Week Two of Faith’s Meal Planning Journey: Shop Your Kitchen First

Looking for practical meal planning tips to save money on groceries, reduce food waste, and make quick weeknight dinners easier?

In week two of Faith’s meal planning journey, we focus on one powerful shift: shop your kitchen first. Before heading to the grocery store, Faith builds her weekly meal plan around what’s already in her pantry, refrigerator, and freezer — and the results are immediate.

With a busy schedule and limited energy, it’s easy to default to takeout. But as Faith discovers, you still have to eat — so why not make dinner simpler and more intentional?

Pantry noodles become a bold 15-minute meal. Salmon, polenta, and roasted peppers stretch across multiple nights using the “cook once, eat twice” method. We talk through practical strategies like:

• How to turn one protein into different meals without getting bored
• What foods freeze well (and what don’t)
• How to portion leftovers to reduce food waste
• Keeping vegetables visible so they actually get used

The freezer becomes a tool for healthy meal prep instead of a graveyard for forgotten food. A simple whiteboard meal plan reduces decision fatigue and helps Faith avoid last-minute delivery spending.

We also discuss kitchen tools that make meal prep easier — like using a rice cooker for quick grains, a slow cooker for busy days, and a toaster oven to reduce reliance on the gas oven.

Beyond saving money and reducing takeout, meal planning creates space for more meaningful choices. Spending less on random delivery makes room for intentional restaurant visits that support local businesses and align with your values.

If dinner feels overwhelming right now, this episode offers realistic resets:

• Breakfast for dinner
• Three anchor meals per week
• Shop your pantry before you shop the store
• Cook once, eat twice
• 15-minute meal planning on Sundays

By the end, you’ll have a simple, sustainable blueprint for meal planning that helps you eat better, waste less, and feel calmer at 6 p.m.

Subscribe, share with a friend who wants to reduce food waste and save money, and tell us your favorite easy 15-minute meal.

RESOURCES + LINKS

•  Watch the PBS segment on Kitchen Activism 
•  Join the 4-week Kitchen Activist group (closes Sunday) 
•  Preorder The Kitchen Activist 
• Start Meal Planning to Save the Planet and Money! started.
• Sign up for my weekly newsletter. 
• Get a copy of the EAT LESS WATER book.
  
  Reach Florencia Ramirez at info@eatlesswater.com

Transcript

Setting The Challenge: Week Two

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Welcome to the Kitchen Activists podcast. I'm back with Dr. Faith Cares.

unknown 1:14

Yay!

SPEAKER_01 1:15

And we are in week two of meal planning. If you haven't listened to the last week's episode, we are following this progression of Faith starting a new habit, really. This is a habit of meal planning to increase her health and the health of the planet, to bring more ease into her life and just to cook more often so that she's not spending so much money with that damn DoorDash that is addicting, right? That's addictive. So I want to hear about how was your week, week one, which I would imagine is the hardest week. Week one, what barriers did you did you encounter? And also what can we celebrate?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

Yeah, totally. Wow, where to even start? So my big thing is, you know, as someone who is historically an overachiever, you know, I was like, okay, I gotta prepare this for Florencia, but I decided to be as I normally would be, right? Which is, I just want to scaffold and name this, which is this is a really crazy week for me because it's the week leading up to this big event that my organization is having on Saturday. And this is life though, yeah. Like you're always doing, you know, there's never, yeah, there's never any good time to do this thing.

Busy Week Reality Check

SPEAKER_01 2:42

So and in some ways it maybe it's better because it's like if you can do it through all of this, not I wouldn't say chaos, but a very full week. Like this would be because we have spectrums, there's spectrums of everything that in our lives, but there's those weeks that are very calm and you you know exactly what's coming and you can really plan it. And then you have those weeks that things are coming at you fast and furious, and you're just managing it. So, how do you handle all of those different because you still have to eat?

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah, totally. You don't stop.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

So, why do we stop cooking even though we're we continue to eat? I know. Maybe the kinds of meals that you cook, like cook without cooking, for example, salads is cooking without cooking, yeah. Um that you can start to embed into your menu because you know that you have a really chaotic full week. So so good that you started off and you kept with it.

SPEAKER_00 3:50

Yeah, I can't wait to tell. Okay, so as you know, I can't remember if I sent you.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

You sent me like one or two photos.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Yeah, yeah. So and actually, we actually did pretty well. So I'm gonna name the wins. First of all, the win was like the first picture I think I sent you. Um you shopped your kitchen.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

You shopped your kitchen.

Why We Stop Cooking

SPEAKER_00 4:15

I shopped my kitchen. So that has been an interestingly, like that phrase has been has stuck with me and has actually been such a small thing, but it really is a game changer. And of all the meals that I cooked this week, everything came from my kitchen. I already had everything in my kitchen except for sweet potatoes, right? So when I chopped my kitchen that day, even, you know, because we agreed we would be doing my meal prep on a Sunday, but I had to reschedule it. So then we met on Monday. And by Monday, the work is like zoop, you know, we had the call, it's lunchtime, and I'm like, well, shoot. And so I really was like, that would be the time where I would order the salad. Yeah. Right. And what I did instead was I found these like Momofuku protein noodles, like these like healthy ramen or whatever. And then I was like, okay, I'm gonna add this, I'm gonna add spinach to it. I chopped up some peanuts, I pulled like this sweet and spicy oriental Asian sauce, whatever. And I was like, this is good, this will suffice. And it was beautiful, yeah. It was delicious, it was freaking delicious.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

And how long did you think it took that took you?

SPEAKER_00 5:32

Oh, like 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

And then had you done what you were would have normally done, the habit you already have, which is let me just dial first.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

45 minutes, and that's like$25 down the drain.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah. So 15 minutes when we think we're doing stuff that's convenient, it's not necessarily convenient.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Or we're saving time, but we really are not saving time.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Yeah, that cognitive dissonance was like so clear this week. And then I forgot what I did for Monday evening. I will just say this.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

I know polenta and salmon.

Shop Your Kitchen Breakthrough

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Oh my god, I did do that. Okay, so then I did. That's great. I did. So then I like made polenta, which I had in my kitchen left over from my girlfriend. I freaking made salmon, I just made up a sauce and experimented. So I already had sesame oil, soy sauce, olive oil, and I added honey to it, and it was delicious. Yeah, and then I had some like mixed small peppers that were like going bad. So I was like, I need to eat this first. So I chopped those up with onions, garlic, and spinach, and like had that again. Like I, and that's the thing too, is like I used the spinach for my noodles earlier that day because the spinach was gonna go bad. So then I made a ton of salmon and polenta enough where I would know that I would have it for dinner the next day because I teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Perfect. Yeah, so you're already planning ahead.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Yeah. And I also cooked so much that I had enough to give my neighbor. Wow. So that's another thing. When you're eating out and you're ordering for yourself, it's not like you're gonna share part of that with your neighbor. Like it's a weird thing to share takeout food with a neighbor. But when you prepare something, you're like, Oh, I did this new recipe or try it, you know? It's it's different. And so that was really cool too. Where like I brought him a small plate of this, like the salmon with the polenta, and he was like, This is good.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

And I was like, Yes, okay, you know, because this is a neighbor who who will make you food, yeah. Yeah, so it was nice to to be able to bring him an offering, totally, and that's a great, yeah, great memory.

Fifteen Minutes Beats Takeout

Salmon, Polenta, And Sharing

SPEAKER_00 7:52

This is the guy who like share food with me, you know, and I can't reciprocate in that way, you know, really. And I finally was able to, which made me feel really good. So at this point, I'm already feeling incredibly accomplished. Um, and then I ended up, I think it was so Tuesday, I was pretty good on food. You know, I'll just jump to the lead. I only ordered out once this week, and it was on Valentine's Day for Oh, fabulous. And it was something really special. It was something very, very special that like a particular restaurant where I really love their crispy Brussels sprouts, you know, and so it was special for me. So I just want to get to that lead. But then later on in the week, I I already so I had the hamburger, like the ground organic ground beef that I had, and then I really liked the idea about the bowls. So Wednesday I ended up going and getting a ton of sweet potato, and then I had like sweet potato bowls with a ground beef, and then instead of sour cream, because I only I use what was in my kitchen, I had some plain yogurt, and so I used that instead, you know. I definitely am noticing though that like trying to integrate more veggies, I have to be much more mindful about it. And I think in large part because I'm so accustomed to getting a lot of protein as an athlete, you know. I'm like, okay, protein, protein. Um, so that's something that I just was mindful of this week, which was where I was like, I can do more with veggies. So the earlier in the week was veggies, and then I did, and then I had, I made myself again, it's like all stuff in the fridge. I think it was like Thursday, Friday. Like I had my spinach, and then like I had two frozen chicken fillets already from like I don't even know how long ago, and like defrosted that, and then had that, and it was that was good. I will say that I did end up throwing some of the polenta away, so I didn't use all of that. So I'm also still trying to play around with like portioning and like waste and things like that, you know, cooking enough but not too much. And then Thursday night, I came as I was walking home from class. So at that point, I've had two meals of sweet potato bowls, my like spinach salad. And because I kind of hit the ground running too, I didn't fill out my documents, like my form. So I'm just kind of also winging it. So then I'm walking home and I pass Whole Foods and I got myself a slice of pizza and then I made a side salad when I went home. So that was like my cobbling something together. So that was like my win. Although it doesn't feel like a win, it was a win because that is a moment that I would have ordered something, you know, and I didn't. And so that was great. So so those were the the biggest pieces, and I think that like, so those were my wins, and I think the growing pains or areas would be I know that I need to dedicate time on Sundays. If if nothing is on my calendar, it won't happen. So I actually a lesson learned is I need to write in planning on Sunday, like right after or before you and I talk. Another piece I think too is I realize is like the accountability piece, like knowing I'm gonna talk to you and connect with you is really important. So, like doing this with a community, I can envision being really important for the longevity of this practice. Like, I really do. I the shop the kitchen piece is like really huge for me. And again, I mean, I've got them printed out the pages, but I think the biggest thing is like today, after we talk, you know, I'm gonna go to the gym and then I'm gonna make time. I scheduled it today to do my meal prep and shop the kitchen and identify which ingredients I need to use and what I need to buy to make my meals this week because the start of the week was really good in that I was intentional about what I was eating and how I was shopping the kitchen, but then things kind of petered off toward the tail end of it where I was like cobbling stuff together.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

Right. Well, and also you had less ingredients to work with in your refrigerator and freezer.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Yeah, like the planning part was like the lack of planning is what kind of gave way to like the decline and intentional preparation and things like that. But you had outstanding for week one. I mean, for the week one Florencia, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

I loved the text, the text that you sent me where you you of the first the first day where you're sending me pictures of your meals, and yeah, you wrote, Who is this person? Because they were phenomenal. These meals were beautiful, of what you brought together. So the idea that you're not a good cook, do you feel like you let that go? I'm that idea.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

And I think the biggest part about letting that go was I was like, holy shit, I can cook healthy, delicious food with what's already in my kitchen. And two, I just I'm very and I think also, you know, your big thing about like the hidden narrative. One of my hidden narratives is my mom is an amazing cook. And growing up, I created an identity opposite of hers, right? So she was a homemaker, she was an amazing cook, and I was like, You don't want to be like your mother. I don't want to be like that, you know? And and until I get older, and now I'm like, I wish I cooked like her, you know. But growing up, I just didn't want to be like that. And I think because she was so incredible in the kitchen and could cobble anything together and make this delicious meal, I think that I've been intimidated about that for a long time. So like cooking and being in the kitchen when my friends are around or visiting me, and I'm and if I'm like making pancakes, which I'll make friends, or like something simple, I can't have them in the kitchen with me because I feel all this pressure. It's weird, but it's like the overachiever in me. It's I feel like I have to anything I do, it has to be great, including what I'm cooking. So it makes it really hard to have fun in the kitchen and experiment. And it sounds so little, but put it, you know, like normally it's like, well, I need to make it perfect. So I, you know, like this perfectionism and like a holder of air of academia. I have to go to the store to get this one ingredient to make it work. And there was a playfulness that happened in the kitchen earlier in the week, you know, with that sauce where I was like, I don't freaking know. I want to do something else with a salmon beyond lemon and salt and pepper. And I just like mixed a bunch of stuff together. Like I didn't even use like a measuring spoon or anything, and I just went by taste. And for me, like I do think that boosted my confidence around like, oh man, like I can do this. And then the fact that like I shared it with my neighbor and he texted me back and he was like, that was really good, you know? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

So you have it's in the sauce.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Yeah, it literally is in the sauce, and the fact that like I even could do it now, I'm like, oh, this is possible, you know, like living this way. It and what was so wild, Florence, is like Tuesday night, I came home, I was exhausted, but because I'd already meal prepped, I had the food there and I was excited to have dinner because I knew what was in my fridge after I was teaching, you know?

Treats With Intention

Bowls, Vegetables, And Protein Balance

SPEAKER_01 15:57

And so So even though you didn't write it down, you had you had already planned it. I had already exactly knew what your schedule was, so you knew that that wasn't a day that you could spend a lot of time, and it's great. So you you did a wonderful job this for week one. Moving into week two, you've already named it, which is okay, now I need to write it down because you don't have all the ingredients to the kind of ingredients that you had last week to pull from. So I love that you did that. That you're just like, okay, let me shop my kitchen. I have all these groceries that I've purchased, and let me utilize what I have, and that you even went into your freezer and got the chicken out and you created meals. That was fantastic. So you have a lot to be proud of. And you had the pizza, and I love that you got a pizza slice and you made a salad and and then really treated yourself for Valentine's, because then I find this for myself that if I'm not spending a lot of money going out to eat all the time, which is like a kind of a spontaneous, let me get something media mediocre, you know, it's not even satisfying. Like I just rushed out to get something and it's like, God, I spent money to feel like this, like for my body to feel like this, or that was just not good. So instead of spending all of this like$25 here and$15 there and whatever, I can just save it up and spend on a really nice meal that is and and supporting establishments that are in alignment with my my value system. So for example, this last week, we already had it written on on the menu plan. We already knew what our schedule was. So it was like, okay, I know Wednesdays, Michael's in guitar and I'm at flamenco class. So Wednesday nights, we had we've started to do salad bars. And so I'll make eggs like hard-boiled eggs, and I'll just like do that as like a bulk thing earlier in the week. And so then it's easy, it's already there. Sweet potatoes is also another good one for that. And so it's like, okay, let's keep it real simple on Wednesday because we know that. And then we're not eating out all week. So on Valentine's Day, we could splurge and go to Pignon, which is this really wonderful place that pays their workers$25 an hour minimum living wage. And everything is procured from local farms, small farms. Like, I mean, they do the whole thing. Like if I had a restaurant, I would want it to be like them. Like they're just incredible. We went to dinner there and we took our kids with us per Valentine's. And you know, so so it's like, okay, instead of spending$25 here,$40 there,$50 there, you know, really it's for more than one person. Yeah. And instead, you know, you could spend$200 in that one meal because I saved all week long. But so I love that you did that. So now moving into week two, you've already named it. It's it's well, you've named a few things. One is the meal plan, writing it down. So spending that time, because if you spend it, really will take you about 15 minutes. And it'll be interesting, and you can tell me how long it takes you. Because for us, it's it's we've been doing it for so long, so it's really quick. The 15 minutes, and then that's gonna save you so much time throughout the week, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Because then you don't have to think about what am I gonna make for dinner, because that's the barrier is what do you have to do, what am I gonna make for dinner to think about that when you're tired and hungry, and there's just no energy there to think that's where it's the quick fix of just ordering something, it's that easy.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yes, and having the plan, having the ingredients you saw. If you had your stocked kitchen, then you were able to imagine different things, and I love the inventive sauces. So you've got all the skill set, you just need the plan now, and then also understanding, and you'll refine it more and more of the portions that you said you polenta. Could you have frozen the polenta?

SPEAKER_00 20:30

I guess. Can you freeze more? I think that's another thing too, is like educating myself even about like what can I freeze? What can I, you know, things like that.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Pretty much you can freeze everything. There's certain things that don't freeze as well, like dairy doesn't freeze as well, like because it changes the texture, it makes it more clumpy, but then you could still use it for baked goods. You know, you just wouldn't pour a glass of milk, for example. Eggs, you can't freeze, but you know this, you can't freeze an egg, yeah, like because it'll explode. But you could freeze the insides of the egg, but there really isn't that many things that you can't freeze. For the most part, everything you can freeze, and you can easily look up each thing of what are the best ways to freeze polenta. And it'll give you, you know, you can easily see from from ingredient to ingredient what are the best practices freezing particular things. In in the kitchen activists, I have a list. There'll be a list of things to freeze, like the best way to freeze things.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Oh, nice.

Portioning And Reducing Waste

SPEAKER_01 21:39

And what not to freeze. But yeah, because we need to use our freezers are allies. They're allies if they're not overpacked, right? When I had my kids, all three of my kids home, and they start when they're teenagers, they start to get into this. I need to have they don't want to cook as much. And so then they want like these already made meals that they get tired of fast. They're into lasagna, and then suddenly they're not into lasagna. And so here I have this freezer full of like an archaeolog of the things that that they used to like. Like anymore. So when they left, it was like, okay, let me make this freezer back. Because it can't be an ally to waste less food or to help us for future weeks if it's so jam-packed with things that you don't even know what's in there, like mystery bags of food because they're not labeled, yeah, or food that you don't want to ever eat again, but you feel bad about throwing out. And the only way it's gonna work as an ally is there has to be space. And then also if it's so jam-packed, it doesn't have any room to circulate. So then you start to get more freezer burn. So you need to have some space in that freezer so that you can you can put that polenta, for example, in a container and put it in the freezer, and you could use it for a Future week. And you know, when you're shopping your kitchen first, because it's labeled, oh yeah, I have this polenta in here that I'm ready to eat because I had it two, three times in that one week. And so I don't want to have it next week, but I think I'm ready for it now. Three weeks later, I'm ready for it.

Accountability And Sunday Planning

SPEAKER_00 23:26

I love this that term of the kitchen as or the freezer as your ally, because I definitely encountered that when it came to having some protein this week, you know, because the freezer is what I went to for both the salmon, like the salmon was in my freezer and the chicken breasts were in my freezer, you know, and being able to pull that out before like going to the grocery store, you know, or just again doing like Uber Eats or DoorDash. So I definitely feel that phrase. I love that. Another piece that I forgot to share with you is I don't so like if I make rice, it's like Trader Joe's rice, like in a frozen whatever, whatever. And I've been lately ordering my mom groceries from the Asian store that goes to her house because in Western Mass she doesn't have access to it. In the past couple months, I've been learning more about the different varieties of rice, particularly like what our family and Filipinos we like to eat. So I forgot to say that I ordered myself this Nishiki rice, which is apparently really good rice, which I had no idea about, and also a rice cooker. Like I love the rice cooker. Ordered a small rice cooker. I also want to name how this piece around cooking for myself also is shifting my activities on social media and online. Instead of like scrolling through, like looking at like, you know, shopping or cosmetics or all these things that are telling me what a woman in her 40s should be wearing, whatever. I've been looking at recipes, and there's this recipe that I'm so excited about trying this week. It's a garlic honey chicken recipe with broccoli. And then like I have my rice cooker and I'm like excited to cook, you know, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna make this. And so I just also want to name that that there's a different, like my relationship to cooking and to feeding myself. It's not like, oh God, but it's there's an excitement about it because I've also in some ways proven to myself that I'm capable, I can do this, you know, and you are not the only person that I shared my food with. Like I sent photos to like my friends and my mom. And then of course, sharing the food with my neighbor, but there's like a a shift around, you know, as I'm changing my relationship to food and cooking, there's also a social piece that is shifting too. Um, where of course I'm I can share with my neighbor. Also, like the the conversation I had with my mom about rice, because she's in shock. She's like, you don't, you know, like I don't cook, you know, so she's like, why are you asking me about rice topics and things like that, you know? And and then what's so funny to Florencia is I'm literally in the middle of teaching a course on the anthropology of food right now. As I'm teaching this course and thing, so it's just been like such an interesting time, really an ideal time. You know, at first I I thought like this is so not the best time to do this because I'm I have so much going on with work, but it actually really is an ideal time because this is reality, right? And so yeah, I just wanted to name with you the rice cooker and like I'm so happy about that.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Totally so cool. I love rice cooker too. Well, one, because it does bring a lot of ease for sure. And I love how there's the basket, the steaming basket that you can also use. Like I put pot stickers in there, or you could just put veggies, not the whole time because then it'll oversteam it. Like, but like towards the end, you can put you start to realize what's the best time. My son, who lived in um a dorm his first year, used it for the uh for other things. Like you could use you can cook a lot more than rice in that cooker. You can also hard-boiled eggs, for example.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

You can, I mean, there's you could really dig I also read oatmeal.

SPEAKER_00 27:28

I love oatmeal.

Freezer As An Ally

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Yeah, all the different kinds of grains you can cook in there. But uh what I also really like about it is it's electrifying your kitchen. Because the more the more we use these small appliances that are electric based, then we're getting off of our propane stoves or methane gas releasing stoves. Because most of us have those. I do because it's very expensive to make the switch over to an electric stove. So I just use these different, I have these different ways around it, like using the toaster oven that has like a confection. Yeah. Um I do a lot in that toaster oven. Also, crock pots, which are a great resource on the days that you know you're really busy and you don't get home until late. So you can put the food in in the morning. And then it's so wonderful to walk in your home at the end of the day, and it just smells like someone's been cooking in your kitchen all day because I've been cooking in your kitchen all day. And you walk into some beautiful stew or or something, you know, eat beans. I like to do beans in crock pots too, soups. There's a whole world to uncover with crock pots as well. But I'm glad you're beginning with it with the rice cooker and that's sending you to your mom, and you know that then now your food is starting to tell stories. So you're eating the right same rice that you're sending to your mom. And you're having that connection, even though your kitchens are for far apart from each other. You could you still feel that that energetic connection with your mom.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

That's totally Florencia. And even like, you know, you were talking about I I'm so lucky I've been to your place before. So I know that you're like uh not whiteboard, it's like your blackboard where you, you know, write your recipes and like have your Taco Tuesdays and everything listed. And it's just so funny because as we're going on this journey together, I'm reminded of all the resources I have available to me. And in my kitchen, I have a massive whiteboard and I use it for like brainstorming for work stuff because I work from home, but lately I haven't been using it. And I'm like, I could totally use that for like my version of Florencia's blackboard, like Monday, Tuesday, you know? Right. And so I think actually that's what I'm gonna do today. And um, my friends make fun of me, but I love like making lists and organizing stuff and color coding it. And so I think that, you know, the way like the only way that this is gonna stick, right, is if I enjoy it. Yeah, you know, and so finding ways to make it work. And I think like creating that that list, like leveraging this blank whiteboard that is not being used at all for this. I'm really excited about, you know, once I create my meal plans and like cooking lists and things like that, and shopping my kitchen, I want to transfer it to that whiteboard. Um and I will totally send you a photo later.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

But I just think like a big piece of my eating out has been premised on like the scarcity mindset too, like, oh, I don't have enough in my kitchen, or oh, I don't have enough time, right? Like it's a reaction or response to that, that, that sense that is real cognitive dissonance. Like that's not the reality. I do have time and I do, you know, but I actually, you know, do have resources in my kitchen and food in my kitchen and time and all these things. So, you know, I know in the past you and I have talked about scarcity, abundance, mindset, and I just feel like that kind of framework and dynamic is present here. It's interesting to realize that and to sit with it and realize that like I have enough. I have more than enough.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

That's really um powerful insight to how you've realized that it is scarcity mindset. I don't think I've really thought of it in that way before. Like the scarcity of time, the scarcity of ingredients, the scarcity of imagination or skills.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Totally.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Where it's like, no, actually, we all have we do have the resources. We there is this abundance you've walked into this week just by shopping your kitchen and also understanding wait, I do know, I do know how to cook. I I've just been telling myself this story for way too long.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

But that's exactly untrue.

Tools That Add Ease: Rice Cooker

SPEAKER_01 32:06

So I love that you've uncovered all of these things in week one. And I look forward to hearing about how week two goes with the meal planning and and shopping now, because now you're gonna shop. And then week three, we could talk about refining some of the shopping, because in my the mantras that I have, it's shop the kitchen, your kitchen first, farmers market second, grocery store third. I I think right now what's more important is just writing it down, like you know, moving into that step, and then we can refine it more about thinking, strategizing around farmers market piece, which is great because that's coming up in Chicago soon.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

I mean, the weather is shifting, and so for the next, you know, yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

When I talk about farmers market, I'm not speaking only of the pop-up farmers market. There's the there's a farmer's market that's virtual, like you're tapping into it with the rice that you're ordering for your mom.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

There's that farmer's market, and there's also the brick and mortar farmers market that exists in all of our communities, like the bakery who's fermenting their and using ancient grains, for example, the chocolatier that's buying direct from farmers in the tropics and creating these beautiful decadent chocolate pieces, right? The cheesemongers who are in our communities. I mean, it just goes on and on. And so they're not at the pop-up farmers market, but they exist in your community. And so they need our support for sure for them to exist, for them to do the work that they're doing. So that will be a lot of fun when you start to move into that. Once you start getting uh your cadence, and then you start moving into this the shopping piece, then it starts to open up this whole other world because you start building these relationships with these folks who are making your who make your food, and then your food really starts to tell stories. Like your rice now is telling a story. It's telling a story of connection with you and your mom. The beets will start telling you stories because, like, for example, my beets I know I get from Jose at the farmer's market and I and I've been shopping with him for years. Your food starts to tell stories. I know that the bread I buy from Clemente tells stories because I talk to the baker when I go and all of that richness that comes. And then you don't want to you don't want to waste it either, because it has connection to the people who who spent a lot of time and effort to bring it to you. That'll be the next step, but that's just kind of a a preview.

Electrifying The Kitchen And Crockpots

SPEAKER_00 35:03

A preview of it. I love this. And it's like it really just dawned on me. I mean, of course, you know, that this course I'm teaching coincides with my doing this, this going on this journey with you and just the storytelling, like that's what we talk about in this course, you know, and how our relationships with one another and with community, it's mediated by food, you know, oftentimes. I'm so excited about going through this journey too. And oh, this is the thing I wanted to add before we wrap too. I think it's really fascinating because my big thing has been there. Breakfast, I'm always solid. Like breakfast, I've got like I have a whole grain bread I like to use, a toast, and then I'll have my eggs. Or I love doing overnight oats, and then I'll add blueberries or some fruit on top. So I also just want to name that it's a particular meal that I struggle with, you know, or meals, and it tends to be lunch and dinner, you know? And so I just I I want to name that because I think it'll be interesting to see as other people read your new book and go on this journey. Presumably we're not all the same, right? We have also different relationships to different meals depending on how our workflow goes in our days. And my day, my mornings tend to be really easeful. So, like my breakfast, I enjoy it. It's pretty it's manageable. But by the end of the day, I think that's where I feel scattered because I'm like, oh, I gotta shove all this other stuff. I didn't do, you know. And so when you come down to the wire, that's when I just am like, okay, Uber Eats or DoorDash. Right, you know, just want to name the meals. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

As a final idea for you, one of the themes could be breakfast for dinner. So maybe you And I love doing that. I've done that before, but I haven't ever great idea.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Totally with omelet. But yeah, I just, I just like that dawned on me that my relationship breakfast, I'm cool with. It's the lunch and dinner where I feel this stress about it because it's and also I think there's so much pressure around like dinner and dinner in particular, it evokes for me people coming together, but I don't have people coming together. So I think that's where I'm like, well, if I'm just cooking for me, it doesn't matter, right? Like it would be dinner is supposed to be with five people around a table and like a group. And so if I'm not doing that, then there's no need to cook. And it's like what we had talked about last week, which is no, you know, I'm still worthy and deserving of something healthy and nutritious at the end of the day. But it just like dawned on me this aha of my I I relate to different meals in different ways.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

When I I said I was, I I actually have one more thought for you as you're talking. Because you were already doing it this this past week around meal planning, even though you weren't writing it down, like when you made salmon and polenta, for example, you knew you were gonna make enough for two nights. So because you're cooking for one, you have that. I mean, that's really great. So then that actually means that you you don't have to meal plan for so many nights. Maybe you're only really making three, three meals, and then those three meals are stretching, or at least variations of them for every single night, plus your lunches. So, for example, let's go back to the salmon. The salmon you could you could have also used it for a salad. You know, you could have had a salad salmon on top. As you're planning today, um, after this, think about each each of those meals. You start with your one meal and then you think about how can I make this into a second meal. It could be exactly the same, right? Maybe you're spacing it out a day, or it could be a variation of something using some of those ingredients into a second meal or a third meal.

Food That Tells Stories

SPEAKER_00 39:18

And this is how we save money. Like that's the thing. What's so wild is like not only am I saving money by virtue of not ordering out and like cooking for myself, but also the way that what you're talking about being creative and making I'll cook I saving saving money and time too. Like when I'm cooking a single meal, I can make that food stretch, but I'm only cooking salmon once that week, right? Yes, but it's just it's funny because that degree of cognitive dissonance, right, in the stories that we tell ourselves, it's like, oh, this is so much time, I don't have time for this. When in fact we're saving time and we are actually on the contrary, it's the opposite. So the psychology around all this, and like it's so deeply embedded, and you can see why it's hard to make these kinds of behavioral shifts on your own because you're in your own head, right? I think that's the thing about talking with someone is you're able to be like, oh my god, you know, you have this.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Right. And maybe after you get week two under your belt, you could start thinking about who you can bring in from your friend group who would want to do this with you. So then you start to build your accountability.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

I think that's it. Like creating my community, and already I can think about my neighbor, you know. But I think that having a community and a group of folks who are also, I mean, this is values, right? Like you're talking about kitchen activists, like this is about fundamentally changing, or not even changing, but making sure that like your values are in alignment with your food practices, right? Your consumption practices. And I know a bunch of people where we're all similar like this, you know, we wanna, but there's that gap between like the desire, like this way that we would, you know, you buy the food, you have an idea of yourself, I'm gonna cook this organic, blah, blah, blah. And it just sits and goes wasted while I'm ordering Uber Eats. So to have a community of other people where you're sharing recipes and you're actually putting your your values into practice, I already can think of two or three people off the top of my head who would be in my community. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

I would say this week though, just do the practice of meal planning. And then maybe week three, week four, week five, you start to think about how can I pull others into the circle of accountability with me on this journey. And then we could we can brainstorm different ways to do that. That would work for you.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

Yeah, I'm excited about trying this list thing.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

So yeah, all right, and I look forward to getting it some pictures this week and maybe of your whiteboard.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

Oh, that's number one, Florencia.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Your color coded whiteboard.

SPEAKER_00 42:09

That's number one, that's the most important thing that is going to be happening today. So stay tuned.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Okay, wonderful. Well, thank you so much, and we'll see each other next week. Thank you. Bye. Bye.