“We need to go grocery shopping.” “We need groceries.” ” We have to go shopping.” These are very frequent litanies at our house. YA occasionally cooks (and she’s fine at it) but she prefers quicker meals. This means she doesn’t recognize foodstuffs that aren’t already “meals”. She can open the cabinet, see a can of black beans, a can of corn and a can of Rotel tomatoes sitting next to each other and not see a meal.
In my reality, we hardly have room in the fridge, in the freezer or the cabinets for more food. But if I say, I can make ________ from the cans in the cabinet or frozen items, she is often not interested. So we go round and round and neither of us ever “wins”.
She left for London last Thursday and I decided that I would spend her 12 days out of town eatting only what is in the house. With the exception of milk, I am not going to purchase any food. Unfortunately it’s not much of a stretch goal.
However after a few days, I realize that I’m running up against a “quirk” of mine. My mom was born in 1932 and so her formative years were depression years and she came out of them with a “waste not, want not” attitude. When I was growing up, we had what she lovingly called “goulash” at least once a week – any leftovers saved up and then lumped together when there was enough for a pot-ful. I don’t remember any of them being ghastly and will admit that as an adult, I have more than once combined leftovers.
BUT, this waste not/want not that she passed to me has morphed over the years into a strong desire to “finish” things. When I eat the last slice of bread or heat up the last helping of a dish, it makes me feel good, almost lofty. This can unfortunately lead me to finishing things when I don’t really need to. No need to eat three slices of bread because there are only three slices left in the bag… that kind of thing.
While YA is gone, I’m having to balance my desire to finish things with my desire to eat only stuff that is in the house. So far so good. Chips/cheese/salsa. Made a panzanella with a baguette and shaved parmesan I found in the fridge (and tomatoes and basil from the garden). 11 jars of tomato sauce for the freezer. Ate the last English muffin from Breadsmith. Got through the pesto pasta with tomatoes that I made right before she left. Discovered chocolate, marshmallows and graham crackers – smores. A couple of smoothies so far using lots of frozen fruit. I harvested the rosemary and it smelled to good that instead of freezing it all, I made a focaccia.
This is all a lot of fun so far. We’ll see how the next week goes!
How do you feel about leftovers?
Trail Baboon 