Food · Joy Tried It
Joy tried it: a week of dinners planned by a chatbot
One fridge, one tired editor, one prompt. What worked, what was weird, and whether the 5:30 dread finally went away.
By The TJD Editors · · 5 minute read
Every weekday at about 5:30, a small cloud forms over our editor’s kitchen. It is called What are we having? It has been there for years.
So for one week, the cloud was handed to a chat app.
The setup
On Sunday afternoon: a photo-free, very honest list of what was in the fridge and cupboard. Half a cabbage. Eggs. A sad bag of spinach. Rice, lentils, a jar of salsa, frozen peas, a block of cheddar, two sweet potatoes. One prompt asking for five dinners, thirty minutes or less, using the old stuff first, plus a shopping list grouped by aisle.
What came back
Five perfectly reasonable dinners: fried rice with peas and egg, sweet potato and black bean tacos, a lentil soup, cabbage and cheddar quesadillas (genuinely great), and a spinach frittata. The shopping list was short and, crucially, organised the way the shop is.
What was weird
It suggested “a squeeze of fresh lime” four nights out of five. It assumed the oven was free on the busiest night. And it confidently called the lentil soup a 25-minute job. It was not a 25-minute job.
Small things, easily fixed by replying “no oven Wednesday” and “I don’t own a lime.” It adjusted without complaint, which is more than can be said for some family members.
Did the cloud lift?
Mostly, yes. The cooking still had to happen. But the deciding, which turned out to be the heavy part, was done by Sunday at 4 p.m. Less food was thrown out, too, though we weren’t weighing it.
Verdict: worth trying for a week. Check the timings, ignore the limes, and keep one night free for toast.