When Tandy said that the batch cooking and meal prep were going to take a solid half day, she wasn’t lying. Of course, it didn’t help that I rolled out of bed, lazily enjoyed Sunday morning on the sofa with Ogi and devoured my last cup of coffee before finally heading to Whole Foods.
And holy hell, Whole Foods.
Let’s note that I’ve never actually shopped in a Whole Foods before. I wanted to believe the crunchy granola stigma it has going and genuinely wanted to laugh about the entire experience. But. And here’s a giant “but.” I felt perfectly at home rolling up in my Jeep and prancing inside decked in my cozy knit beanie, skinny jeans and Chucks.
Maybe it was Tandy’s insanely intentional shopping list or maybe I was just totally in my element, but I found ever damn thing on that list in under an hour and made at least 3 friends while doing so – the fish guy, the coffee girl and the checkout guy. All of my buddies were devastated when we learned that the store doesn’t stock coconut butter. In the world of real foods, people gotch ya back.
Fast forward 2 and a half hours later. I’m standing in front my of oven – loaded with chicken – man-handling a pound of salmon in a skillet which I clearly prepared incorrectly. Clouds of thick white smoke rolled from the pan. Despite our first impending freeze of winter, I opened the back door and several windows only to see Ogi go sprinting to safety on the patio.
My careful coordination of vegetables and proteins quickly spiraled into a foggy stench – at which point I considered my options. I could trash the salmon or I could keep cooking it. Naturally, I kept cooking it. As you do when you drop a small fortune on Whole Foods salmon because the fish guy is kind of adorable.
Somewhere in the madness, I flipped it.
Like pancake style.
And suddenly my arm was dotted with hot coconut oil splotches. Which seems like such a conundrum because that shit is supposed to heal your burns but, damn, it also burns. So I kept cooking.
As you do.
Within minute (that felt like days), my delicate salmon filet had sizzled into something of a charcoal brick. I removed it from the pan and sawed at it with a knife. “Yea, I think it’s still edible.”
The rest of the cooking went off without a hitch. I turned down the temp on the cooktop and aimed to less-than-flambé the remainder of the food. By bedtime, the burnt fish smell had faded, the house was exceptionally chilled and the fridge was loaded with – without a doubt – the most organized collection of meals in my lifetime.
Here. We. Go.