Come Dine With Me - German edition!
Last Sunday evening I binge-watched ‘Come Dine With Me’ – a normal occurrence in my house as Mr T loves it as well.
One of the contestants was a young girl who impressed me – she didn’t win but she had a list on her cupboard door of the dishes she was cooking during the week. The list consisted of a lot of dishes and she ticks the ones she wants to cook in that particular week.
She is so well organised, she clicks the dishes on her computer list and it prints out a shopping list – no panic buys for this lady.
The German part of me is deadly impressed by these organisational skills. The rebel in me wants to shout: ‘live dangerously’!
She explained her system and it made perfectly sense – she didn’t mind putting the work in of getting the database set up and included enough recipes to avoid total boredom. She didn’t go as far as pinning down days for each dish but it freed her up for thinking too much about what to cook each day.
She takes a look at the list, picks what she is in the mood for and grabs the ingredients from the pantry and fridge as her shopping list made sure that all ingredients for each dish were available.
My mum would have been so impressed – she always planned her weekly meals in advance and had a shopping list for her weekly shop to ensure that all ingredients were available.
I have to admit that I have never done that – one reason might be that I always ate out a lot (when I was younger more so than now) and another one is that I am quite spontaneous and give in to spur of the moment ideas even if it means I have to go to the shop!
The only time I am really organised is when I cook for a dinner party. Even my mum was impressed how I conducted the preparations when I invited friends over. All dishes are listed with steps each dish entails and are ticked off as I proceed.
I divide the to-do-items in timeslots and I am normally bang on time when my friends arrive – even a shower will be scheduled in. From that point, I think the girl on the show would have been impressed with me but in day-to-day life, I think she would be horrified.
Saying all that, I always have staples in the cupboard to make sure I won’t starve in case I can’t make it to the shop. You will always find rice, pasta, passata, parmesan cheese, milk, butter, flour, nuts, yeast, egg, onions, frozen peas and spices in my kitchen. These ingredients ensure that I can make almost any pasta or rice dish and can bake a bread – I can survive quite a few days on this without having to go outside the house.
I don’t need a list for that – but I am still impressed by that girl.