As people with full schedules and limited budgets, how do we get everything done? I'm at a reasonable point in life: my kids are grown and out on their own, and it's just me and my husband. He works full-time, I'd like to work that much, but my business is not that busy.

Even so, we have very little free time. People with jobs and kids - whoa. You people are busy!

I remember. I raised 5 children as a single parent, and I went to college and worked full-time while I was doing it. Let's just say I was a bit more - ahem - organized, in those days. And my house wasn't real clean.

I knew a lot less about food back then, but I still knew it was important to cook my own food as much as possible and to use whole grains and limit the soda (my kids hated that!). I refused to buy sweet cereal for my kids. It was reserved for a birthday treat. Five times a year, the birthday kid could pick any cereal they wanted for all of them to eat. It was always a lot of fun to watch them hit the cereal aisle on those days!

I got up at 5:30 and read the newspaper and cooked a homemade breakfast for my kids. And for me, too - breakfast is still my favorite meal of the day. I loved waking them up and watching them sit down to a hot breakfast. I also packed lunches for them - in those days, I didn't know better and we used a lot of Little Debbie snacks. I wouldn't go near that stuff, anymore!

I cooked dinner every night and I was a master at the fast, homemade meal. Of course, we were quite poor too, so we had our share of Top Ramen, which I tried to supplement with leftover meat or frozen vegetables.

All of this is to say that I understand what families are going through. So when I preach about eating whole grains and buying local, organic produce and NEVER using processed foods, yeah, yeah, yeah...

I know what I'm asking you to do. I know it's not easy.

But I also know it's possible.

I have an idea and I'd like some input from women about it. It involves a community kitchen.

The idea is that a group of people - neighbors, co-workers, PTA, whatever - forms a co-op, of sorts. The co-op plans menus, shops for ingredients, and cooks the meals. Members can pick up their prepared meals to take home, or they could eat at the kitchen and enjoy a little social interaction.

This could be done in member's homes and the homes could rotate, so no member is stuck with all the work. Or, the co-op could rent a commercial kitchen for the purpose.

This could be carried a step further and members could grow their own vegetables, too. The co-op could buy from area farmers and ranchers, so members would have the best food available, for a much cheaper price.

There is a kitchen doing something like this in Berkeley: Three Stone Hearth. I buy from them sometimes, and I love what they are doing. I don't know how big the co-ops would have to be to make it viable, but it would be great to have hundreds of these in communities across the country. Small is better, really - so no one is tempted to industrialize the food.

So there it is. Any comments?