Mental Floss, how I love thee. You keep me grounded with your fresh perspective and gentle reminders, like the one on May 25 letting me know it was both Geek Pride Day and National Wine Day. How else would I have known I’d have two reasons to celebrate? And then there was this week’s post about Carl Sagan, just when I needed reminding that we are but a blink in a vast and complex history.

When I made the commitment (mostly to myself) to prepare and post a weekly menu plan each and every week of this year, I forgot that summer has a warp rhythm of its own. Time doesn’t move the same way during summer, at least not for me. The point of weekly dinner planning was and is to make our lives simpler, less stressful, and more enjoyable together. When the kids are in school and the days short, the structure of planning and preparing dinner is both an anchor and a calm guide.

The few weeks when our schedule isn’t dictated by homework and carpools call for a different dinnertime answer. More importantly, something about the longer days urges me to savor every fleeting moment. While I love to cook, I do not want to waste the flash that is summer sweating in my kitchen.

So this week’s plan has even simpler dinners than last week’s, and ones that can easily be assembled with purchased prepared foods if cooking would get in the way of more important things. There are links to suggested recipes, as always; but, for example, the chicken kabobs at Kroger or the Fresh Market would do just fine instead of marinating and skewering your own.

Of course you could always go totally rogue like we did one night recently and have ice cream sprinkled with Lucky Charms instead of the planned dinner meal. No, it didn’t come close to meeting any of Michael Pollan’s rules. But life is short, and summer’s even shorter.

Happy week.

jennyslark weekly menu 61013