What are you eating tonight?

Lotje Deelman was editor-in-chief of ELLE Eten, has been working for Allerhande for almost 15 years and worked behind the scenes on television programmes such as MasterChef, de Worsten van Babel On Tour and De Nieuwe Lekkerbek. She ate pig’s trotter with Anthony Bourdain and flirted with Gordon Ramsay in his Aston Martin. Lotje is the (co-)author of more than ten cookbooks and, in her kitchen in the Drenthe countryside, is never too squeamish to set something on fire. On FavorFlav, Lotje shares what occupies her every week. This time: Lotje asks the mother of all questions: what are you eating tonight?

Perhaps the most frequently asked question: what are we eating tonight? Out loud, silently, desperately or hopefully. To yourself, your mother, your wife or girlfriend, your husband or boyfriend (did I forget anyone?). I rarely panic over that question, or the answer, but that doesn’t apply to everyone.
For an entire day, I ask everyone who crosses my path: “What are you eating tonight?”

Thomas (my husband):

“Lentil salad, right? The one you wanted to eat yesterday, but then I saw those steaks in the fridge and thought, what if I make oven potatoes with them, and then, if you really insist, you can have lettuce from the vegetable garden with it, but if there’s sand in it again, I don’t want that lettuce. You are going to put crispy bacon bits on that lentil salad, right? And there aren’t any oven potatoes with it? Maybe fried potatoes?”

Madam, sitting next to me on the train, biting her nails:

“Madam, please. I already have so much on my mind.”

Receptionist:

“I’m going to a barbecue. No pork, though, I don’t eat that. It gives me spots. Luckily I don’t like it either, so it’s not too bad. I mean, not eating it.”

Martijn, graphic designer:

“I don’t know. I usually decide that in the supermarket. Or is it Thursday? Then I always eat chips. Always. No, never not, that is. Just always.”

My mother:

“Mixed stir-fried leftover vegetables with pangasius from the microwave, and the yoghurt with porridge oats that I forgot to eat this morning.”
Me: “Yuck!”
My mother: “I’m not exactly looking forward to it either.”

Colleagues:

No. 1: “Mac ’n cheese.”
No. 2: “Roasted tomato tart”
No. 3: “Street food”
Me: “Huh?”
No. 3: “Yes, because I’m such a street person.”
Me: “Huh?”
No. 3: “No, seriously, I’m going to the Streetfoodbar. Really good food. Very much for snowflakes, though.”

Another madam, sitting next to me on the train on the way back:

“That’s a strange question. That’s private information. I never give that out.”

Me:

“French lentil salad made with Puy lentils. You can’t find them here, by the way, Puy lentils. Cooked in the stock made from the carcass of a chicken roasted on the Green Egg (which I wouldn’t mind having a larger example of #loveyoutodeathgreenegg) from the freezer. With oregano and roasted beetroot. And crispy bacon bits because Thomas likes that (#metoo). I was supposed to eat it yesterday, but then I suddenly got steak with oven potatoes.”

My son:

“Falafel salad”
Me (hopefully): “With homemade falafel?”
Him: “No.”

Jess from Global Work & Travel Co.

“Shrimp fried rice.”
(Jess had sent me an email to tell me about the possibilities of working as a chef in Australia. I’m not actually going to do it, working as a chef in Sydney, but I always look at that sort of thing. I’m also subscribed to the newsletter ‘Jobs in Africa’. Assistant Safari Manager in Malawi. Rice Farm Manager in Tanzania. Cool. Life gets much easier to handle when I know there’s more out there, out there…)

My hairdresser:

“Nothing. I’m on the phone, so I don’t eat anything.”
Me (carefully): “But you’re already quite very thin…”
Her: “That’s because I don’t eat anything.”

Want to read more columns by Lotje? Then look here.