For years, Jess thought that she didn’t like fish. Turns out, what she actually doesn’t like is the taste (and, even more so, the smell) of oxidizing fat. Growing up, the primary fish her parents cooked was sautéed salmon. Which, especially when cooked skin-on, is about as oxidized-fat-heavy as food gets.

In more recent years, Jess has discovered that she in fact really likes pretty much all raw fish (sushi!), as well as less fatty fishes (ed. note: the correct plural for multiple species) even when cooked at moderate temperatures – Amelie‘s seared Atlantic cod was a recent hit.

But, at the same time, she’s equally sensitive to a slew of other theoretically inoffensive fats once sufficiently heated. Especially in a small NYC apartment, where kitchen smells quickly suffuse the entire place. Even vegetables pan-seared in olive oil, for example, will sometimes set off her disgust response.

To mask the smell, her fallback is to light a stick of traditional Nag Champa incense, which is strong enough to cover pretty much anything else. The only problems is, I kind of hate Nag Champa in turn.

So, cooking is a bit of a crap shoot. As a culinary nerd, I often spend far more time than reasonable shopping for, prepping, and cheffing up our meals. But I do so with caution. Sure, as the excellent Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat makes clear, fat and heat make up half the secret to tasty food. But, at least in my own home, too much of either is a sure road to pungent mutually-assured scent destruction. Browned butter with a side of ashram is a win for nobody at all.

Years back, I remember seeing a comedian do a bit about how he wanted to open a restaurant called I Don’t Care, You Choose, so he could finally eat at the place his wife kept requesting.

Which, in short, is how my dinner conversations with Jess tend to go. And while that’s sort of an issue on date nights when we’re headed out somewhere fun, it’s even more of a disaster on the majority of nights, when I instead cook at home.

Between Equinox and Composite, my schedule is already pretty nuts, and I often get home later than I’d like. So, frequently, I end up texting with Jess from the subway, then calling her from Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, trying to coordinate a high-speed shopping and cooking plan.

Until, that is, two or three weeks ago, when I cribbed an idea from my old friend Helen Jane, and started planning out the entire next week of meals every Saturday afternoon. The secret, I discovered, was catching Jess late on Saturday afternoon. The rest of the time, she didn’t really have strong opinions on food. But sufficiently hungry pre-dinner, she’d suddenly come up with remarkably creative and impassioned ideas.

Mostly, I do the actual cooking in our house. But it turns out that Jess makes an excellent executive chef to my hands-on sous, dreaming up meals I’d never suggest on my own. This past week, she requested scallops with a cream drizzle and summer succotash; tacos al pastor; watermelon gazpacho with fancy grilled cheese; Chic-fil-a style chicken sandwiches; and a steakhouse wedge salad.

None of which I had made before, precisely. But, with her executive chef-ing complete, I could put on my sous chef hat and figure out how to execute. Anal retentive as ever, I could even bang out triaged shopping lists – what to grab at the Sunday UWS farmer’s market; what I could stock on an oversized weekend grocery run; and what I’d need to grab on the way home the day of, though far more quickly than I had previously on my undirected post-work passes.

And I could strategize over the span of the week, rather than just day by day. Tacos al pastor took three days of cooking, and achieving Chic-fil-a juiciness required brining the breasts overnight. By banging out a bunch of fried tenders at the same time as the sandwiches, I could serve the wedge the day after, with chicken as the protein (along with an excellent cucumber dill dressing). And I could put half-used veggies, herbs, and sauces to subsequent-day use, wildly reducing our food waste.

So, in short, there seems to be a partnership-inspired restaurant to be had after all. And all it takes is a little stomach-timing savvy along the way.