Cooking Dinner is Hard

Hi, it’s Chef E. There’s a clip of Aretha Franklin floating around where she’s asked about her biggest challenge and she says, “Trying to figure out what to cook for dinner. Night after night.” Honestly? Same, Aretha. Same. Because it’s not just deciding what’s for dinner — it’s actually making it, somewhere between work, kids, dishes, practices, emails, and the general chaos of life. Cooking dinner can feel like the final boss of the day.

That’s exactly why New Leaf Table exists.

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I don’t believe dinner should require a PhD in planning or an hour of scrolling. I believe it should be:

doable on a weeknight
nourishing without being complicated
flexible for real life
and actually good — like, everyone-will-eat-it good

At New Leaf Table, we take the decision fatigue out of dinner with recipes that are built for real schedules: leftovers that work twice, slow cookers that do the heavy lifting, one-pan meals, and food that feels comforting without being heavy.

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Some nights you cook early. Some nights you reheat. Some nights you wing it. All of that counts.

Dinner doesn’t have to be perfect to be nourishing. It just has to get on the table — and if it brings people together (even briefly), that’s a win.

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So if cooking dinner feels hard right now, you’re not failing. You’re human. And you don’t have to do it alone.

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I’ve got you. 💛

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With love from my kitchen to yours,

Chef E

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