THE KITCHEN ACTIVIST

Growing Well-Being, Week 1: From DoorDash to Dinner Plans

• Florencia Ramirez • Episode 96

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Ever feel that tug at 6 p.m. to open DoorDash or Uber Eats?

In this first episode of our Growing Well-Being with Meal Planning season, I sit down with Dr. Faith Karas for a candid, practical reset: moving from app-fueled “care” to kitchen confidence—without perfectionism or pricey rules.

Faith shares how pandemic habits, a breakup, and long workdays made delivery feel comforting—and how the financial, physical, and emotional costs slowly crept in. Together, we reimagine dinner as an act of self-respect.

We talk about:

  • Food as love in Filipino culture
  • Class memories and the meaning of “making do”
  • Who cooks, who delivers, and what that says about power
  • The convenience paradox of the $25 salad
  • Health markers like cholesterol and energy

Then we get tactical.

We map a week that works:

  • Plant-forward bowls on Monday
  • Tacos midweek
  • Filipino Friday
  • Two flex nights that welcome leftovers instead of shaming them

You’ll hear how to:

  • Shop your kitchen first
  • Choose 1–2 simple theme nights
  • Batch one anchor ingredient
  • Create a categorized list that ends aisle zigzag
  • Plan dine-out nights intentionally

Meal planning isn’t about control. It’s about alignment.

If you’re ready to spend less, waste less, and feel better—without chasing perfection—this is your on-ramp.

Download the free Meal Plan With Purpose template in the show notes, try one theme night this week, and tell us your must-use ingredient.

If this episode helped, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review to help others grow well-being in their own kitchens.

Start Meal Planning to Save the Planet and Money! Click Here to get started.
Sign up for my weekly newsletter.

Get a copy of the EAT LESS WATER book.

Reach Florencia Ramirez at info@eatlesswater.com

Setting The Series And Stakes

SPEAKER_00

Hi, my name is Florencia Ramirez and thank you so much for joining this conversation with the Kitchen Activist. I'm really thrilled for this episode because this is the beginning of a series of episodes I will do in the next couple months with folks who are interested in starting meal planning and really getting into the conversation around what is meal planning. So the first person to say yes to this invitation, to this crazy idea, which is let's meal plan together, let me help you through the process, let's record it so other people can also be inspired. And Dr. Faith Karas said yes and then said no, and then said no, and then said yes, but that's part of it, right? Is it could be a little scary to try something new. And it touches upon so many different aspects of our life, right? When we talk about food and the food that we're choosing and a reflection on food and where we are right now and where we want to go. It's an intimate process. So I want to thank you.

SPEAKER_01

I literally just wrote that in my journal, Intimacy.

Meet Faith And The Before Picture

SPEAKER_00

Yes, it is. And I really thank you for letting myself and those who are listening join you on this journey. I'm coming to you from Oxner, California. You're coming to us from Chicago, Illinois. And I know you're a professor in Chicago, in addition to now the executive director of a national organization. So you are a very busy woman. And I know you are very active in your community. That is why you haven't been meal planning, right? Would is that a fair assessment? Absolutely. I think would be really helpful is giving us a real sense of the before. Like, where are you now? What's going on in your kitchen? What's going on in your kitchen? What did you get?

Takeout, Costs, And Health Wake-Ups

SPEAKER_01

There's hope. I will tell you there is hope since you and I have been talking about this several months ago. We talked about this when I was at your place, and we were talking about your potentially recording me and my participating in this journey. So there has been hope where I have been on a fritata roll. So I've just been making lots of fritata. And it's all organic ingredients. Like I use chard and different peppers and things like that. But so I just need to name this is so nerve-wracking for me because there's so much shame around, and I laugh, but I'm also being serious, right? Around my diet. And it is in direct opposition in terms of how I perceive myself and how I live, where I'm super healthy, I bike, I this and that. And then I also do, I am notorious among my friend group historically for Uber Eats and DoorDash, right? I think like many people, during the pandemic, it just became like an ease thing. During the pandemic, I also had a major, I don't know if I would call it like lifestyle shift where, you know, my partner and I broke up. So then it's cooking for one, which it's like, oh, why even do that? So I don't cook right now. I feel actually quite proud of myself given the new year. So I'm making like overnight oats and fritata, and that's pretty much it. But that's a huge, that's a tremendous improvement from last year, where it was just really like just DoorDash and Uber Eats.

SPEAKER_00

So whenever you walk us through that. Walk us through that. What did it look like? Right now we're sitting in Monday.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

What would it, what does it look like? What did it look like? I know you're starting to move into cooking a little bit for yourself, but what would happen like today?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Right now, like for instance, I'd be like, okay, it's 11. I'm either gonna eat cheese and crackers or something, cobble together something in the fridge, or I'll order something from a local restaurant. Now, I just want to be clear when I do Uber Eats or DoorDash, I do try to be relatively healthy. So it's not fast food, but it's still food that I am not preparing. So a healthier option might be sweet greens, but then also it becomes a financial burden too, where you're paying$25 for a salad, like a single meal. And actually during this time, is I took a significant pay cut in my job transition. So I really have to be I'm forced now. It's really not an option to do any of that DoorDash in Uber Eats. And so that's what it looks like. And it looks like a kind of day by day, just like by what's that saying? By the heel of my pants or by the I just am kind of winged by the seat of your by the seat of my pants. I'm just kind of winging it. And it's funny because as I'm speaking, in all other aspects of my life, I am credibly intentional. Incredibly intentional, right? In terms of how I show up for my loved ones, my job, in terms of my like physical fitness, my workouts, making sure I move every day. I don't have a car, I bike and I walk all my errands all over the city. And yet there's this one area, like the food, the nutrition part, which is incredibly important, that just constantly gets pushed to the wayside.

SPEAKER_00

Why do you think that is?

Care, Culture, And Emotional Eating

SPEAKER_01

I think this is I think that this I think that during the pandemic, given the shift in getting over really difficult breakup and living alone, and then also with the like resurgence of DoorDash and Uber Eats, the kind of normalization of that with a pandemic, and then that level of isolation, which in some ways I've really I've learned I love my solitude and my friends. Whenever anyone cancels on me, I'm like, yes, I love it. And also I think that for me, ordering food became like a way to receive care during the pandemic when like we were really isolated and alienated and disconnected from one another physically. I think that it was a way to receive care on the heels of a really difficult breakup. And for many people, but food in my family and in Filipino culture, generalization, but food is the way that we express and receive care. So Filipinos instead of saying, like, how are you? will say, Kuma in kapa, did you eat yet? And so I've worked through this with my therapist, which is there is something profoundly interesting about there, there's an emotional component of having someone bring me food and provide that care in that way, even if it is incredibly transactional and becomes quite expensive. But it's I don't think it's about the food itself, or I don't think it's solely about the food itself. I also want to add, I think that there's this idea where it's just me, so I'm not worth preparing this meal. It's not worth it.

SPEAKER_00

I am not enough. Yeah, like it just I was coming over to your house. You would likely not order from Uber Eat. You would want to prepare something for me.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. It would be, especially you, Florencia. Come on. I would not do Uber Eat Stored Ash. I'd need like weeks to prepare because I'd be like, oh shoot, I'm gonna learn how to make like Lumpia and I'm gonna try to make adobo again, and it's probably gonna be really dry. But like I know she'll appreciate that. I'm someone that gets into arts and crafts. Like I'm on a kick right now making homemade cards, okay, and sending it to loved ones. And so I do think that underpinning this practice of Uber Eats and DoorDash has been, yeah, like this kind of like implicit, I'm not worth it, putting in that time. And I think it's about time too. I think it's also about there's more important things to do than nourishing myself. I'm not thinking about that concretely or like explicitly, but I do think there's that dynamic where it's, oh, these emails are more important, and oh, I just got to do this. And like even I had mentioned earlier before, like even having this conversation, which for me is a really like self-care conversation and journey, right? Like our starting point. I was like, no, I want to cancel it because I'm like, I have so much work to do. And so I was thinking this morning, like, what better time to begin this journey and really transform my diet than to really stick with it and be like, no, I'm putting the work aside and prioritizing myself. I also want to add that in the past two and a half months, I've had pneumonia and I'm in my 40s, my body is changing, and I really re need to radically like change my diet and take care of myself much, much better.

Time Tradeoffs And Convenience Myths

SPEAKER_00

Oh, you've touched on so many different things. I think one just to make an acknowledgement of just the beauty of what you touched on around food, about people bringing you food, right? Where it has become Uber. So it's not, it's become a stranger, but still there is something beautiful about that, about somebody bringing you food. So I hadn't thought of that in that way. And I don't think that there's shame around that. I think it's just that's really lovely. And that's something I know I really enjoy taking people food as well or feeding those that come to my home. But you but there's but there is a flip side to that, right? So it's like we now the pandemic is over and it's been then become uh it's habit for me, right? Because it's absolutely one person, and I remember this too when we had because this happens in different times where it's the overwhelm of things. Yes. And in The Kitchen Activist, I start a section on this story where I'm looking at the refrigerator. The kids are little, are really little, and I'm tired. But it's at the end of the day, Michael has been at work all day too, and I'm thinking, oh my God, it's dinner time, everybody's getting hungry, and I have to cook three over 300 meals a year for the rest of my life. It just felt so overwhelmed, right? And then it was like, Michael, I think you need to go pick up some food because this was pre-Uber Eats, right? I think you need to go pick up some food, but it was like Wednesday, and we'd already been picking up food all week. And that takes a toll, as you mentioned, on your pocketbook for sure. And I get it, you have to charge more for the time and care that they put into their kitchen and all the things that they have to pay for. So I get that. When I go out to eat, I feel incredible gratitude. But I that's expensive. That's so expensive. So you hit on that, like of you're probably spending what, like about$200 a week. Have you done the calculation of how much you're spending?

SPEAKER_01

Oh my God. Now it can't be, but up until I just changed jobs to like October, November, like$150 a week. Sure.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

$150 a week. And probably, and then you don't have much either in your kitchen. So then in between meals and you're having to scrounge for food, like what you said, the I I heard you say some crackers is like my thing. Oh my god. So I heard you talk about that. And then the other downside to that, and I know for myself, when I get into that rhythm of eating out a lot, is how my body starts to feel, right? Because there is even if you're eating at places that are more healthy, there's still more salt, more sugar, more oil, all the things to make that tastier for us. And that adds up, like it adds up in pounds. For me, I'll start to feel lethargic, just the heaviness, right? The heaviness of going out to eat too many times. And it starts to take away that feeling of it being special. When you're absolutely you go out and you haven't gone out to eat, you don't go out all the time, and then it becomes exciting for me at least. And it's where and then it's intentional around where are we gonna go eat out? We can splurge on that nicer place because we haven't been splurging every single day or something that's mediocre, but we can wait for something that's really delicious. I don't know, you had mentioned how you have been sick. Do you feel that the nutrition from Uber Eats or the food that you've been getting has compromised your health?

Worthiness And Generational Patterns

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. There's no question. Like, absolutely. And I think I'm about to be 45 in March, even though, and so I feel like I'm still 19. So I and I just but absolutely. I also notice that whenever I get really ill, whether it was like this pneumonia or something else, I do shift my diet where I will friends will make me chicken soup and bring it over. Or I'm a little more mindful about what I put into my body. So instead of ordering there's a Whole Foods Around the Corner where I live, and I'll go to the soup bar and I'll get some like soup and like some bread or something. But so it's funny because it's like I consciously or unconsciously know that the way to heal myself is to eat better, but I wait until the point where my body is like freaking out. And so it's funny because definitely in the past, I feel like in the past month and a half, two months, there's been such a shift in terms of my diet where I cook fritter a lot. So I'm getting sick of it. But then, and then drinking like this broth that's that my friend introduced me to, this Brodo broth where it's like organic and no preservatives, and I have it for breakfast, which is great because I have a tendency of not having protein when I wake up, and I just want the pastry or a slice of toast.

SPEAKER_00

Like going right into the sugar.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, I have no doubt. And so also my my mom has diabetes, my grandfather on her side, her father died from diabetes. And as a researcher, I know the date data, right? Like I know the statistics, I know that sugar is not good for me, and I know that eating out isn't good for me and all these things. And yet, to your point, it's like such a habit at this point. And I just want to add another piece is that have or had shame about it too, is my politics don't align with ordering from Uber Eats or DoorDash either. And by that, like it is important for me to understand the hands that prepared the food, right? That the hands that both prepare the food and then also people who deliver it get compensated fairly, and even with my tip that they're not. And so there's also that dynamic, even though I feel uncomfortable about it and it doesn't align with my politics, I still do it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. But I wanted to the yeah, I get what you're saying too, with the exploitation that might be involved in purchasing food in this way. But and but then at the same time, you're also helping other people out as well with these jobs. So it is everything, it's always there's the two sides, there's more than two sides. But I wonder too about the time, because you're talking about it's habit forming because of the convenience around it, too. And how much time do you really think you save by and then to think about it like if I'm spending$150 a week, probably that's the minimum, right? For eating out. You're also trading time to earn that money.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So there's a time involved in having to work more so that you could save time, which is which is uh kind of a the paradox involved. But how much time do you really do you think you save by this is such a good question?

Why Meal Planning Eases Evenings

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I don't, I don't see, and I think I think that this is the funny thing because it's not rational. It's not at all rational. Because if I think about the amount of time waiting for food to come, so you're thinking about 30, 40, I could have prepared something at that point. So the that's it doesn't save me time, even though there's this, I think it's like the immediacy piece of it where it's so not necessarily saving time, but it's that instantaneity of it, I think, which is I can keep working or keep doing this thing, this other thing that needs more attention. And it's not always work, it's could be like spending time with a friend or cleaning my apartment or whatever, going to the gym. This other thing, I can put my time and do this other thing while I'm waiting for the food to just magically arrive. And but to your point, like it's not if you look at the long game or whatever, I'm actually not saving any time. And I'm actually, and now I don't even have that option to make that kind of decision financially about whether or not I'm going to do Uber Eats or it's just not an option anymore. But so that's actually a weird blessing about this new role, but it's not rational. It's not, and and it's funny too. I don't know if this is going off on a tangent, but food tastes different when you prepare it or when someone you love prepares it. And and it's just it's there's something I think that there's something to explore around worthiness and not enoughness that like my time and my hands and my efforts are worthy for you or for one of my other friends or family members. But when it comes to pouring into me, it's just it's like on the back burner. And even as I'm talking about it, it's so funny because I didn't want to be like this growing up because my mom actually did this very thing where she always put herself and her diet on the back burner for the rest of us because she was always taking care of the rest of us. I remember watching her growing up. She was single mom, three kids, and then new country by herself. And she just was like, it was always sacrificing to give for us. And I remember watching her, and I remember I think I was around middle school looking at her, being like, I'm not gonna do that. I am, I want to take care of myself. And I remember thinking, if I have a daughter, I want her to know that I'm worthy and I will take care of myself. And so that is an interesting piece that that I just thought of with that kind of generational legacy that that we just it passes on, and then you have to be really intentional to intervene.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. Yeah, to break the cycle around it because that was modeled to you for totally girl.

SPEAKER_01

I even just remember if my mom, like growing when we're in like junior high school, if none of us were gonna be around for dinner, my mom wouldn't make dinner for herself. She'd just figure it out. She'd go to the pantry and put something together for herself, maybe. But it wasn't like it's like you're cobbling stuff together. It wasn't like a meal. But when she knew that we would be there for a meal, it was like this whole thing, this entire spread, everything homemade, the sauces, pesto. She would take the basil from our backyard and chop it up. We had fresh vegetables, she would garden. But it was only that only really happened when we were present. But if I I just have this image of walking past her, as I'm walking, like from my bedroom down the hallway, you have to go past the kitchen to the living room. And I just have this image of her sitting at the kitchen table, just eating a piece of bread or something.

SPEAKER_00

That I wouldn't translate for herself. And you hit on that after you had the breakup, and it's just you. It's this feeling like, oh, it's just me. I remember watching Oprah many years ago in Luther Vandros. Because do you remember Luther Vandros?

SPEAKER_01

Oh my god, the smooth singer.

Introducing The Meal Plan With Purpose

SPEAKER_00

It was a great song right now that's a tribute to Luther that won the Grammys. And it was a fun song. I think it was Kendrick Lamar. I remember during this one, those stories that you that just stick with you, and he was talking about Oprah in his home. She was with him, and he had the crystal. The crystal was what he would use to drink every day, like water or juice. And she pointed that out to him. And he's why do I have to wait? Why do I have to wait until a special occasion to use the good stuff? Like that, that's what he would use all the time. And that actually, I think, really helped form in terms of how I then approach my mealtime of why not use the pottery and the hand-blown things, the beautiful things every day? What am I saving it for? And then fast forward to Michael and I now, where now there are two of us because our kids have left. And so suddenly they went from cooking to outsourcing, to going out to eat a lot or cobbling things together, which then means a lot of ultra-processed foods. So because your kids move out, or because you're no longer in that relationship, then suddenly you're not there anymore to take care of yourself. Because without this human body, that's it. This this is this should be first. And I have to remind myself in terms of movement, because the food piece for me, because I've been practicing this for such a long time, is much easier for me. Now the movement, which sounds like that part for you, is very easy.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00

Now the movement for me is the one that I have to talk myself into. And I have to remind myself, okay, Florencia, if I am not exercising and moving my body, then what? I'm doing work because I have all this other thing. Yeah, we always have things to do. But ultimately, without this body, this is my vehicle to move through the world. And without it, it is over. It is over. I can't do any work. I can't show up for anybody. I can't travel, whatever all the things. So that's what I need to tell myself. So we all have our things that we're working on. When you began this conversation, it was about feeling the shame. And we all have our process about something. And we're, I love that you said yes to this because it is something where we should be pooling together as community to help each other along with the parts that we are good at because we're not good at everything. And we just we show up for each other. So I'm happy to show up for you with this meal plan piece. And then another time we'll have to have a conversation. You'll have to show up for me on how you get your fitness.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I got you.

SPEAKER_00

So that it can help me just to keep at it. So I wanted to let's get into the action part of this.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And nervous. I'm gonna tell you that right away. Like I'm because it's breaking a habit. It sounds stupid, but I do feel a little nervous right now.

Shop Your Kitchen First

SPEAKER_00

But it does, it is, and it's not gonna happen instantaneously. And what we're gonna do is we're gonna meet now every week, so three more times, and we're gonna walk this process together. You're gonna let us know how it went, and it's not gonna be perfection, and you're not gonna, you're gonna make mistakes. No, I wouldn't even say mistakes. You're you're gonna go the default is whatever your habit is. So to un we're gonna have to undo some of those habits, right? So that you can create new ones. And so this is like a blank canvas of beginning of beginning again. So right now, what I'm gonna do, if you are watching this, if you're listening to this, I suggest that you look at the show notes link and there is a meal plan that I have available for you for free. If you are watching this on YouTube, then I am going to attempt to share the meal plan so that we could all look at it together and as I walk- So excited walk you through this. Now, I if there's some folks who might be listening to this and think, I already have a meal plan that I use. I would suggest, I highly suggest because honestly, what I use is my chalkboard most of the time. But because I have all of these, I've already learned how to think about meal planning in this way, that you could take it into whatever other meal plan that you're doing that you're using. But this here is gets us to think about meal planning, not just from the aspect of what am I going to cook every week, but to take in some of the things that you were hitting on, Faith, about how do I align this with my politics? How do I uh save money? Right. And for me, can you see this? The it's a meal plan with purpose. That's why I did this, is I came to this because through my work trying to save water, right? What how can I align my food with this larger purpose around saving the environment? Because food is something we have to do every day. In all of those tiny little actions, there's a collective energy behind it that we can harness to create positive change in the world. So for me, my turning point was when I learned that we eat anywhere between 500 to 1300 gallons of water every day, and I knew I needed to be really engaged with my food. So that's how I came to this. But then what I realized is by doing this work, the reward has been ease at dinner time because where you're talking about your mom earlier around what she was modeling for you unintentionally, which was I'm gonna cook for other people, but I'm not gonna care for myself. I'm I come last. And for my mom, I would say that I learned in the kitchen how to feel overwhelmed, and also where it was very much a chore. Like cooking was a chore that she hated to do. And so then when I became a mother, I was modeling that. I was at mom too. So here were the kids, and they're running around, and I'm like, oh my god, oh my god, what am I gonna make for dinner? I was just modeling her.

SPEAKER_01

I was I can't even see you like this, by the way, Florencia. I can't even imagine you when you say cooking is a chore, because I've been in your kitchen.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I know that you love cooking, and it's just your kitchen, it's just such a like a gathering community space. So this image of you viewing cooking as a chore is I don't even know who you are. And that gives me hope because it shows that people can change.

Batch Cooking And Seasonal Thinking

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. And you know what I realized? It wasn't the cooking that I hated, it was thinking about what to make for dinner when I'm already really tired. That's the worst time to think about what am I going to make for dinner is at five o'clock, six o'clock at night. Because then it becomes whatever, let's just order out. I'm just too tired to think about it. But when you meal plan, what I found when I started to meal plan at the beginning of each week, then when I start to feel that, let's say five or six o'clock, when it's time for me to think about what to make for what am I going to make for dinner? And I think, oh gosh, I feel really tired. Because naturally in the day, that's when we start to feel tired, like our energy starts to come down. And then I go into the kitchen, I open my chalkboard meal plan. That's where because that's where we write it down. And I'm like, oh, okay, so tonight I'm making whatever tacos tonight. And guess what? All the ingredients have been purchased in advance. Then I think I have to use these ingredients because otherwise I'm just paying twice. I'm paid to go out to eat, and then I already have the food here. That makes no sense. Then I'm able to override it. I'm able to override that feeling of it's just easier to get something, or how Michael picks pick up some burritos on the way home or something like that. And that's been my process. We're all different. I'm really excited to hear how it goes for you this first week when you know what you're making because you've already planned it and you already have the ingredient shop for. This is a meal plan with purpose. You can either print this out or you can fill it out on online and do it that way. But I would like to start, and the reason why I really suggest people begin with this is because of some of the questions that are on here that really to think about how to eat in season, how to reduce our food waste. So the very first thing is to begin with a date. What day of the week makes sense for you to meal plan? Because that helps with the habit forming.

SPEAKER_01

Sunday, absolutely, because it's not going to happen Monday evening. I really think Sundays are, and I noticed that yours begins on Sunday as well. But once the work week happens, it's all over. And so definitely Sundays.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. So you would begin on Sunday. Now, today we're talking on Monday. So I wonder if you could at least for this week make that little shift.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely. And I have time today. I know that today I'm going grocery shopping. Okay, great, great.

SPEAKER_00

So then you could begin. And so then the next thing that is on this meal plan is your must-use ingredients this week. So you're gonna write on the line your this is where you shop your kitchen first. Your what do you have in your refrigerator? Freezer, what do you have in your pantry that you could embed in these in your recipes this week? I don't know is if there's anything that you currently have in your refrigerator.

SPEAKER_01

Surprisingly, I have stuff in my fridge. It's insane. It's because of this fritata kick.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

But I but maybe I can do something other than fritata, which would be great.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, definitely. So, what are some of the things that you have in your refrigerator right now?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, I've got a bunch of different peppers, like bell peppers, I've got organic chard, I've got a pound of organic ground beef from Whole Foods that I was gonna use for a frittata, but I can do something else with it. I've got one and a quarter onion, a head of garlic, I've got some spinach as well, and then I've got like yogurt, oat milk, that kind of stuff. Oh, I've got some shredded pepperjack cheese too. So like some cheese. You have a lot of stuff to work with. I'm telling you, this is the last month and a half has been a game changer.

SPEAKER_00

So I don't even know that you necessarily even have to go grocery shopping even today. You have a lot to work with, but maybe you could just fill in the gaps for things.

SPEAKER_01

Polenta and I have polenta.

SPEAKER_00

Oh yum.

SPEAKER_01

And frozen salmon, fillets.

Themes: Tacos, Bowls, Flex Nights

SPEAKER_00

Okay, so you have all of these things. Did you have anything in mind when you purchased these things? Or you just went through the grocery store and just saw things and started to put it in your basket?

SPEAKER_01

Oh no, girl. When I go to the grocery store, I buy snacky items. This is a shift because so I have the polenta leftover from when one of my girlfriends was visiting in December.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, yeah. Polenta does last a long time.

SPEAKER_01

So she bought a bunch of stuff so that the polenta is left over from her visit. And then the other stuff is from my frittata plans. So I bought it purposely. Like I'm gonna make frittata, but again, this is in the past five, six weeks. This is not normal.

SPEAKER_00

Fritata every day is might be a little much.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Oh, and I got some eggs, like three eggs left or something. But yeah, I'm kinda I I think I need to do something other than fritata. But but normally, I will tell you, I would not have just chard in my fridge. That's just not a thing. Or I might have spinach because I'll put it into a smoothie, but I wouldn't have an onion. That's weird. Like I don't have onions and chard in my fridge. That's just not a thing.

SPEAKER_00

So when you write this, you need to write all of those things, especially produce, because produce you want to make sure you're gonna use that earlier in the week, right? Because you don't want to waste that food. Then you're gonna think about what's in season. I know you're in Chicago, so it's winter. I don't know if you go to the farmer's market or have gone recently, but that would be a place where you can start to pay attention to what's in season in your region, right? Because all of our regions are different. What I have in season here in California, I forget sometimes that folks in other areas don't have as much access to fresh produce all year long. But I think people are surprised because I know when I go to New Mexico and I'm shopping the farmer's market there, which is very cold in the wintertime, that there is a lot to choose from, especially a lot of grains. There's beans, of course. You can still find at the farmer's market lots of nuts and and then people are using hothouses to grow leafy greens. That would be another thing to think about is what's in season. And then batch cooking. I is also on this, and these are the things that you think about in the very beginning so that it can help to form what your week it could look like based on what do you have in your refrigerator, what's in season, and what can I batch cook this week that then can be integrated into multiple recipes. I definitely lean in on pinto beans. That's my cultural lineage of food. This week, my batch cooking will also include chickpeas because I want to include that into salads that I make this week because we have a lot of lettuce. We're gonna have two nights of salad bar, and then those chickpeas can be used in other fun ways as well. And actually, I would suggest for you, because you're just beginning, just one thing. Maybe it's sweet potatoes. What right now is coming to mind for you?

SPEAKER_01

You said I love sweet potatoes, and I did make sweet potatoes. When was it? Maybe it was actually in December. Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit. I did make this sweet potato, I got I bought these two sweet potatoes, and then I put like honey and roasted pecans and plain yogurt, and they were so good. And that's probably the first time I've made sweet potatoes in 10 years. I'm telling you, we're in a transformative moment, Florencia.

SPEAKER_00

I do not yes, but I do love that recipe. So let's just say you you did that recipe.

SPEAKER_01

If you were to batch cook sweet potatoes, is that like a stuffed sweet potato or you got that was a stuffed sweet potato, but then I also really love bountiful bowls. I love sweet potatoes cubed or cut up for those.

Organizing A Smart Shopping List

SPEAKER_00

That's what I was thinking too, because you also said you had bell pepper, for example, or you could take the swish chard and you can with your garlic and even with your onion, and you could saute that together. And then you have the this chart, you have sweet potatoes on some kind of grain, whether it's rice or bringing in something different like bulgar or barley, and there you go, there's another meal, and maybe even two meals, right? From that, and definitely you would have enough for lunches as well, because you've also talked about having crackers and cheese, which crackers have a lot of food additives if you start to pay attention to any anything like that because they want it to have that crunch, they want it to have the same look every time you buy that package of crackers. So, especially baked goods or snacky things like that tend to lean in on food additives that you may not have realized before. Even the organic kind still is gonna lean.

SPEAKER_01

Which is so wild. And I want to add that a year ago, so I recently went to the doctor too, by the way. Uh-huh. And it back a year ago, it wasn't just my I had really high cholesterol. And at that time, it I was not just doing cheese and crackers, but it was cheese crackers and salami. Like for I just have a blonde charcuterie board. Like for me, it's just easy. You can and I have a sneaking suspicion that salami contributed to my high cholesterol. And I cut it out completely, and now my cholesterol is better, and it still could be better. But that was a big wake-up call because I was like, how do I have high cholesterol? What a weird thing. That sounds like something that unhealthy old people have or something. I shouldn't have that.

unknown

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

But it, yeah, it adds up. All these decisions we make add up to good or maybe not so good. So we have already some ideas that we're generating from the sweet potatoes based on things that you already have in your refrigerator. For me, it when you say ground beef, I would think about okay, you could make a pasta sauce with that, right? I don't know if you like having taco Tuesdays. That to me is always real simple to have a theme, which I'll we're gonna I'll talk about next. But if you say, okay, every Tuesday is Taco Tuesday, then it becomes really simple. Then you think I want to do that. Yeah. So then you don't have to think about what am I gonna make on that Tuesday, but okay, what kind of taco am I gonna make on Tuesday based on the ingredients that I might have left? Ground beef, girl. Exactly. So that's what I was thinking. We tend to, we used to make a lot of ground beef tacos. Now we rarely use you're I think what you're also gonna find is a kind of an evolution to not necessarily need to lean in on some of these ingredient meat proteins that we grew up with, right? When I used to think about tacos as a kid, it was always either chicken or beef. And now it's it's potato, it's cauliflower, it's you said the peppers, using the peppers. Also, in fact, sweet potatoes makes great, yes, a great taco as well. Just thinking outside of the ground beef box when it comes to different ingredients, but you have it, so how can you use it this week? So that's another idea. In the meal plan, you're gonna see day of the week. You can start this whatever day. So for you, it'll start Monday, right? For this week, it'll start Monday. And then I have theme optional as a next line, and that's where I'm talking about themes. For me, it makes it really easy to structure it in theme. So Tuesdays are taco Tuesdays for us, Mondays are a plant-based Monday. So for us, tends to be like either a salad bar, which could also be a theme night. It could be stir-fry, it tends to be stir fry for us the first day of the week, which you have a lot of the ingredients to make a stir fry already, right? I'm guessing you have some rice in your cupboard.

unknown

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

And the polenta, when you do when you make a grain bowl, the bountiful bowl, that could be one of the ingredients that you slice up and look up ways of how you can marinate, probably with oils you already have in your pantry that you have forgotten you've even had there.

SPEAKER_01

I even have avocado oil. Like who am I?

Building A Week That Fits Life

SPEAKER_00

So thinking about what are your themes. And then for me, I lean into my cultural heritage because that's just easy. Those are easy things that I know how to do. I know how to make enchiladas easily, I know how to make burritos, I know how to make tacos easy. But what are those recipes for you that would be really simple for you just to throw in there as a theme for your week? And you're cooking for one, which is great, because then that means that if you're making, say, a bountiful bowl, a grain bowl today for Monday, and you know you're gonna have enough for a second serving, and then you can just put that in for a Wednesday, right? So you could have, and then maybe you change up some of the ingredients. You can make it for two days that week. Or if you know what I'm gonna I want it for Monday, but really what I want to do with those leftovers is for my lunches.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I love that.

Leftovers, Class, And Identity

SPEAKER_00

Thinking through that. Other theme ideas could be Italian food, right? That's easy. Pastas, like what kind of pastas or you want to use a quinoa pasta, for example, if you wanted to move away from some of the carbs. So that's another fun idea. You also have the everything that you need for a sauce if you wanted to as well. You don't have to have a tomato-based sauce, but I have a recipe that I can hand over to you if you'd like that we use to make a really simple pasta sauce with organic canned tomatoes. And then the other thing that we make sure that we have our flex nights. When you start getting into cooking you're always going to have leftovers but it needs to be built into one of these days. So one of your days maybe that makes sense for you for it to be on Thursday nights or you're teaching really late on a particular night. So that becomes your flex night because it makes sense. So for us Wednesdays I am I dance flamenco that night and Michael takes his guitar lesson. So flex nights on Wednesdays makes a lot of sense for us. So it's a day of the week the theme optional what's for dinner you write what's for dinner that night where did you find that recipe if it if you found it inside of a recipe book you put the title of the recipe book and the page number. And then I love this part here. This is where it's different than any other meal plan that I've come across which is you write down the ingredients that you have and then the ingredients that you need. So you're not wasting food. There's all these areas in this meal plan to catch us so that we don't waste food because 42% of all food waste happens in home kitchens. Then you start to collect all of the things that you need from that line of things ingredients I need. Then you start to put that into the kitchen activist shopping list which is what I'm showing next. And I have it in categories which is somewhat based on how you find it at most grocery stores. And this part for me really helps so that I don't feel like I'm on a scavenger hunt in the grocery store. Have you ever felt that you were on aisle one for such and such ingredient for the beans and then then you're over at aisle 10 to get the milk and then you're like oh wait next to my list are the canned tomatoes which are back on aisle one. So here you go back and forth and it just takes more time than if it's organized in these lists and grouped in these categories. So it helps to minimize the running around in the store.

SPEAKER_01

This is my love language lists like I love this good.

SPEAKER_00

So on the top of this shopping list this here becomes my mantra for how I approach shopping food shopping which is shop your kitchen first then the farmers market community supported agriculture and then your grocery store third but as you begin this you can't do it all at once. For now what I'd like for you to focus on is shopping your kitchen first and then go to the grocery store that you normally go to. And then we're going to start thinking about some of these other things. And I also on this list have better and best and we're not going to focus on that this time either. Right now we're just going to focus on getting your shopping list in these categories that I have here like grains, rice, pasta, legumes, canned goods anything that you need put it in that box. Oil, sauces, spices, syrups, dressings, put that all in that box. So you'll see this box how it says better and best and just how I think about what are the types of ingredients that I should be looking for. But for this first week I'm going to ask that you just ignore it. Just focusing in on what am I going to eat this week? Thinking about what are the ingredients that you have and bringing that into your meal planning for the week and then whatever items you need transferring it to the shopping list. And that's all for this week. Wherever you shop currently just go to the same grocery store that you shop at and then we'll refine it but it's just steps. Otherwise if we try to do it all at once it's too much.

SPEAKER_01

And amen sister yeah no I feel like this is totally feasible. I also love the batchmaking idea and like how we already like I'm already in my brain I'm like okay sweet potatoes that's something I know how to cook too I know how to do that. And I was worried also coming to our session today I was worried that I was like but what am I going to do with the produce already in my fridge because we're starting today and I love this piece around shop your kitchen first because there is so much already there. So this is totally feasible I already wrote down like the nights too like my flex nights are the two nights that I'm teaching Tuesday Thursday. I'm going to do Monday bountiful bowl. Wednesdays are my taco Wednesdays. Perfect Fridays are my Filipino Fridays.

SPEAKER_00

I love it.

SPEAKER_01

Filipinos are very heavy on the rice and meat but there is something called torta tolong which is where you have eggplant and you mix you what is it you saute it or you mix it with with egg like unscrambled egg and you can serve it with garlic fried rice. So I've got some options. So I'm feeling like I've I feel I feel good.

SPEAKER_00

It sounds like you're gonna have a wonderful and I'm gonna be taking photos. Yes a wonderful week of eating just nourishing food and that's okay if you skip a night that's okay you have the ingredients and we'll carry it into the following week because you're gonna shop your kitchen first every week. Yeah we make plans and then life happens and that's okay. But what feels good is that you do have a plan to begin with and you have the ingredients. When you when you have that moment to cook and it's what do I make for dinner it's already there. You've already made those choices and you can change it around if you need to what about Saturday and Sunday because this is a time too when I will if I know so for example this week it's Valentine's the way that we planned it is that we're going out to dinner on Friday because if we're picking up my daughter from OHI and coming in from college and she wants to of course go right out to eat. So we've already chosen the restaurant that we're going to so that's our night that we're gonna go out to eat. We plan that too so then it becomes more intentional. So it's not like where are we going to go out to eat or what should I pick up for food for some reason you don't have very much to choose from in your mind. You we forget at least I do I'm like where should we eat if it's not planned in advance but when I can plan it in advance and we actually go to a place that we feel good about because I hate it when you go out to eat and you're like shoot I just paid$75 and that and I feel terrible or that was so unsatisfying. And part of having the meal plan is also planning not just the meals that you're making at home but also the meals that you're going out to eat as well.

Action Steps And Accountability

SPEAKER_01

I love that and I actually do have plans with a friend Saturday evening but we just don't know where yet. So I love that because this also reminds me and I have a tendency of the extremes so now that I'm cooking I'm never gonna go out to eat like this kind of like extreme pendulum shift and that's not what it's about. Like still going out to eat but also being incredibly intentional. So I think Saturday we'll we'll go out to eat and then Sunday evening you named a couple of pieces one of the pieces was also pasta and I don't have pasta in there yet and so I wonder or also it could be a flex night depending on what I have left over but I already have two flex nights Tuesday Thursday so having three yeah you just have to make sure that you have the leftover food or the other thing too it's like sal it could be salad bar and throwing it throwing things together with our with my kids when we were growing up and we'd have flex nights and they hated flex nights actually because they didn't want the oftentimes they wouldn't want leftovers and because that's something that you have to build up to it's a practice to want leftovers.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know how you feel about leftovers. I love leftovers but there's a lot of people who don't love leftovers but it's something that you've got to learn and my kids now have learned to love leftovers but it was teaching them along the way but the rule was okay if you don't like what we are heating up just shop the kitchen and you make yourself whatever you want of the ingredients that are in the kitchen.

SPEAKER_01

So maybe that is an I you make an omelette for example maybe I love Sunday salad bar because of the alliteration you already got me for that Sunday salad bar. But it is it's interesting because I think like leftovers are delicious when they're homemade. There is something that's different about eating leftovers like my again one of my girlfriends who was visiting she cooks so well and so when we would eat the leftovers of whatever she would cook whether it's like black bean burger or like a salmon bountiful bowl with a teriyaki garlic sesame sauce love those leftovers. But it's I love how you talk about orienting your relationship to leftovers because it also and I just want to make sure I bring this up is like how deeply class is tied to how we relate to food as well. And I so it's not like one if there were leftovers growing up very rarely it was like the bottom of the barrel like where you're just it was like the stuff that nobody wanted and I remember we'd have like different cereals and when my dad was around which was rare he would combine them all together into one it was so disgusting.

SPEAKER_00

Like a mystery bowl.

SPEAKER_01

It was disgusting and then because we're quite poor like we were I remember you had to make that food last for the month. So if you went to the soup kitchen and you'd get I remember like the big block of bright orange cheese. Oh yeah I remember that the can of like peanut butter like massive aluminum and you had to make it stretch and I actually think that in addition to all the things we're talking about the pandemic getting out of a breakup sense of self-love and care and worthiness and all of these things I also think that class is so huge for me. It's such a salient part of my identity and I can absolutely see how it shaped my approach to food because growing up we never ate out because only rich people did that. Like we didn't even go to McDonald's and so I think that there is like this performance like it's a reminder of I'm not poor anymore.

SPEAKER_00

That I can go out to eat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah but yeah but then what's so deep is I'm not poor anymore. I can afford to buy organic produce like I can afford to shop at a place like Whole Foods and things like that. But just I I think that anyway just like listening to you talk I just I think that feeling of shopping in the kitchen is really poignant for me right now because it does speak to me also in terms of my politics not wasting this and that and also it's a trigger around class working class and kind of figuring out what's in the kitchen and like growing up I was like only poor people do that right because like rich people just can go and buy stuff and anyway so I was just thinking about that like what comes up from and all of the things that are habit for me.

SPEAKER_00

Like when you like having this reflection this time to reflect on it then we're able to understand why you've made certain choices or what has been your blocks for cooking or meal planning because that's the first thing is what are those blocks so that I can break them down and understand where they're coming from. So this is all so important also important. And you might this week come across more blocks and so next week when we meet we'll explore that we'll explore that on we'll also celebrate the successes that I know you're going to have this week as well. So are you feeling good? You're feeling good to get started feeling good.

SPEAKER_01

I've got my themes I know what I for the most part I have tons of stuff already in my fridge. And what's wonderful is I can walk to my grocery store during a break between meetings today grab some sweet potatoes and maybe some other pieces that will fit into my meal planning but yeah you're well on your way for sure.

SPEAKER_00

Faye thank you so much for saying yes to this invitation and I'm so excited to walk this with you walk this path with you.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for working with me oh my God I'm so nervous but I really feel I love how you're I feel like you're guiding me and holding my hand and like that accountability piece is really the game changer.

SPEAKER_00

So thank you. Let's do this let's do this. All right so until next week next week here we go