The worst question in the world is "What's for supper"?

After being married for 22 years, and with an 8-year-old son, I am convinced I have tried every known option. Most of them multiple times.

My wife works a standard 9-5 schedule, and I'm the one who works afternoons/nights/weekends with considerable ability to set my own hours. So it's my responsiblity to decide what/how to feed the family as she commutes home. And I admit to being inordinately fond of take-away--especially as where I live, in Queens, NY, we have more international ethnic food nearby than probably anywhere else on Earth. I realize, though, that all this stuff is probably not best from a nutritional, or economic, standpoint.

Since this is New York City, we have a lot of services that can prepare hot meals and have them delivered, either for immediate consumption or for re-heating in the future (such as Fresh Direct). The food quality with these is generally good, though of course one gets hit in the wallet quite hard.

Added to all this is the reluctance in the summer months to cook and heat up the whole house, and then spend even more money air-conditioning it.

I try to do things such as salads, fruit and vegetable combos, and even "breakfast for supper" scenarios with omelettes, (gluten-free) pancakes with various fruits and toppings, and the like, but I ran out of orginality several thousand suppers ago. This is even despite the fact that our gluten board here is a treasure trove of interesting recipes (though many of them take a good chunk of time to prepare).

I often get so bored with the whole thing that I'd rather make a meal out of a yogurt, a pear, and a handful of walnuts, but I do have the Daddy guilt thing that I shuold try to get a more proper meal on the table--even if it's ordered out--for the commuting spouse and the always hungry child (who, all 60 pounds of him, eats like a construction crew).

Things I do insist on--there is no soda in this house, and any juice is pure juice. A lot of fruit smoothies get blended here, too. (And very few cookies/cakes/pastries and the like--I'm gluten-free and couldn't eat most of these, anyway.) There does tend to be too much ice cream, though.

Part of the rise in food prices, I think, is more the rise in oil prices. Many fertilizers are petrochemical in nature, and we do not eat what is grown locally in most parts of the Western world; too much of our food is shipped from long distances, and that shipping cost is really being jacked up. Another argument for reduced dependence on oil.

I tend to spend about $75-85 American dollars a week for a family of three; I try to shop the sales and buy in bulk when I can.