Our daughters had wandered away to play in the living room when they finished eating. My husband and I continued to sit at the table discussing our plans for the rest of the day. Arnie told me where he was going and what time he’d get back home. My response was, “What would you like for supper tonight, hamburgers in mushroom gravy or chicken?”

Arnie turned to look at me with a startled expression on his face. He exclaimed, “My gosh, woman! Don’t you ever stop thinking about food? We just finished eating a meal and now you’re already thinking about eating again!”

I responded indignantly, “Do you somehow think that the meals I make are whipped up in half and hour with no planning? The meat is frozen. It needs to be thawed out. Then it must be prepped and roasted or fried long enough for it to get done!”

To be fair, the only ‘meals’ that my husband ever made were fried eggs, fried freshly caught fish or cheese and sausage sandwiches that he hastily slapped together during a commercial. The ingredients Arnie needed to make these meals were always magically found in the kitchen when he wanted them. He didn’t seem to recognize that it took planning ahead on my part when buying groceries.

Shortly after our daughter, Niki, was married, she commented one day to me about how hard it was to constantly make meals. I knew what she meant. Making one meal is easy, but looking ahead to making a lifetime of meals is intimidating.

Through the years, Niki became a pro at planning and making meals for a large family. Every summer, she takes a vacation with her children. Since eating every meal at restaurants would be very expensive, my daughter makes meals ahead, freezes them, and packs them in ice-filled coolers. Motel room kitchenettes are small and inconvenient, but she manages to provide her children with good, home-made vacation food.

My other daughter, Tammie, and I took a cruise last year. When we got home, we talked non-stop about the wonderful meals that we were served aboard the ship. This year when the opportunity for us to take another cruise came up, I invited Niki to join us. She accepted the invitation and commented she couldn’t remember when she last took a vacation that didn’t require her to make meals ahead that had to be frozen and packed in an icebox.

Our ship, the Zuiderdam, left the Boston harbor on June sixth. My two daughters, my granddaughter Claire, and I shared one cabin. Our coming and goings were instinctively synchronized in a way that didn’t make anyone feel crowded or impatient. According to personal interests, we attended various shows, art demonstrations, informational talks and listened to classical music performed by a man at a grand piano and a woman who played the cello.

We usually had our meals together in the dining room. The food was as excellent as it had been on my last cruise. Being adventurous eaters, we all tried foods that aren’t found easily in Central Wisconsin. My granddaughter had bagels and lox for breakfast, ordered beef wellington for supper, and baked Alaska for dessert. She had congee for breakfast, poutine on a break from a shore excursion and steak tartar.

I never got around to having congee for breakfast but plan to make it at home. I discovered that escargot, a.k.a. snails, are good! But I found out that I didn’t care for kippered herring because it was dry-textured, too salty, and had a backbone with as many ribs as my cats have hair.  

Niki enjoyed steaks and ribeye frequently and tried the steak tartar and mussels that her daughter ordered. They both loved the strawberry Romanoff dessert.

Tammie loved every variation of salmon offered by the dining room. She agreed with her sister that the Lindt chocolate tulip dessert was the richest and most decadent thing they ate during the cruise.

One evening while on the ship, I asked my daughter, Niki, what her children at home were eating while she was on vacation. She said, “I made meals ahead and froze them. All they have to do is thaw and heat them.”

My response was a shocked exclamation, “So you did end up having to cook vacation food, after all!”

Chuckling, Niki explained, “Yes, but I didn’t have to pack it and bring it with me and prepare it for the family in a small motel kitchenette.”

It turns out that making meals for her family isn’t a chore she can escape, even by going on vacation with me!