At the risk of sounding like an informercial (preferably the one I used to watch in high school with the bowtied Australian guy selling car wax), how much would you pay for peace of mind? Would you pay $7.50 plus shipping?

If so, get one of these: the KnockKnock _What To Eat_ pad. It’s from the makers of those slang flash cards (I am informed that they are the shizznit, or the crunk, or something).

I’ve never met anyone who didn’t find meal planning a chore. Last year I interviewed Donna Hay, one of Australia’s most successful cookbook authors. Hay puts out a new book pretty much every year, and it’s always beautiful and full of simple and full-flavored recipes, and always sells a jillion copies. But she’s refreshingly down-to-earth in person and joked about blowing up Starbucks. Nothing she said endeared her to me more than this:

> But it’s amazing, whenever anyone comes lately for dinner I go, “Well, what do you feel like?” Because I hate choosing what to cook. You want to come to dinner, you have to tell me what you want. You know, sometimes it gets to be a bit of a trial.

She wasn’t saying this to cop a hip everywoman vibe, honest. This is a woman who could cook from her own books for the rest of her life–or could afford to eat out every night–and she has the same problem as you and me. Why is this so hard?

To help fill in the pad, we maintain a Backpack page that we try to keep up to date with our favorite dinners. Have a look, and see that I’m not kidding when I say we eat a lot of stew. Another page is for recipes we’d like to try; that one is in dire need of replenishing, although I see it’s time to give Vietnamese beef stew another try. If it’s no good, I can buy some at Baguette Box, which makes an extremely tasty stew with lots of star anise and annatto oil.

I was going to spin one of my cockamamie theories about why it’s so hard to plan dinners, maybe relating it to the interminable discussions about where to go out to eat with friends, but I really have no idea. I assume it’s one of those paradox of choice situations where too much choice is paralyzing. In any case, the greatest hits list and the What to Eat pad have helped a lot, so if you suffer from this common ailment, give those a try.

One more idea. Over the past year or so, I’ve become completely addicted to the web-based approach to dealing with my personal data–aside from Backpack, we use a web calendar, to-do list, photo sharing, and so on. A snappy web-based meal-planning application would be great. Anyone want to step up?