No, this is not a post about the office supply superstore.
I want to talk about the food inventory situation at the Raggedy home. Namely, one of my friends (please update your blog!) was making a batch of meatballs, and realized, mid-mix, that she has no eggs in the house. No Eggs! I was laughing with her that "no eggs" pretty much never happens here because eggs are one of the panic-inducing staples that I'm terrified of not having in the house.
Sometimes I think that if all the supermarkets blew up, I want to at least have flour, sugar, eggs, milk, bread - the basics - so I can make some pancakes and hide until the supermarket bombers are found.
I get a little hoard-y about some foods. Having less than a full dozen eggs is called running low on eggs over here. And we're not the biggest egg-eaters. But we need to . . . have them.
Optional expansions from the staple foods listed above are the big block of American cheese, oil, basic spices, apple juice (apologies to my pediatrician - I water it down about 80%!), canned tomato sauce, canned beans, a couple of frozen chicken packages, cereal, potatoes, onions. And of course, RaggedyDad's endless and varied teas. But running low on these things doesn't make me as nervous as the top list.
I guess based on family history it doesn't take a genius to figure out the food hoarding, though you'd think the Holocaust mentality would wear off after a generation or two. It was also reinforced by my mother not driving, which meant that she was very careful to be well-stocked foodwise. And winter weather takes the food-stocking panic to a new extreme entirely. As does the idea of small children who are hungry and crying and don't want to eat freezer-burned soup or canned mandarin oranges (no, this didn't really happen - but nightmares of it have!)
So why does someone like me who has a car and lives about 5 minutes (12 minutes on foot!) from every kosher food product known to woman get so crazy about stocking staples? I don't know, but I'll always have an egg for you to borrow!
***Sunday Night Insanity Update! As I type this, we experienced a change in Purim seuda plans here at the Raggedys! My sister-in-law who was to be hosting the Purim seuda this year has informed me that her oven is kaput. And she and my brother are away until Thursday. And the babysitter who's with their kids is not going to be able to deal with the serviceman/repair situation, so . . .
We're hosting (cooking!) the Purim seuda here. And there may be several inches of snow today and tomorrow (please stop rolling your eyes, Ezzie and PT). And the kids seem to have colds, hopefully nothing more. And RaggedyDad has a very busy week ahead at work and in school.
Hectic schedule + sick kids + bad weather + last-minute (to me) big family gathering = RaggedyDad just shlepped out with my list after already having visited most of the stores for a more innocuous grocery fill-in.
Additional Caveat: Parking is tricky around this stretch of apartments, and there are definitely places you do not want your car getting stuck when it snows (hey, we drive a '95 Corolla, remember?). Since we're already 'parked well', moving the car now would be bad.
So RaggedyDad's busing this one. Yep. The bus. Potatoes. Onions. Eggs (I'm down to my last 30 and I have to bake 15 more mini-cakes for Shalach Manos). Chickens. And More. We'll see how many of those 2 dozen eggs I asked for actually make it here whole!
I'm off to start cooking for the freezer.
I want to talk about the food inventory situation at the Raggedy home. Namely, one of my friends (please update your blog!) was making a batch of meatballs, and realized, mid-mix, that she has no eggs in the house. No Eggs! I was laughing with her that "no eggs" pretty much never happens here because eggs are one of the panic-inducing staples that I'm terrified of not having in the house.
Sometimes I think that if all the supermarkets blew up, I want to at least have flour, sugar, eggs, milk, bread - the basics - so I can make some pancakes and hide until the supermarket bombers are found.
I get a little hoard-y about some foods. Having less than a full dozen eggs is called running low on eggs over here. And we're not the biggest egg-eaters. But we need to . . . have them.
Optional expansions from the staple foods listed above are the big block of American cheese, oil, basic spices, apple juice (apologies to my pediatrician - I water it down about 80%!), canned tomato sauce, canned beans, a couple of frozen chicken packages, cereal, potatoes, onions. And of course, RaggedyDad's endless and varied teas. But running low on these things doesn't make me as nervous as the top list.
I guess based on family history it doesn't take a genius to figure out the food hoarding, though you'd think the Holocaust mentality would wear off after a generation or two. It was also reinforced by my mother not driving, which meant that she was very careful to be well-stocked foodwise. And winter weather takes the food-stocking panic to a new extreme entirely. As does the idea of small children who are hungry and crying and don't want to eat freezer-burned soup or canned mandarin oranges (no, this didn't really happen - but nightmares of it have!)
So why does someone like me who has a car and lives about 5 minutes (12 minutes on foot!) from every kosher food product known to woman get so crazy about stocking staples? I don't know, but I'll always have an egg for you to borrow!
***Sunday Night Insanity Update! As I type this, we experienced a change in Purim seuda plans here at the Raggedys! My sister-in-law who was to be hosting the Purim seuda this year has informed me that her oven is kaput. And she and my brother are away until Thursday. And the babysitter who's with their kids is not going to be able to deal with the serviceman/repair situation, so . . .
We're hosting (cooking!) the Purim seuda here. And there may be several inches of snow today and tomorrow (please stop rolling your eyes, Ezzie and PT). And the kids seem to have colds, hopefully nothing more. And RaggedyDad has a very busy week ahead at work and in school.
Hectic schedule + sick kids + bad weather + last-minute (to me) big family gathering = RaggedyDad just shlepped out with my list after already having visited most of the stores for a more innocuous grocery fill-in.
Additional Caveat: Parking is tricky around this stretch of apartments, and there are definitely places you do not want your car getting stuck when it snows (hey, we drive a '95 Corolla, remember?). Since we're already 'parked well', moving the car now would be bad.
So RaggedyDad's busing this one. Yep. The bus. Potatoes. Onions. Eggs (I'm down to my last 30 and I have to bake 15 more mini-cakes for Shalach Manos). Chickens. And More. We'll see how many of those 2 dozen eggs I asked for actually make it here whole!
I'm off to start cooking for the freezer.
10 comments:
you're not alone! everyone i know keeps multiple cans of tuna, boxes of pasta and cereal, jars of tomato sauce etc on hand, and we are still all in the supermarket 2-3 times per week!
We go through milk like you wouldn't believe-easily a gallon a day when all the kids are home.
I have no idea how Mrs. B. manages to keep us stocked up. Somehow she knows exactly how many gallons are in the fridge and how many are in the "overflow" fridge downstairs and always manages to bring a few home just when we're about to run out.
Too funny. We all do it. I am right there with you on the eggs...we could have a whole house full of food but if there were no eggs we'd probably walk around wondering what to eat!
Because you don't want to have to get your kids dressed and run to the store an hour before dinner is on the table. But the flip side of that is that we don't go shopping all the time either. I love the challenge of cooking with what I have and throwing out as little as possible.
Anon - How could I have forgotten tuna and pasta!! We go through elbows like toilet paper around here. I agree, why are we always shopping?!
PT - I can't even imagine the food turnaround at your house. I remember having breakfast once at my cousins' house (11 kids) and the quantity of milk and boxes of cereal made me dizzy! Thank G-d you have such a great 'head of inventory'!
Orieyenta - Something about eggs just makes me feel ready to cook anything! Glad I'm not alone!
Mother in Israel - I'm with you, I'm trying to go through the freezer, pantry, and fridge as much as I can these days and actually use the stuff instead of cramming in new purchases and losing things in the shuffle. We're a big leftovers family, and I try to rotate new stuff to the back!
Luby - LOL! I was trying to find pictures of food and came across the picture that my daughter wanted me to take of some food we prepared for a Shalom Zachar.
...mmm...marinated mushrooms...we're all OUT!! Time to go to Sam's Club!!
We must be twins or something because I am always stocked (oh, and the neighbors are well aware, so I practically run a sample shop).
I can always relate to your posts, but if I posted my list even I would be embarrassed. Let's just say that if we were snowed in we could probably eat for 3 months if need be and we wouldn't run out of diapers either. :)
I am really good with the sales and we do work down our inventory, just in shifts.
BTW-I finally updated my blogroll, so you will see yourself there.
PT - Even though your wife can allegedly make a kugel out of them, marinated mushrooms are not on my list of staples. Yikes.
SL - We are definitely kindred blogger spirits! Don't even get me started on how many diapers we have! I haven't bought those in months, and it's not for lack of using them! Andy's been steadily holding at size 4 for a long while, and I have some leftover 5's of Ann's when he needs them.
Shopping sales for the basics is great, and by not being brand-loyal about almost anything, I find that there's always some brand of what I'm looking for on sale, even without too much advance research or planning.
Oh, and thanks for blogrolling me!
RM,
I have to laugh at this because, while I don't have my own household yet, I can relate because my mother is just like you! When we moved recently, we went through the pantries and there were multiple cans of various things hidden in the back that she had been stockpiling "just in case". Too funny!
-Hila
Interesting that would not be on my list of staples, I don't think I have anything as a matter of fact that would be a staple.
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