The Four Shirts and a Skirt Menu Planning System

Recently I ran into an old acquaintance at a library book sale, a scandalous housewife from a well-thumbed Judy Blume novel I got introduced to back in the 1980s.

She hadn’t changed a bit. But I could tell I‘d aged, because as she rehashed the monotony of her existence, harping about chicken on Wednesdays and something else grownups like a lot on Saturdays, I kept thinking, what’s wrong with a little structure in your life?

If that renegade housewife had wanted to spice up her kitchen repertoire, it might have helped if she thought of that chicken as a skirt in her wardrobe, to be matched up with four or five distinctive and alluring tops to create a different “look” for every Wednesday of the month. But why stop there? Google “chicken recipe” and you’ll find enough variations for a different chicken entree every Wednesday for the next five years.

We don’t eat much meat at our house, so rather than build our menu “wardrobe” around animal-flesh building blocks, we use themes. Mondays, for instance, are “breakfast night,” which can mean anything from a simple baked omelet or homemade waffles to a family favorite, Dr. Seuss-style green eggs and ham. (The green tint comes from chopped spinach or broccoli.)

We also have soup and homemade bread night, stir-fry night, casserole night, pizza night and pasta night. (We also do a meat-and-potatoes meal, except the “meat” is usually vegetarian, whether it’s store-bought Boca chicken patties or homemade TVP veggie burgers or meatloaf.)