The cooks gone,long live the chef

I am not at the best of times a good housekeeper.As long as most things function i am fine with it,which is why for the last two years I have just about glanced at my kitchen and the most i did was to make a cup of tea.This was thanks to a rather smart cook who entered my life two years ago and as he could churn out most things basic and a few exotics....well one enjoyed it and wondered how long it would last.
Most people i know agree that the moment the woman of the house decides to give up full time jobs,the house help leave.This is largely due to the fact that woman then monitor all that the help does.I wasn't unduly worried as i am the last person to be supervising people as long as my food arrived at table i was happy.
Unfortunately for the cook ,I happen to be a pretty good cook myself besides which i can innovate,substitute stuff if something wasn't available or just cook up a recipe as i go along.For years now I have made many a man insecure(lots of men are insecure around smart women...fact of life) but i hardly expected the cook to become insecure and leave.Well that's exactly what he did.The fact of the matter I believe is that when the mother moved in with us,she proved to be the best cook of the lot and years of experience has taught her not to be taken in ,so the end result is that two good women cooks in the house equals one run away cook.
Now that he is gone my first task was to actually check out the kitchen after two years.Bad idea that.Remember the cook unlike the inmates is only interested in preparing the food.he couldn't care less about the kitchen being clean.My first shock was the chimney.It took me a whole morning to clean years of muck from that.Then i attacked the back of the gas stove.It was filled with muck mixed with cooking oil so that took another hour or so and one thing led to the other and its taken a whole day,a bottle of cleaner many scotch brights and now there is a semblance of order.Or at least it looks like a kitchen i can operate from.
My next big agenda was to move in the most efficient manner to tackle the cooking and the shopping (one being very much interlinked with the other).With the prices going through the roof for most food items and lpg going up by 50 bucks i decided that this requires some sound resource management.The idea is to save gas,cut down unnecessary trips to shops in the car and to buy just the right amount of supplies.This requires some serious maths and planning.
The weekly menu is my first step in cutting cost.For starters it reduces cooking time (a lot of time is lost wondering what to cook on a daily basis) as the menu tells me exactly what each meal consists of.It also helps in shopping for veggies and fruit as I don't have to buy everything and then work backwards.The menu dictates what i need to buy,which in turn cuts down on trips to the shops.
The biggest challenge to menu planning i realised is to balance foods.One cant have everything every day nor can one have two carbohydrates together so the need to balance protein,carbs,fats etc becomes important.It also needs to factor in left overs that are bound to come in and it needs one to plan for specials (for when guest come or for occasions) and take into account diets(diabetic mothers need special foods).Like all things in management this requires time and lots of thinking besides which it need to be approved by the rest to the management team who are still out there not knowing that something is a foot.
The best part of the cook leaving of course is that I am back to cooking (which i enjoy) and am having to brush up my memory of recipes but for starters the mother and i have unearthed some long forgotten recipes which we are getting together so the menu may go through some changes but some ingredients will never go off the shelves....coconut,ginger and garlic.
As for cost,the new excel sheet on household expense is being monitored closely.Me thinks all this is due to two factors....one ....I am so jobless i have time for all this,second this whole corporate culture is so much a part of my dna that i need to have systems,backup plans,contingency plans and the works and the house is beginning to run like an office.