So, last week we started talking about How I Do It, and one of the biggest Do Its is food, and I shared how I plan meals and make grocery lists and ensure that there’s enough food for six people with wildly-different needs and tastes.

The next challenge is about Procurement of food. Now, I avoid stores as much as possible since I loathe shopping, so Safeway has graciously sent me something like 460+ shipments of stuff.

And when I say ‘loathe,’ I mean ‘despise.’ ‘Detest.’ After about fifteen minutes in the grocery store I start having a panic attack, gripped with the certainty that I’m never going to get out of here.

I think it’s because there’s the searching/finding thing, coupled with the decision thing.

God, I’m neurotic.

I’m amazed that, on the few weeks I don’t place an order, Mr. Safeway doesn’t call me to find out if I’m doing okay.* I realize that it’s not something everyone has access to, but I believe that grocery delivery will soon be everywhere. I understand that Walmart is doing a pick up service…you shop on line, and then arrange to pick up the order.

I could do that.

On top of the meal planning that I exhaustively described last week, I also maintain a master list of stuff we frequently need…laundry detergent, deodorant, paper plates, dishwasher soap, etc. I refer to the list when I make my delivery list to make sure that we’re covered.

I realize that I’d save money if I shopped sales at different stores, or used coupons. But then I’d have to drive around to stores (see reference to extreme aversion to shopping above) and I think that the money I’d save with the sale-shopping and the coupons would be offset by the gas and the time and the copays for the therapy so I didn’t hate my life.

I can make more money, but I can’t make more time.

And so we come to Distribution. That lasagna isn’t going to cook itself. Mercifully, while I don’t like to shop, I do like to cook.

The recipes I select are all either crockpot or guaranteed to take less than half an hour to cook, with the exception of week meals, which might be a baked chicken or something more time- or labor-intensive. My crockpot is a Ninja, which also bakes and fries. I cannot recommend this gadget enough. I use it at least four times a week. I wish I could go back in time and make ‘em invent it thirty years ago. I can make spaghetti and meatballs or shrimp scampi in one pot in thirty minutes (not at the same time), or a chicken pot pie.

You should own one.

I also use an old cookbook that you can still get on a kindle or in paperback: Desperation Dinners. Pitched as meals that can be ready in twenty minutes or less, and they mean it. The first time I made a meal out of that cookbook, I made Mu Shu Chicken. I started with frozen chicken and had dinner on the table in seventeen minutes. And it was good.

The only other thing I do to make distribution easier is to figure out what’s going to be served the night before. I get the ingredients handy so I’m not wrestling everything at the crack of dawn. If sufficiently motivated I might even chop stuff in advance.

As far as Clean Up goes, I a) try to make sure I clean up as I go and b) rely heavily on Dad, Interrupted’s anal retentiveness to get the kitchen cleaned after dinner. He does a nice job.

And now you know how I ‘do it.’ Or at least how I do this.

Editor’s note: the author receives no consideration from Safeway to gas on about their delivery service likes this. She’s actually this excited about it, even after five years or so, which is really kind of pathetic when you think about it.

© E. Stocking Evans 2015