I am no Foodie. In fact I find the daily cooking to be a chore I rarely look forward to. I do enjoy (VERY occasionally) planning and preparing a big dinner for a group (i.e. family holidays). But otherwise, it’s not my favourite activity. That being said I am a health-conscious mom and an environmentally conscious citizen. I want to feed my family healthy choices, and use sustainable, nutritious food. We’re not vegetarian, but we don’t eat large quantities of meat. We eat mostly organic, and local produce from a farm share.

This spring my friends introduced me to Sandi Richard: Cooking for the Rushed, who has the program “Fixing Dinner” on Canada’s “Food Network”. We’re not TV watchers, and we haven’t got cable (or satellite) television, so I had no idea who she was or what she did. Her system of weekly menu plans with master grocery lists are ingenious! I had been attempting to be organized, making my own weekly plans, but had never thought to go the extra step with preparing master grocery lists. As soon as I had the chance I ordered the only two books available through Indigo online at the time: “The Family Dinner Fix” and “Dinner Survival”. I love them!

For the spring and early summer we have been eating fantastic and rarely felt that awful end of day “what are we going to feed these kids” crankiness that was often overcoming me previously (and had prompted my own attempts at menu planning). We’ve eaten variety, usually had plenty of leftovers in the fridge for packing lunches, and tried many new things! Then summer rolled around and our farm share harvests really revved up again. I began to find the menus more challenging. While the cookbooks offer great variety, nutritional value and interest, they are not planned around local food availability.

I have a wish now, that Sandi will make a new edition for Canadian local food consumers – or even better, for Atlantic Canadians 😉