how often do people just buy or defrost the main ingredient and then say... hmmm what to do with this tonight? unless i am strictly following a recipe for the 1st or 2nd time i often don't know exactly what i am going to do until after i start or even get half way through. it makes it difficult to have people help since i am not exactly sure what comes next. That and the fact that we have a very small kitchen.

I look for the best and freshest ingredients and improvise virtually all of the time. Our kitchen is certainly large enough for help, but I pretty much do it all. My wife and I both like it better that way.

I don't keep meat in the freezer. The only main ingredient I freeze is shrimp, which come frozen. I keep demiglace, duck fat, and roasting meat juices in the freezer. Ice too.

When more expensive items go on sale or become available (such as rib roast or sockeye salmon), I will often times buy it and freeze for a week or so until I need it. Fresh is always the best but when you can't do fresh, this becomes the option.

I usually have an exact idea of what I'm going to do with the ingredients and hardly improvise. During the week, I make a grocery list of what things I want to cook for the following week and work on it little by little until I have meals planned for the whole week. I purchase groceries on Fri or Sat (most of the time) and then cook it for the rest of the week. I spend almost 10 hours a week on meal planning and cooking/cleaning. For me, it's work, but I enjoy it.

Very similar to Board-O, with a few changes. First, my wife does most of the shopping, and usually makes it to the market or farm stand each day to buy whatever will go with the main protein. She only buys what looks best. It is always a surprise top me, so much of my cooking is like that old show on the Food Network, "Ready, Set Cook." I get a bag of groceries, sight unseen, and have about 20-30 minutes to put dinner together. (If it takes much longer than that, my 8 year old can't hold out, and we really prefer to all eat together, as close to 7:00-7:15 as possible.) I do virtually all of the cooking, with some occasional prep help from Mrs. V. As Board-O said, we both prefer it that way. The kitchen is plenty big, so my daughter and wife hang out in the kitchen, do homework, chat, etc. as I cook. My wife tries to clean as I cook to the extent possible so that after-dinner clean-up is minimal.

Unlike Board-O, we do freeze our proteins most of the time. My wife is a sucker for "buy-one-get-one free" pork loins, lamb, chicken, etc. when it goes on sale, so we load up and have no choice but to freeze. Each Saturday morning I go through the freezer and try to figure out what the weekend and week's dinners will be, and take out all of the frozen stuff that we will use that week, so when it is time to cook on any given day, the meat has finished its slow, in-the-fridge defrost.

We have an excellent fish market nearby, and ALL fish is bought fresh that day (I have nothing against frozen shrimp...that really is the best way to get it...but Mrs. V is allergic, so I don't cook it at home.) We decide that morning (like today) that we are going to have "seafood". Mrs. V goes to the fishmonger and buys whatever looks best and is priced fairly. I never know until I get home. Tonight could be scallops, or salmon, or sea bass. Or I could come home to 4 pounds of mussels. Who knows? After I find out, I pick out a wine and decant, and then comb through the pantry and do my best "Ready, Set, Cook" routine. Weekends are more planned out with slow cooking techniques and dishes that usually pair better with big reds that need longer decants, which is why you will rarely see me post in the Drinking Thread that I have had a big-time red during the week.

That about covers it.