My relationship is complicated. It borders on schizophrenic.

All relationships are complicated. This one is no exception.

I love to cook. No really. I love to dredge and dice, to saute and stir. I love to bake and broil. (I also love alliteration!)

And I own numerous kitchen gadgets and cookbooks. My very favorite cookbook is my Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" cookbook (thanks F for the fantastic 30th bday present!).

But when I say I love to cook - I really mean - I love to cook when I have time to plan menus and research options. And when I have time to enjoy the therapy that comes with the chopping. But let's face it - with real life comes real time management issues, and more often than not - cooking becomes something we do so that our kids don't starve or wind up as the poster children for unhealthy eating habits. We cook out of guilt that we simply MUST have family dinner time to prevent our children from developing a drug habit and to be able to reconnect with them and our spouse. We cook out of a misplaced sense of obligation? tradition? responsibility?

And we end up hating it. Even as much as I love to cook - there are many nights where I stagger home from the office and resent knowing that the first thing I must do is stare into the abyss of the refrigerator and drum up something tasty, healthy and quick. I've just spent 8+ hours dealing with stress and chaos to come home and create more stress and chaos in my kitchen. Is it any wonder that far too often the local restaurants win?

And I've tried weekly menu planning. And I stink at it. All that happens is I move "staring into the abyss of the refrigerator" to "staring into the abyss of the grocery store/newspaper ad/cookbook". It is still the agonizing process of trying to find creativity when my brain is fresh out of creative juices.

But lately. . .I literally stumbled across something that has made cooking quite a bit more enjoyable.

A local business offers weekly organic produce delivery - and while I can chose to have the box delivered each week. . .I do not get to choose what comes in my box. The box contents are predetermined by what produce is available by the season and on Fridays I get a new box full of new stuff.

Of course, a good deal of it is stuff I pretty much know what to do with:

Apples - those go in lunchboxes for the girls
Romaine lettuce - salads
Garlic - general cooking

But then there is also. . .

Beets - ?? !!!!! ????
Leeks - what exactly is that??
Rainbow Chard - ummmm ????

And then I have this produce. . .which I have paid for already and am NOT going to let rot in my fridge, that I had better make plans to feed to my family. And so I break out the google-fu and look for ideas. The beets became Chocolate Beet Cupcakes, the Leeks went into a fantastic Leek and Potato Soup, the chard into a gratin.

And my family is learning to eat new foods, I'm learning to cook new foods and remembering . . .that I love to cook.