Holy Saturday

Well, Lent is nearly over. Just a few hours left before I head off to bed. My sermon is written and the bulletins are done. I've selected clothing. I don't remember ever being this prepared for Easter morning.

Maybe it's because I'm ready for the fasting to be over and the feasting to begin. I went to the local grocery this afternoon and bought bread and milk and a few treats for tomorrow. They didn't have any cream or half/half, so my coffee won't be quite what I had hoped for, but there will be fresh buttered toast to go with it instead of stale oatmeal. And later in the day there will be lamb with fresh vegetables, and a cake for dessert.

The really surprising part of this exercise is how much I am looking forward to the basics of bread and milk. They were the only fresh things that ran out early and for which there really was no substitute. Sure, I had yoghurt and cheese, but cereal, whether hot or cold, needs milk to be right. And you can't make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of crackers or hot dog buns. Standing in the bread aisle this afternoon and trying to sort out choices felt like an overabundance of riches. (For the record, I bought white bread because it's a holiday and not the whole-grain bread that I know is more nutritious.)

So the fast is over, but not the process of using up things that I have stored. I don't know yet what is the right amount to have in the freezer and in the pantry; I have a long way to go before I would be at the point of having "too little." I suspect when I get close to "just enough" I will know it; it will feel right somehow. In the weeks ahead I will return to buying fresh foods, especially the fruits and vegetables that will start to come in now. But I will be more careful about only buying what I know I can use. The fast may be over, but the process of learning to think differently about what I think I need "just in case" is not. There is more to come.

Good Friday

On Wednesday I cleaned out the kitchen cupboards and the refrigerator. Our trash pick-up day is Thursday, and I wanted to be sure things I was discarding didn't sit in the roll-out can very long. So I did my best imitation of the Jewish housewife seeking out the last traces of leaven before Passover, and cleaned out the things that were no longer edible. In my main cupboard I took everything off the shelves and sponged them down. In the fridge pulled things out to look for old storage containters, then wiped down the surfaces.

And this is the result. As you can see, there's quite a bit of empty space on the bottom shelf. This is the place where cookies and crackers and such things live. All that's left is a few goldfish, a jar of popcorn, and some dried fruit. The boxes of stale cereal are gone and that middle shelf has been reorganized so I can get at the things I use most more easily. It makes me smile every time I open it. It will make me smile even more when it has been restocked.

And this is the refrigerator. I got rid of old bottles of salad dressing and any vegetables and fruit that were old and tired. There is way more empty space in there than usual, but it's probably looking more the way it should on a regular basis. I'm going to try not to have it so full that I can't find things, because then they don't get eaten. I know I don't need to buy pickles and mustard for a while. And the tubs on the bottom shelf are dried herbs that I store there normally; they're not leftovers.

I still have to sort through the freezer and get rid of things that are freezer-burned and so old they're way past prime. I'll do that next Wednesday, before trash pick-up, and post an "after" photo then.

Dangerous Territory

Yesterday I had to venture into a grocery store for the first time since March 9th. I needed to buy matzoh for the church's Maundy Thursday communion. And I decided while I was at the Brookshire's in Monroe that I would shop for the main ingredients for my Easter dinner, knowing that I would be able to leave them alone until Sunday.

The matzoh turned out to be pita bread. When I asked if they had it, I was told they hadn't been able to convince the supplier to send it. So we will have whole-wheat pita tomorrow night. In a way that's not a bad thing. When you do communion by intinction, the juice tends to drip off the matzoh onto the nearest clean white shirt. Pita is a little more absorbant.

I was hoping to find lamb for Easter dinner, and I did. I brought home a lovely boneless leg of lamb - expensive, but worth it for a holiday dinner. To go with it I bought tiny red potatoes - one bite sized - and fresh green beans. I had hoped for asparagus, but there wasn't any. The green beans will be lovely.

The hard part was resisting the temptation to get the other things that I am out of and will need to replace next Monday. I kept thinking "it's only a few days, and I promise not to touch them until . . ." I had to stay focused and walk out of the store. I didn't even dare look at possibilities for Easter dessert, because I knew I wouldn't be able to leave it alone until Sunday. Same with Easter candy. The peeps were talking to me, but I had a good suspicion that they wouldn't even make it back to Lake Village.

The alarming part was that I spent $38 on four items. The lamb was nearly $30 of that, and of course I will get several meals out of it, but it made me realize that I'm going to have to plan and budget when I do start shopping again. The good news is that doing that might help me keep from stockpiling so much again.

Holy Week

It's Monday of Holy Week. I was afraid when I started this exercise that I'd be putting together some rather strange meals this week, using up the dregs of my stored food. But instead I'm still having culinary adventures.

Lunch today was excellent. I found some ratatouille in the back of the freezer. At first I thought it was some "stone soup" left over from one of last year's Lenten suppers, but I was pleasantly surprised when it was not. But then I realized I needed something to go with it other than crackers, so I cooked up some rotini. Once the rotini was done, I mixed it in with the ratatouille. It was looking good, but a little anemic. A jar of spaghetti sauce from the pantry fixed that. The result was a very hearty and healthy dish - just a sprinkle of parmesan cheese because it's running low - and there was enough to have it again tomorrow.

Later today I plan to make a mince pie. I found a package of piecrust in the freezer, and remembered a jar of mincemeat that's been in the pantry for a while. I'll dice up an apple to exted the mince, and by suppertime I'll have a sweet treat. That will go nicely with the eye of round steak and russet baking potato I have planned for the meal.

There are only a few things that I'm running low on that actually make a difference. Cheese is one; by the end of the week I'll be down to cheddar jack and blue. I'm stretching the peanut butter to make it last, along with the last of the saltines. There's still at least 2 servings of goldfish crackers, but that's all there is. Since I've been out of other sweets, I've been eating yoghurt and canned fruit; both of those will be gone or nearly so by the end of the week. But nearly everything else is still in good supply. I can even have 2 cups of coffee a day this week and not run out.

This morning I realized that there's another dimension to this discipline that I hadn't thought about, and I'm not sure what made me think of it now. I realized I'm rehearsing in a way for the kind of frugality I will need to practicee routinely when I retire. I'm not worried about having enough money for groceries, but being wasteful will be less of an option. Practicing now before it becomes a necessity isn't a bad thing. In fact, I'm finding that it's rather pleasant.

Hidden Treasure

Yesterday I went sorting through the freezer, mainly to see what was there in the way of meat. I don't often buy meat, so I really wasn't sure what was there. I didn't find any meat surprises, but I did find 2 salmon filets. One of them is destined to be supper later on, probably with couscous and green peas. But in the process of hunting I came across a package of whole wheat tortillas. That was as much a treat as the salmon, since the bread has been long gone. Last night for supper I cooked some bacon and made a "sandwich" with a tortilla and some shredded cheese warmed in the oven to melt the cheese and then bacon added. Not quite a quesadilla, but in that direction. It was so good, I had did the same thing this morning for breakfast. There are 3 tortillas left, and I think I have just enough bacon.

On Wednesday I leave for a week of work in Louisville, which means that I now need to start working on using up the perishables. There's one more serving of chili to go, some mushroom soup, and possibly a couple of other things. Part of the discipline has become not wasting food in addition to not hoarding it, so I'm trying not to come home to a fridge full of science experiments. That's one reason I cooked the bacon last night; I've had it a while, and it's time to use it up. If I can come up with a creative recipe in the process, so much to the good.

Negotiating the Rapids

Today's chores included a trip to Walmart to stock up on cat food and replenish a few non-grocery supplies before my trip next week. I had done this last week without incident, but I knew that today would include at least one hazard. I found more. First was the row of carts near the front door with some close-out items marked way down. Like a twin box of Stove Top Stuffing for 25 cents! On any normal Thursday I would have bought at least 4 (after checking the expiration date to make sure it wasn't too far gone). I mean, it's a quarter! And sure, I don't normally buy stuffing mix because it's salty and overpriced, but for a quarter, I can work it in. But I also know that a year from now at least 2 of those boxes would still be in the pantry, now being pushed aside because the expiration date is getting a bit "iffy," but of course not throwing them out because "it's perfectly good food." Second was the foray into the grocery side of the store to buy coffee filters. It's easier to avoid temptation by simply not going where you know it's going to jump out and bite you, like staying out of the cookie aisle when you're on a diet. But I wasn't ready to do without coffee for the next 4 weeks just because I was out of filters. So I went, resolutely looked away from the bread side of the aisle, got the filters, and escaped. But then there was the check-out line, with its rows of candy bars and snacks, and my real desire for a soft drink, especially knowing that it was "happy hour" at Sonic, and drinks were half price. My lunch had been skimpy, and I haven't had a Sprite for nearly a week, and it was hard to just pay for my purchases and go directly home, without passing Go and collecting $200. I managed. I paid attention to the things that tempted me, recognized the impulses for what they were, and moved on. The world did not come to an end; it didn't even notice. It's all good.

You Win Some . . .

Meals today were rather a mixed bag. Breakfast was cheese grits made with some of the lovely yellow corn grits I brought back from Atlanta. I found a clump of mold in the shredded cheddar, but I was able to remove it, and the rest of the cheese was fine. The mold is a sign that I need to use that cheese soon, so I know what breakfast will be for the next few days. Lunch was less successful. I had taken some ground beef out of the freezer, and decided to do something with it over pasta, but tomato sauce wasn't doing it for me, so I started with onions and mushrooms. I remembered a can of cream of mushroom soup, so a dollop of that made the sauce. But somehow it was rather blah in the end. It needed something to give it a lift. Sour cream maybe. I'll try again in a few days; there is more soup. Supper tonight, however, was another hit. I found a nice steak, and put it under the broiler. The only fresh potato I had was a russet, and since I was broiling the steak, that put the oven out of commission. Tater tots cooked in oil in the skillet were a fine substitute; they come out so much more crispy and lovely than when done in the oven, but there is the added fat. I finished off the plate with some green peas. In the end I had a better dinner than I could have gotten at any restaurant in town. There was even dessert - some fudge I made yesterday. There are good things buried in the freezer. The problem is just that - they're buried. And sometimes by the time I find them, they're not so good any more. I'm hoping that when there's less there, I'll be able to find and use the good things I've put in there for safe keeping.