up and check the fridge instead of imagining it, but I've already plonked myself down and I don't care to disturb the delicate balance of magazines on my lap.) An hour or so later I have compiled a complete menu for the week and a categorized shopping list. I am intensely proud of my lists and go show them to my husband.

"Do you really want to schedule the whole week?" says he. "Wouldn't it be good to leave a day free for something else that might come up?"

"Nothing will come up," I say. "This is a perfect menu and nothing will change."

"Something always changes," he says. "You've been doing this for a year and we've never yet had a week that perfectly aligned with your menu."

"This week will," I say. I am confident. I go to the store and I procure all manner of produce and meats and extra butter because I dread being out of butter. I come home and put groceries away.

This is usually when the phone rings. Do we want to go out for waffles with friends?

Yes. Absolutely. Push the whole menu back a day and call it good. Not once does my husband say "I told you so." Hurrah.

Tuesday. Cheap night at the movie theater. Do we want to grab Mexican and see a film?

Of course. Yes. Splendid. I stick tonight's fish in the freezer and hope we can finish the watercress before it wilts and command the hubby to have kiwi for lunch tomorrow because no way it makes it to Friday.

The hubby is still not saying he told me so. Bless him.

Friday night. Pizza and wine and Apples to Apples at a friend's house?

No. No. No. Because I was going to make a mango and red onion salad with roasted chicken and probably an orange-honey-sesame dressing, and I have peaches and blackberries defrosting in the fridge at this very moment waiting to go into a cobbler. And it's just not going to hold until Saturday. (Even if it did, Saturday is listed as "Date Night" on the menu and the hubby says I'm not allowed to change it.)

Screw it. Apples to Apples it is. Friends are more important than food. But here's my menu for next week:

Monday: Macaroni with Prego sauce

Tuesday: Frozen broccoli. Possibly rice?

Wednesday: Pizza Hut

Thursday: Meh

Friday: Spaghetti-Os

So come on over, because at the House of Kate you've got a menu you can count on.