What do you need from the store?

It’s a question I ask my father-in-law once a week as I prepare to do our household grocery shopping.

“Peanut butter,” he said. “One of the really big jars.”

I paused in the kitchen and looked over at the counter which had two giant jars of peanut butter. I picked it up, took into the living room, and showed him.

“But look! We have two of these!” I showed him.

“Those are yours,” he replied.

Yeah, not so much.

I appreciate his sensitivity, but there’s nothing that’s off limits to others in the house. More specifically, I don’t usually eat from big jars of peanut butter. I eat $9-a-jar-almond-butter because I read too many health-related websites for my own good.

Truth be told, my father-in-law and I eat very differently. For starters, I’m vegetarian. I try eat healthy the majority of the time with an emphasis on fresh and homemade when possible. I like roasted vegetables over quinoa.

He’s a hamburger-and-gravy-over-white-bread kinda guy.

Granted, he’ll eat just about anything I make. He’s enjoyed a good black bean burger and my lentil soup. But most of the time, I’m making him something that he’ll enjoy and eat. At this point, there’s no changing his eating habits. It’s all about getting him calories to keep his weight up.

I sometimes wonder about this challenge with the parental people in my life. My mom, even when she was sick and battling cancer, didn’t make the effort to change her eating habits. Cooking for her had devolved into boiling pasta and opening a jar of sauce and a host of frozen entrees. Not the healthiest fuel for her body. Then it got to the point where she just needed any fuel. And the challenge came in trying to get her to eat anything — a task which led to numerous fights in her final months.

The nutrition situation with my mother was complicated and nuanced, frustrating because she wanted different outcomes but didn’t want to make the changes to get to those outcomes. It was a life lesson for me as I look at things in my own life I want to change and what I’m willing, or not willing, to do to create that change.

Cooking for my father-in-law is not complicated or nuanced, unless you count his irregular mealtimes or his tendency to leave food out on the counter for hours at a time, leaving me to wonder how he hasn’t suffered from food poisoning.

I follow the lead set by my husband, doing my best to help keep the kitchen stocked and our bellies full during these COVID-19 times.

So I make a big pot of instant broccoli and cheese soup and let him be happy for a few days while I craft my black bean tacos.

And I add another giant tub of peanut butter to my shopping list — because he’s already consumed two.