Last week,  Matt Yglesias questioned celebrity cooks who push home cooking. Matt wrote that restaurant food doesn't necessarily have to be healthier than home cooking. The push for home cooked meals also puts the burden on women to make the meals, and women just don't have the time any more.

Russell writes that if men scale back their work obligations, they can do the cooking, too. 

I'm glad that Russell wrote this post, because I've been turning it over in my brain, too, this week.

One of the goals that I had when my job ended was to spend more time cooking good food and less time at the drive through of Wendy's. When my work obligations were the busiest, I bought crappy take-out food two or three times a week. One day of the week, I scrounged a dinner from my mom. I cooked one day. I think the rest of time we ate leftovers or Trader Joe's or air. I can't remember. 

That's not unusual. A friend of mine, a single mother who has a tough schedule as a doctor, feeds her kids fast food five days a week.

Now that I'm home, my goal has been to cut out the fast food. We go out to a restaurant (mid-priced, kid friendly places) once a week, but no take out.

I'm doing more cooking for a lot of reasons. The quality of my food is much superior. (A rant on the poor quality of suburban food is for another day.) I want to support local farms. My kids can eat a greater variety of foods and healthier food. I'm teaching them how to cook; Jonah learned how to make banana muffins yesterday.

Surprisingly, cost isn't a huge factor. We can eat at Wendy's for $15; the ingredients for dinner can cost that much, if I go to the good place for the fish.

There are a lot of excellent reasons to cook at home. However, it takes a lot of time. Food planning, shopping, preparing takes about two hours a day. I start preparing the meal at around 4:00 or earlier if we have to work around a soccer schedule. If I was coming home at 6:30 with Steve, it would be far too late to cook. Or I would just be too tired to stuff the chicken or make the chili.

People who work traditional hours just don't have time to shop at the farmers markets and home cook, especially if they have kids. They may have 20 minutes to open some cans, which helps explain the popularity of Rachel Ray.

Sure, it would be nice if everybody worked less and therefore had the time to do these things, but most people don't have the option to work less. Steve could never leave work early to make dinner. (He does cook on the weekend.) Many families can't afford to have one parent stay at home. 

So, is the push for home-cooked, organic meals somehow anti-feminist?
Is this an unreachable goal for most working families? Is this just one
more unfair expectation being placed on women? Can you be both a feminist and a food Nazi at the same time?