This paper looks at the intersection of gender, politics and domesticity in the context of Arab Socialist planning by considering the advice around food shopping and preparation in Egypt’s largest women’s magazine Hawwa’. In particular it focuses on the section of the magazine entitled “Sitt al-bayt” (The Housewife) as both a source of instruction to Egyptian housewives and a (mediated) lens through which to view the everyday experiences of Egyptian women with Arab Socialism.  “Sitt al bayt” first appeared in Hawwa’ in September of 1964 and billed itself as a supplement to help Egyptian housewives gain the knowledge and skills to navigate the demands of consumption--particularly food consumption--necessitated by the establishment of an Arab socialist economy. The state control of food distribution, which reached its most formal expression in the state run consumer cooperatives (jamai’yyat istihlakiyya), entailed both control over prices and the availability of specific goods and foodstuffs. At the same time, the government’s import substitution program, launched in 1961, meant that cooperatives were often touted as showcases for Egyptian manufactured goods, including processed foodstuffs.  I argue that ‘Sitt al-bayt” engaged housewives as political subjects charged with the success of Arab socialist planning. With sections on weekly menu planning, recipes, reports on what food was available on cooperative shelves and reader ‘tips” the articles in Sitt al-bayt advised Egyptian women on how to cook with leftovers, substitute ingredients based on what was cheap and available, and how to deal with new kinds of prepared and processed foods such as canned beef and frozen fish as well as how to “domesticate” imported meat as a solution to the high prices and regular shortages of locally sourced fresh meat. At the same time, it reported on the complaints of shortages and price gouging that characterized the state cooperative system and the difficulties women faced in provisioning a household and feeding a family in the context of state socialist planning. While the readers of Sitt al-bayt were exhorted to avoid the black market and to find substitutes for goods in short supply, the section also frequently criticized the failings of the cooperative system and called on the Minister of Supply to account for them, calling on Egyptian housewives to mobilize themselves and their expertise in household consumption as active agents of social and political transformation.