The Compact Grill That Made Cooking for One Actually Enjoyable

When my husband Tom passed, I sold the house within a year and moved into a one-bedroom condo with a kitchen about the size of our old pantry. I want to tell you the move was easy, but the truth is the kitchen was the hardest part. Not the size of it, the emptiness of it. For thirty-one years I cooked for two, sometimes for a table of six on Sundays when the kids came around. Suddenly I was standing in front of a stove making dinner for exactly one person, and most nights I just didn't.

I ate a lot of cereal that first winter. A lot of toast with peanut butter, eaten standing at the counter because setting a table for one felt sadder than not eating a real meal at all. My daughter Carla noticed on a video call, the way daughters do, and she didn't say much about it, but a small box showed up on my porch a week later. Inside was a George Foreman mini grill, the compact one, maybe the size of a large book when it's closed.

My first thought, honestly, was that it felt like a consolation prize. A little George Foreman grill for a little life. I put it in the cabinet above the fridge and didn't touch it for almost a month.

What finally got me to pull it out was a chicken breast that had been sitting in my fridge for two days, guilt looking back at me every time I opened the door. I didn't want to dirty a whole pan and a lid and a spatula for one piece of chicken. So I dug the George Foreman grill out, plugged it in on the counter, and had that chicken breast done, both sides at once, in about six minutes. No flipping. No standing over a pan. I sat down at my little table with an actual plate, a napkin, and a glass of iced tea, and I ate a real dinner for the first time in weeks.

I sat down at my little table with an actual plate and a napkin, and I ate a real dinner for the first time in weeks.

That was almost a year ago now, and I've used that same George Foreman more nights than not since. It's a strange thing, how much a piece of equipment can change your relationship with a meal. The plate size is right there in the name, a 2-serving grill, but for me that just means I never have leftovers going bad in the back of the fridge, or I make both servings and freeze one for a night I don't feel like cooking at all.

I've grilled chicken thighs, thin pork chops, salmon fillets, and more paninis than I can count. My favorite is still a simple one, sourdough, a little butter on the outside, sharp cheddar, and thin apple slices in the middle. The grill presses it flat and toasts both sides golden in about four minutes. I make that sandwich on nights I don't feel much like cooking but still want something that feels like I made an effort for myself.

The cooking surface is small, about 7 by 5 inches, which sounds tiny until you realize that's exactly the size of one chicken breast or one sandwich. I'm not trying to feed a family anymore. I'm trying to feed me, and maybe Carla when she visits, and this thing does that without asking my little kitchen to give up any real estate for it. It lives in the drawer under my toaster oven, standing on its side, and I pull it out most nights the way I used to pull out a good frying pan.

My two Yorkies, Biscuit and Daisy, have figured out that the George Foreman coming out of the drawer means something good is about to happen, and they park themselves by my feet the second they hear the drawer slide open. There's something nice about that too, having a kitchen ritual again, even a small one, even if the only witnesses are two dogs hoping for a dropped piece of chicken.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you're in a season where cooking for yourself feels like more trouble than it's worth, I understand that more than most. I'm not going to tell you a grill fixes grief or loneliness, because it doesn't, and anyone who tells you a kitchen gadget will do that is selling you something they shouldn't. What it did for me was smaller and more honest than that. It took away the excuse. It made the easy thing and the healthy thing the same thing, so on the nights I didn't have much energy to cook, I still ended up with a real dinner on a real plate instead of crackers eaten over the sink. That's not nothing. Some nights, that's everything you need to get through to the next one. If that sounds like where you are, a little George Foreman grill on your own counter might be worth trying too.