Food Essay Friday: Take It Easy On Me Pinterest

I'm sure some of you have already seen this article. It's a good one. I share it with you today because I've been thinking a lot about this sort of thing in terms of food. (Crafts, home decor and I gave up on each other a long long time ago. Just ask the wallpaper in my bedroom. It's textured and yellowed and has these '70s streaks of color; it intends to be standing long after world war III or Christ's second coming; it laughs to think that global warming could affect it at all; in fact, it fully intends to survive and form it's own planet after the rest of this one has imploded and returned to dust; at least that's what it whispers in my ear when I'm sleeping. But, uh, that's another post for another day.)

So, yes, back to food. Because we're certainly all putting our best face forward. Otherwise, the pictures at the top of my blog would look like this:

Yeah, pretty much every day.

And then you'd see my baby with food in her hair and her face and that bit of food on the side of her chin that is actually from the last meal I served her (or the one before that) that I someone missed when I wiped off her face. And then you'd see her stained shirt. And you'd probably also see that I'd forget to oxyclean it and that it would be thus stained forevermore.

And then you'd scroll down to an audio of my kids whining and complaining about dinner. And me threatening them with all kinds of things. And telling everybody to sit down and stop roller skating around the kitchen before I scream (except that sometimes I'm already screaming) and then everybody whining some more. And then at least one plate pushed aside and someone asking if they can put peanut butter on their tortilla and then somebody asking if they can put peanut butter and sugar on their tortilla and, yes, well, on and on.

Now I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with putting one's best face forward. It's just that we ought to remember that it is someone else's best face. Not only that, but on blogs it tends to be their best face at something they're actually good at. Not only that, it tends to be their best face posed. These things can provide inspiration and yadayadawhatnot. And they do. But when they stop providing that, then maybe it's time to turn off the dang computer and read a good book or take a hot bath or go give somebody you love a kiss.

So read the article. And remember that even in that she's putting a nice face forward (and that she has daughters and that your son might not seem to care less if you sing to him at night, but that he really loves you any way, only he shows it in male ways, like farting on you; because if you know anything, you know that this impresses all the girls.) Also, try not to be consumed with crazy envy for the magnetic alphabetized spices. Not that I am or anything. No really. I'm totally cool with my super disorganized spices of all different shapes and sizes on a shelf that makes it impossible to ever find quite the one I'm looking for. And when I do find it, it is quite possibly out of its spice or its spice is spilled all over said cabinet. But, no, really, I'm fine. I don't need any fancy alphabetized stainless steel magnetic spice organizers.

Food Essay Friday: The Junkifying of Our Holidays

This article may be a little schizo (i.e hypocritical) because for today's post I was torn between posting sugary Easter ideas and this. So if you ignore it entirely I won't be offended. Though, truly, I'm not quite as much of a hypocrite as I may seem and even if I was, I think the ideas in this essay are still sound, even if yours truly has issues.

When we were young kids this is what we got in our baskets: 
1. Hard-boiled eggs, sometimes elaborately colored by my mother
2. The occasional raw egg, sometimes elaborately colored by my mother. How they always got mixed in with the boiled ones is still a mystery. Also, it was usually the youngest child who ended up with the raw eggs; this is also a mystery.
3. Jelly beans
4. Peeps (seriously...gross)
5. 1 big Cadbury egg (it was the only one we would see all year and I looked forward to it all year)
6. Homemade peanut butter egg.
7. Homemade Easter chocolates (made from molds).
8. Maybe some other stuff, like Robin's eggs, although I don't remember these as a yearly fixture.
9. There was one year we got (or at least I got) one of those big hollow chocolate bunnies, though I'm pretty sure I begged for them every year.

My mother also made (as in sewed as in with a sewing machine) me and my two sisters matching Easter dresses and sometimes we got a bonnet to go with. These were pretty cherished (I have a quilt with squares of some of the fabric she used and I love it) and they cost my mom a certain amount of time and sanity.

What we did not get when we were kids:
1. Cadbury eggs (the little milk chocolate ones; I didn't even know these existed until I got married to an addict)
2. Big Reese's eggs
3. Any regular candy (Butterfinger, Snickers, etc) shaped like an egg and wrapped in foil
4. Stuffed animals
5. Toys of any kind

What we got at school: 
1. Nothing
(although we did have the week before Easter off instead of having spring break at some random time in March)

What we got from our grandparents and extended family (who weren't local, but who certainly loved us very much):
1. Nothing

Today I went to Walmart to get a gift for my daughter's friend's birthday. I also picked up a bag of jelly beans in order to make a treat I had in mind. And when I got home I realized I actually picked up 2 bags of jelly beans because I shopped with my 4 children (the littlest was blamed for the extra bag getting into the cart), which is about as economically wise as taking all your retirement money to Vegas. But that's not the point. The point is that I felt a little guilty about the jelly beans and about making a treat at all because I'd already bought big Cadbury eggs, mini Cadbury eggs, big Reese's eggs, and Robin's eggs (and this was scaling back from last year). My seven-year-old had already received an entire basket's worth of candy from her school party. And I was planning to shop candy sales come Monday. To our credit, I've done a good job keeping this stuff under wraps--we have not been eating candy for the last two weeks. But still. It's like Halloween all over again. Or at least like Old school Halloween. New school Halloween is much much bigger (the candy itself as well as the amount given).

And not only is it like Halloween, it costs more. As we walked through the front of the store to the car and I saw what everyone else was buying: candy, eggs, stuffed animals, toys, pre-packaged baskets, cookies, cupcakes, the works. I am not judging; I am among these people. They aren't rich people, just as we aren't rich people. I don't wish to tally up my candy bill. Suffice it to say that I'd estimate it roughly at $15 so far. And for what? So much candy that it's going to totally stress me out when I see my kids (and husband) eating that much of it. And for why? Because these are the types of candy we get every year. It's a tradition by gum and, thus, a ?need?.

Of course the junk doesn't end with the sweet things. There's plenty of other junk in all our holidays. There are the toys that will break and the baskets that will go in the trash and the stuffed animals that everyone loves for a little while, but that end up in the Goodwill bin by June. There are tokens, I think, of a ghost we're grasping at--a nostalgia created by childhood and advertising, by movie scenes of pink-dressed girls hunting for eggs.

I'm advocating, I think, not for stoicism or thoughtlessness, but for simpler, more thoughtful holidays, for gifts you give knowing your children will love them, for candy bought not out of some twisted sense of obligation or fairness (and twisted sense of obligation is totally my specialty), but to give a little something sweet, for meaningful tokens for those we love, and for meaningful symbols of the holiday that celebrates the re-birth of Christ.

I'm not saying I'm good at it, only that I wish to be.

Now stay-tuned for a healthy-ish idea tomorrow and one that isn't so much. Told you I was schizo.

Food Essay Friday: How to Get Your Child to Eat the Foods You Make

So I thought about just leaving this post blank. You know--as a joke. Because I have no idea how to get my child to eat the foods I make.

Oh, sure, I've read all the articles and tried all the ideas that get re-played over and over. I've made food bright and colorful and fun. We've made faces and pictures with our food and I've let my kids pick out the food from the produce section and help me cook it. And for a while I even tried a Kid's Cook day each week where they got to plan a dinner of their choice and then help me prepare it. We ended up eating the same old things every week when it was their turn. I've hidden vegetables and juiced vegetables and made all kinds of smoothies. Some of my ideas work, but frankly, most of them do not.

These kids, they're besting me, especially numero uno. Yesterday we were out of cereal. So for breakfast I made these breakfast cookies, which are wickedly good. And then I made a strawberry smoothie. Only we had a bit of leftover lemonade, so I added that to the frozen strawberries and made a sort of strawberry lemon sorbet. For breakfast. My oldest child would not touch it. Any of it. He told me he didn't like those cookies. (Oh, yes, he did, I argued back. He ate them last time and liked them. But this was to no avail.) And he wouldn't touch the dessert smoothie. He just ended up skipping breakfast and essentially fasting until lunch. It blew my mind. If you had a choice between strawberry lemon sorbet and chocolate cookies for breakfast and fasting, which would you choose? My point, of course, is that I'm a huge failure in the getting kids to eat department (and that I have a very stubborn first child, who has issues with eating a wide (or any) variety of foods which is--yes--troubling to me, but I'm not really sure what to do about that either).

So I thought today that I'd ask you all for your suggestions in getting picky/stubborn children to eat. Especially children among the slightly older set (as in, not your 2-year-olds, although if you've got suggestions there, I'll take them too).

Fire away.

Food Essay Friday: New Frugal versus Old Frugal

Anybody else see this article among the Yahoo headlines yesterday? It's called "How to Earn $100,000 and Still Feel Poor." I don't know what my problem is, but whenever I stumble upon an article like this, I am compelled by some self-destructive mental illness to read it even though I know it will make me mad.

The first bold statement says, "Is six figures the new minimum wage?" Um, I think not. Not only is it not the new minimum wage, but it must be downright offensive to anyone actually working hard to earn the real minimum wage and scrape on by.  So there I was, two paragraphs in and already mad. But if I stopped, I couldn't indulge my aforementioned mental illness so I kept on reading. And truly, it wasn't so bad as I had expected. In a kind of sideways of way, I sort of felt bad for this woman. She's getting older. She's saved and invested and her stocks have declined with the lousy market. She bought her house at the top of the bubble when it seemed buying a house couldn't possibly go wrong. And then, well, it turns out that it could. She's had the tenacity to stick with the house instead of just leaving and letting the banks pick up the tab. She's got two sons in college. She lives relatively debt-free (car and house debts, but no credit card).

After concluding the article, I determined that she was not the complete idiot I'd assumed her to be and that she has, in fact, been a bit of a victim to some lousy timing in a lousy market. That could have happened to most of us. However, after finishing the article I also realized that she's also a bit of a disciple for and victim of the "New Frugal." The New Frugal spends less than it believes everybody else to be spending. The New Frugal has tons more (in money, possessions, and even security) than their Old Frugal grandparents did, but still woefully less than the Joneses. In fact, in the world of the New Frugal, the gap between the New Frugals and the Joneses might even be widening. The Yahoo article seemed to tip its hat at this idea: for example, the writer (Laura Cone) pointed out that her kids were both in college, but that it was community college, not ivy league college and she was still feeling the pinch. Then of course, there's the possibility that the New Frugal just feels itself ever poorer because the Joneses are so constantly up in their faces thanks to advertising, the media, and reality TV stars.

In the following discussion of the New Frugal, I don't wish to be a condescending jerk. There are a lot of us who are part of this ideology and I admit to being sometimes among this group myself. Yet after reading the article, I couldn't help but feel a little bit haunted by all that we--the New Frugal--have while still considering ourselves not so very well off as we'd like to be. Below you'll find a little breakdown, inspired by yesterday's Yahoo article, of the New Frugal versus the Old Frugal.

1. The New Frugal lives in a much bigger house than the Old Frugal ever did.

1a. Also, the New Frugal tends to trade up its houses while the Old Frugal usually lived in a house for most if not all of their lives.

1b. Oh--and one more thing--the New Frugal likes to live in new or nearly new houses. They might even consider these a good investment since they believe they'll break down less quickly and need fewer repairs.

What's wrong with that? 


Well, nothing is inherently wrong with a bigger, nicer, newer house. Yet it makes us much more susceptible to bursting bubbles, the wooing of contractors building new stuff, and the idea--which I believe from personal experience is false--that new homes break down less quickly than old ones. (I believe older homes in good neighborhoods tend to have been built with better stuff than their price-comparable newer brothers. Or that the prior inhabitants have already made many of the necessary repairs and that they haven't skimped on something like the roof or the carpet because they knew they'd be living with it for a while. Builders have no such motivation.) I realize that it's not always possible or even prudent in today's world to stay in one house forever. Yet I can't deny that the constant trading up to this year's newest, bigger house is something our grandparents would never have even considered.

2. The New Frugal considers herself debt-free even with a car loan or a house loan or sometimes even lingering student loans. These, the New Frugal considers to be unavoidable parts of modern life. To the New Frugal, the only real "debt" is consumer or credit card debt. 

What's wrong with that? 

You're not debt-free until you're debt-free. Yes, I recognize that all debts are not created equal--some really do lead you on to places where you can earn more money. For example, I realize that one must sometimes have a car to get to work. But we--the New Frugal that is--have come to accept this idea a little too readily. A car our grandparents would have scraped up the money for and paid for up front becomes the car we need to buy to get to work becomes a nicer car we need to buy to get to work becomes 2 family cars we need to buy to get to work and to shuttle junior around to soccer and dance becomes 2 nicer cars we need to buy to shuttle junior around becomes a car for junior so you don't have to shuttle him to work becomes a car for junior so you don't have to shuttle him to soccer/dance becomes a car because all the other parents are buying their kids nice cars becomes.. yeah, you get my point, a big car debt. That you really didn't need. But that you can convince yourself you needed if your work at it a little bit. The same is true of a house. Or of student loans. It's starting to be true of the clothes we wear (people wouldn't respect us in last year's suit, right) or the phones we "need."

3. The New Frugal believes it's their moral, civic, and every other duty to put their kids through college.

3b. Not only that, but for reasons mysterious to me (and I'm a softy people, although I admit this is one of my mighty soapboxes), the New Frugal tends to believe that their kids shouldn't have to work through college or that they're incapable of doing so. Please. Please. Please. And did I say Puh-lease. The Old Frugal often didn't go to college themselves or they put themselves through later in life (as did my maternal grandparents). They may have wished to put their children through college. They may have been proud if they could do so. But they did not consider it their duty for exaltation in the hereafter to do so. Furthermore, the Old Frugal generally expected their children to help with the cause, and they certainly considered them capable of working a part-time job while maintaining passing (or better than passing) grades.

What's wrong with the New Frugal's idea?

If you're really hurting, then maybe your adult children could, like, manage a shift at McDonald's or something. And if you're not really hurting, then don't whine to me about it. Did I mention this is one of my soapboxes. It's a very tall soapbox. The part of the Yahoo article that bothered me the very very most was when Ms. Cone said that her oldest son has a job and is helping to pay for his education, but that her youngest son "hasn't been able to find employment." Huh? I mean, okay, I'm totally being judgmental here, and maybe there's some good reason for this, like that he's taking 40 credit hours or that he's missing some limbs or that he's married with a kid or whatever, but come on. I believe that he hasn't been able to find a job he really loves or that pays amazingly, but no job whatsoever for a young adult who's apparently smart enough to get into college. I'm not buying it. I see signs all over the place for crappy jobs that are the type of thing most of us worked when we were 18 or 19 and getting through school or life. They're not super fun. They don't pay super well. But they get us through and they teach us valuable life lessons and we learn to wake up when the alarm goes off. I did mention a soap box didn't I? My brother started off with a job in college where he worked as a janitor and had to start at 2:00am or something like that. And he probably got paid $7 or so an hour. And he was tired. And he got all or mostly A's and took plenty of credits too. It wasn't easy, but he did it.  And eventually he got a more enjoyable job, though still nothing to sing about. And then he graduated and began living a real life and I don't think he'll regret that crappy job. So if you can't pay for your kids' college or just don't want to, then don't. Old Frugal wouldn't have.

4. The New Frugal goes out to eat, buys processed food, and entertains itself more than the Old Frugal ever did. Even when I was growing up (and it wasn't that long ago), our family went out to eat (at McDonald's mind you) maybe once a year. As a kid, my mom made all of our meals from scratch or nearly so. Even when I was a teenager and my father was a doctor, we didn't go out much--still only a few times a year and once or twice on vacation, and only to such upper crust establishments such as Bob Evans and the Waffle House. I only remember going to a few movies at theaters with my family.

What's wrong with a little entertainment? 

Nothing if you can manage it. I just don't want to hear you whine about your very high cost of food. Also, there is--I believe--a cost in health when one eats out too much and buys too much processed food. Even we--in typical New Frugal fashion--go out to eat usually once and sometimes more a month and feel ourselves a little deprived. But just because everybody else is doing it more than you are doesn't mean you're living Old Frugal style.

There you have it, a brief and completely unscientific comparison of New Frugal versus Old Frugal. There are soapbox sections to be sure, but there are bits that humble me too.

Food Essay Friday: Produce That Will Last a Month or Longer

Ever since the money suck known as December, I've been trying to shop less. I don't actually even enjoy shopping, but I'd gotten into a bit of a habit or going here or there to get the very best deal. Truly, I think it's generally a lousy way to save money (there's always something else there that you or your kids desperately need/want that is not on sale) and it's an enormous time commitment, which--unless you're a super couponer--is not worth it. Yet, somehow it is sort of addicting. I'm not entirely sure why this is. Perhaps it's the draw of those super deals. Perhaps it's some double empowerment you feel by both spending money and saving (or thinking you're saving) it. My personal theory is that by going to a different store several days of the week, you can avoid doing your laundry. I'll do almost anything to avoid my laundry. Unfortunately, going to several grocery stores is no longer on the list. It was costing me too much money; it was costing me too much time; it was costing me too much life energy.  

Lately I've been doing one major shopping day. It's kind of painful (3 hours at Aldi and Walmart with two small kids), but it seems to be paying off because I have a fully stocked house most of the month, which leads to less last-minute running around. I've had more free time and it's made it a lot easier to enjoy spring, my house, and my children. But not my laundry. 

My laundry woes aside, however, you're probably wondering how I shop for produce only once a month. Well, I don't. I usually get it a few times a month. And I do a milk run to a cheap nearby store once a week. However, I have noticed that there is quite a bit of produce that lasts for quite some time, especially if refrigerated, but sometimes even if it's not. We'll start with the most obvious and move down the list. 

Produce That Will Last a Month or Longer

1. Potatoes. These can be left out and they'll last even longer in the fridge. 

2. Sweet potatoes. These do best when NOT refrigerated, but kept cool and dry. I often buy lots when they're cheap at Thanksgiving time and keep them most of the winter long in our cool basement. 

3. Onions. The bulb onions are a classic storage produce item, but even the green onions will have a very good run if you refrigerate them. Even when they start to look a little sketchy, you can peel off the outer layer and usually have a very good green onion underneath.

4. Winter squash. Pumpkins, acorn, butternut--all the stuff with a thick skin will last a very long time. I buy butternut when it's on sale and keep it all winter in our basement too. 

5. Carrots. Refrigerate and they'll last longer than a month.

6. Cauliflower. Refrigerate.

7. Broccoli if it's fresh. If not, it'll only keep a week or two. 

8. Celery. Keep it well-wrapped in your fridge. Even if it starts to get a little wilty, it's perfectly good in soups and with roasts.

9. Apples. Buy them when they're in season. If you're already eating last year's cold storage apples, they won't keep too long, but if you buy seasonal apples, they'll keep a month or much longer, especially if refrigerated. Be sure there are no rotten ones spoiling the proverbial barrel. 

10. Oranges and other citrus fruit. Again, if these are seasonal (winter is their season), they'll keep for a while on the counter and they'll give you an easy month if they're kept refrigerated. Do make sure there are none already rotten or broken open. These will rot and ruin the good fruit around them too. 

11. Cabbage. Keep it wrapped in the original packaging or some tightly wound saran wrap of your own and they're good to go for a long time. 

12. Beets. Wrap or seal in a bag and refrigerate.

13. Lettuce. Okay, it might not make it quite a month, but you'd be surprised how long a wrapped head of lettuce will last you. Iceberg probably does the best, but I haven't bought it for year. I usually buy romaine and I've had lots of success with it. Generally speaking, the tighter the head, the longer it will last. Loose or cut leaves will go quickly (though putting them in a bag or tupperware with a paper towel will keep them going over a week too). 

Food Essay Friday: Five Ways Your Kitchen WON'T Make You Sick

Once every month or so, one of those articles pops up on Yahoo (or wherever) about how your kitchen/bathroom/bedroom/yard/general existence as a human being is making you sick. 

The purpose of this post is not to refute the fact that we ought to replace our sponges here and there. Truly we should. And we should wash our hands and our dish towels and be sure to get our cutting boards very clean. The purpose of this post is to remind you of the many many (and much less terrifying reasons) you will not get sick from your kitchen. Not only that, but it will also point out the ways that you will actually benefit from making an appearance in your kitchen every so often, preferably with the intent of making and eating something and not just to admire your utensils. (The other purpose of this post is to make fun of my very own mother, who I'm sure will take this in a wonderful and good natured way, right Mom? Mom???)

Because seriously, how often have you really gotten sick from your kitchen? I have gotten sick approximately 0 times from my kitchen. On the other hand, I have gotten sick approximately 7,832,901 times due to the fact that I send my kids to a public school. Yet there are no regular Yahoo articles on the dangers of elementary education (I'll have to look in crunchier places for warnings about that). I've gotten sick from attending church, from visiting relatives, from going to the store, from exposure to pesky germ-carrying hosts called human beings, and from functioning in a world does not consist of a 6' by 6' bubble. But I have never--no, not once, gotten sick from my kitchen. Or any body else's kitchen either. I am not a slob, but I am not at my counters/sponges/dish clothes/cutting boards/etc. with bleach every three minutes either. Not only have I been spared from death in my own kitchen, but I have also never gotten sick from my mother's kitchen, which was well-used and which was well-used long before there were Yahoo articles telling her that she had to replace her sponge every 37 minutes or risk dread disease. My mother, in fact, was what I would like to call--respectfully, of course--a wee bit lax in the sponge replacement department in general (and a few other kitchen-sterility-related departments we don't need to discuss in detail right here). 

So, while I admit that it is humanly possible to get sick from you kitchen, and while I will even warn that it would be dreadful to get something horrible like salmonella and that you should take precautions not to do so, I see far more benefit in the home kitchen than harm. Let's discuss a few of the pro's, shall we. 

1. In the kitchen, you generally prepare food. Generally speaking this food is lower in sodium, sugar, and fat than many of the other kitchens or factories who would otherwise be preparing your food for you. Even if you spend your time preparing cookies or cake, your cookies or cakes will have more whole and wholesome ingredients than their store-bought counterparts. Unless, of course you've got some maltodextrin and lecithin hanging about in your spice rack. Or perhaps a bit of liquid sugar. Or some sodium stearoyl. Anyway, you get my point. You know what's in your food and you can put even better things in it if you choose.  Which leads us to point #2...

2.  The home cook has the power to reduce any of the things the home cook deems unhealthy in his/her foods. If you need to cater your diet to one that is low-sodium or low-fat or low-sugar, you can do so. If you think raw foods are good for you, you can prepare them that way. If you think your eggs and meat should be cooked until they are dark brown at the edges, go for it. Not only do you have complete control over what goes into your food, but you can achieve this for much cheaper. Which brings us to the lovely #3.

3. Food cooked in the home kitchen is generally cheaper. It is darned near always cheaper, though I'll leave a bit of room for an exception or two. You can go to a restaurant (where, frankly, for all you know, the sponges are 17 years old), and pay a booty-load for factory-farmed meat and vegetables that were brought in from Chile. Or you can make the same meal (only much tastier) from grass-fed or humanely raised meat and local and/or organic vegetables for the same price or (usually) much cheaper. Or you can just use the cheap food from your local WhateverMart and really save a chunk of change. It's all up to you, but whether you care about the environment or your health or just the thickness of your own pocketbook, you win. Which leads--can you guess--to #4...

4. Control. We've already discussed how, through cooking at home, you can control your health, but through cooking at home you can control everything else as well. If you want to eat certain types of food, you can. If you want to disinfect your sponges on the hour, you can. Get your food from a source outside your home kitchen and there's no guarantee (at least not any kind of real guarantee) that their sponges/counters/dish towels/aprons/noses are clean. It's also difficult to know where your food came from or what exactly is in it.  Which in a round about kind of way leads to #5...

5. If you and your kitchen spend a little time together, you're bound to end up eating there at some point. This is really nice even when you're alone (in fact, sometimes I take special measures to ensure I get a little meal or snack by my lonesome). But most likely you'll wind up eating with some of the significant others in your life. There are plenty of studies these days saying how this will benefit your health, you kids' health, your kids' intelligence, everybody's waistlines, and provide mental stability all around. But I bet if you already know your home kitchen and if you have a dinner hour without the TV on, you probably already know this. No, it's not, like the peaceful family glamour of 1950's programming. My kids complain about the food and argue more than their fair share. Even when they're not complaining about the food or arguing, they tend to be making stunning amounts of noise. (Stunning, I say.) But with that noise, comes laughter and sometimes even a story or emotion shared. It's worth it's weight in organic grass-fed beef. And it's not going to happen if you're so paranoid about the dangers of your home kitchen that you just opt for take-out in front of the TV again. Which doesn't really lead to our bonus reason, but we're going there anyway...

Bonus: Tastier. Spend even a little time regularly in your kitchen and you'll find that the stuff you start to turn out is a lot better than the stuff BurgerHut or Leany Cuisiney can provide. 

 

Food Essay Friday: A Few Tips for Food Preservation

I've just found a new blog called Love Food Hate Waste. Besides being a nice resource for food preserving tips, it's based in the UK. You know what that means? That's right; it means they talk funny. (I, of course, never talk funny.) They use all these charming terms like 'market' and 'charming' and abbreviations like 'veg' and 'cauli' and they have an entire (albeit small) section dedicated to the preservation/re-use of Christmas pudding. Yeah, try finding that on an American blog. I must confess, however, that I was really hoping to see the word 'ruddy' utilized more often. Alas, it's not that kind of a blog.

So head on over and have a look (they've also got this ad campaign running right now that cracks me up, but wait, I'm getting distracted). Yes, head right over and have a look. My favorite section was the "Top Tips and Storage."

Here are a few favorite tips (as yet untested by me) that I found today:

1. Preserve Leafy Vegetables: Put salad leaves in a paper bag. The paper catches the moisture, keeping the leaves crisp, but preventing mold (the British spell that 'mould,' by the way.) Similarly, you can put a piece of paper at the bottom of a drawer and store your lettuces, leafy greens there to the same good effect. Note: I actually thought the whole greens in a bag thing would be a good idea if you work--Just bag 5 bags of greens at the beginning of the week. Have some sun-dried tomatoes or hard-boiled eggs on hand and you've got a quick, healthy grab-and-go meal.

2. De-Stale Nuts, Chips, Crackers: Place in warm oven for 3-5 minutes (watch so you don't burn 'em) and let cool (must let cool). They'll re-crisp.

3. Freeze Potatoes: Parboil cut potatoes for 5 minutes, then freeze (I'm assuming you'd spread these out on a cookie sheet first so they don't all stick together; and then bag them up). Supposedly, you can roast these frozen potatoes and get a more golden, crispy potato than you otherwise would have.

4. Save Your Lonely Brown Banana: Add to a curry (vegetable or lentil work best). This is said to create a fruity undertone without "being a definitive taste"--i.e. screaming banana.

5. Freeze Chili Peppers: Freeze whole. When you use, they're easier to cut and scrape out seeds. They also cook faster when they've been frozen.

6. Leave Cauliflower "Cauli" Leaves On: This makes it last longer. Also, if you use only part of your cauliflower, you can cover it all with the leftover leaves and this supposedly gives it an even longer life.

7. Use Your Spinach Stalks: Chop and saute with a bit of soy sauce, sesame seeds, and a touch of sesame oil for a tasty side dish. (Why haven't I ever thought of this? It sounds delish.)

Food Essay Friday: Mark's Plight: A Story of Love, War, and Banana

Several days ago Mark was really tired. That's not really odd for Mark. He's always been my sleepiest kid and once he gets tired, there's just no shaking it out of him. There was a Christmas morning 2 years ago when I thought he was sick because he just didn't want to get up. Yet after another hour of sleep he was fine. There have been several weekend nights when we've been doing fun things like going out to dinner and he's just lain his head on the table and fallen asleep and then woken up a bit later and been fine. And there have been afternoons when he gets home from school and crashes for a couple of hours. I'll be honest. I'm not sure if it's his body or if he has some type of nutrient deficiency due, as you have certainly noticed if you know Mark, to his incredibly limited diet that consists mainly of peanut butter, bread, and cereal.

At any rate, last weekend we got invited to a friend's house--the friends who are the parents of Mark's best friend. That should be exciting. Mark celebrated by crashing on the couch. When the girls woke him up, he was way groggy and a little shaky. It made me nervous. Was he okay? Was he developing diabetes? Did he have some other weird medical issue causing this? He was feeling fine otherwise, and hadn't eaten much that day--cereal for breakfast and a sandwich and some applesauce for lunch. It was now after 6:00 and I blamed hunger for his shakes.

We got in the car to go and I tried giving him crackers, which he said he didn't want. I'd also brought a banana. Mark likes bananas, but only with peanut butter. Still, it's not like they're gag-gross to him. And it's not like he felt in any way sick to his stomach. Surely, he--this child who was shaking in the car--would eat this banana. No, no he would not.

"Do you feel sick," I asked.

"No."

"Then why won't you eat this banana. You're shaking."

"I only like bananas with peanut butter."

I explained in a very rational motherly way that sometimes we eat foods, not because they are pure deliciousness to us, but because they are good for us and they will benefit us in some way.

Naturally Mark nodded understandingly and said, "You're right, Mother. That's very logical and it sounds like a reasonable way to approach both food and life." Oh wait. That's not what he said. He said, "I only like bananas with peanut butter."

And then I said, "How about taking 2 bites?" And then I expounded a little on my very logical thoughts. It was pretty much like discussing food with a chair. No two bites. No nothing. The kid would rather starve to death than take 2 bites of a food that was not repulsive to him.

I like to hope that such straight up stubbornness will benefit him one of these days--surely he'll never start smoking. In the meantime I'll just try to get him to survive to his teenage years and hope for the best.

I also hope that you've enjoyed this little story and that it has made you feel better about your parenting and yourself as a human being when you compare yourself to a mother who can't get her 9-year-old to consume a piece of harmless fruit. You're welcome.

Fad Dieting: In Couplets

Ever since turkey and Christmas came,

Diets have been on the brain.

January's almost through,

Have a look at a weird diet or two.

1. Grapefruit Juice Diet

Drinking grapefruit and water is lots of fun.

Just keep thinking about that slimmer bum. 

And maybe all that food you'll miss 

When you spend all day needing to, um, pee (sorry, family blog).

2. Lemonade Diet/Cleanse

Lemonade is something we know

As sweet and tart or sweet and slow

Not when it's full of hot cayenne

And supplemented with laxatives. What a plan!

3. Cabbage Soup Diet

Cabbage is a leafy green

That will leave us lean and mean.

Specially when it's all we eat

For the better part of several weeks.

4. The Atkins Diet

The only thing better than losing fat through osmosis

Is losing it through a thing called ketosis.

Sure you might miss a little bread

But you'll barely notice it once your veins clog and you're dead.

5. The Raw Food Diet

On the flip side of this is a thing called raw food

Which is what we eat when we've pounds to lose

There are plenty of enzymes which is a good thing

Though you can't expect to eat at Granny's Thanskgiving.

And here's a quick summary called quite fittingly I'm sure you'll agree, "The Five Days of January" because could you really make it through 12? (Note: This is not, for the record, one of those autobiographical poems.)

On the first day of January my untrue love gave to me

Some cabbage and a gym membership fee.

On the second day of January my untrue love gave to me

Raw tubers for my caveman ancestry.

On the third day of January my untrue love gave to me

Crackers and a bag of tea.

On the fourth day of January my untrue love gave to me

A tapeworm and an STD.

On the fifth day of January my untrue love gave to me

O-BES-I-TY.

Four small strawberries,

Three cups veg broth,

Two skim milk tablets,

And a glassful of acai.

Food Essay Friday: Big Changes vs. Little Changes

Recently I discovered that the Food Network (we don't get cable so I have to learn these things through the grape vine) did a show called The Big Waste. I was kind of excited to hear about this show--chefs would be making a meal from foods that would otherwise be wasted. But then as I read more about the premise, I, well, I started to get bugged. The chefs job was to make a multi-course meal for 100 guests. So the food they'd be using wasn't going to be coming from the backs of their refrigerators. Instead they wandered about NYC, scrounging up food that otherwise would have been thrown out.

This is not a bad thing to think about or to watch. I mean, it's still kind of a cool idea. And yet. And yet. To me it still didn't really get to the heart of one of our main problems with food waste. The heart being the bit that starts at the home, the bit that starts in your own kitchen. If we as individuals can't possibly keep our refrigerators and pantries organized enough to not waste food (and if we ourselves aren't motivated enough to use some of that food), then how can we expect the huge monster of food industry to do much better.

And then I had a look at this article, which also expressed a bit of disappointment in the show. I always love a good dissenting opinion. Yet the solutions offered in this article were still so very very large scale.

Yeah, yeah, I get that the food industry wastes a lot more food than we do (grocery stores figure in something crazy like 12% of their money loss from food thrown out--and much of that tossed food is perfectly edible, but not perfectly perfect in appearance or past its sell by or whatever). I get that if we could change that, we could make this huge enormous country-wide change. It's just that sometimes the food industry seems so very very far out of our hands. And, frankly, sometimes the food industry is still so very very far out of our hands. I'm not saying we shouldn't work to change that through legislation and through our own food choices (using more local foods, etc. etc.) What I'm saying is that all those things are going to take time before they happen (if they happen). They're going to take a lot of effort and possibly a chunk of change. And then they'll still possibly happen with some red tape tied on, and then what... I don't know.

But I do know how to make a good soup from leftovers. And you can too. And it will only take your 15 minutes. And your reward will be a fabulous dinner tonight. (A little near-immediate gratification doesn't hurt, right?) I also know that if we don't care enough to make small, cheap changes in our own lives, it's going to be hard for us to care enough to shop at the farmer's market or write folks at congress about changing legislation on seed patenting or zoning laws.

So what do I want to see on the food network? I want to see a show where the chefs hop on over to their refrigerators and pull out 1/2 a chicken breast, 1/4 C peas, a stalk of broccoli, some chicken stock, and maybe a few other things hiding out in the back; a show where they hack that bruised bit off the apple and use the zest of a lime that's past its prime, but still good for something, and then they really make something amazing with it. In fact, I think it's such a dang good idea that I might even start doing it myself on this blog.

What do you think? Would you guys like to see a "Leftover Tuesday" where I scrounge through our refrigerator and freezer (and maybe throw in a few pantry staples) to make something really good and really cheap? 

How Much Have My Grocery Costs Risen In a Year?

Is that the dullest title or what? Nevertheless I've been looking forward to writing this article for the better part of 6 months. And by 'looking forward,' let me clarify that I do not mean with eagerness, but rather with great interest.

I realized in the middle of the year last year that one of the advantages of obsessively tracking the costs of my food was that I noticed how much things were jumping. Some things, of course, have merely fluctuated, so I thought it would be the most fair to compare January to January (truth be told, it might even be fairer to compare March to March because I do feel there's the occasional leftover bit of something in January that hasn't cleared out from the year before whose price will jump as soon as it does).

Here are some staples we commonly eat with the 2011 price versus 2012 price as well as the store where I regularly purchase it. Most are pantry items or items that don't quickly perish, though I did include some seasonal produce (which has remained surprisingly stable, though perhaps that's just an Aldi thing) to keep it real. I do wish I could have done a graph for you, but my computer skills push my brain to the limit as is.

Here is how it will look:

Product: 2011 price/2012 price (store).

Eggs: 1.29/.79 (Aldi--much cheaper this year and has been for over a month now--not sure why)
Cocoa: 1.99/2.29 (Aldi)
Whole Wheat Flour: 2.76/3.38 (Walmart)
White flour: 1.19/1.19 (Aldi. It was actually 1.09 today, but that was a sale price. It should be noted that it went up more in the middle of the year as well.)
Milk: 1.99/1.99 (Aldi)
Peter Pan Peanut Butter, 80 oz.: 8.74/13.68 (Walmart and, yes, ouch)
GV applesauce: 1.50/1.64 (Walmart)
GV 1 lb pasta 1.00/1.08 (Walmart)
butter, 1 lb 1.99/1.99 (Aldi. Price is higher in middle of year.)
Tuna: .49/.59 (Aldi)
Tomato Sauce, the tiniest one: .25/.29 (Aldi)
Honey Nut Cereal: 1.59/1.59
Yogurt, 32 oz.: 1.59/1.99
Generic Saltine Crackers: .79/.89 (Aldi)
Sugar, 5 lb: 2.49/2.19 (Aldi. I expect the price to go up soon; it was about 2.69 before December, but hasn't gone back done yet--in fact this one might get thrown out of the lineup because I fear we're comparing a "seasonal" price to a non-seasonal one.)
GV tomato puree: 1.36/1.48 (Walmart)
Cream: 1.59/1.89 (Aldi)
Cabot Sharp cheddar, 2 lb: 7.86/9.38 Walmart

And some seasonal produce, just to give a sampling of some fresh stuff:

Oranges, 4 lb: 1.49/1.49
Spinach: 1.69/1.69
Grapefruit: .29/.39
apples, 3 lb: 2.99/2.99 (Aldi. They are on sale this week, but I'm counting what's been normal for the last little while)

Total:
$44.43 for 2011 versus $52.69 for 2012 for a difference of $8.26, which is a difference of 18 %.

Wow. (To be accurate and thorough, I tried these costs without the peanut butter jump as it has jumped so very much that it was labeled by my accountant sister an "outlier." Without the PB, there was only a 6.6% increase. This is still a notable increase, though not as shocking. However, outlier or not, I feel it's somewhat fair to include it because I don't anticipate the cost going down soon and some of these outliers--am I even spelling this right--are what our kicking our food budget butts. In fact, it's these outliers that we need to watch out for so that we can make appropriate adjustments in our budgets (buy them at bulk stores or really stock up when there is a sale).

Further Conclusions:

-All of our Walmart staples have gone up, while only some of our Aldi staples have.
-Peanut butter--good gracious. I plan to have a look at Sam's when I go with my January "visitor" coupon.
-Wheat--good gracious also, but not nearly so much good gracious

What to Do?


18% is not a number to laugh at. However, as noted above, part of the reason for that is that an outlier (a food item that has increased significantly more than the norm) is what has caused much of that jump. In our case, this is peanut butter. Maybe for you it's pine nuts. Whatever the culprit may be, it's our job as consumers to pinpoint some of those outliers (big jumpers) and try to find them for lower costs--perhaps at a different store or on sale or or in a decent generic version or on amazon.com or by hunting down some coupons and stocking up. It's frustrating to see our grocery bill steadily climb, but grabbing at chances to decrease those big ticket items is going to get us a lot further than stressing over the $.10 increase in tuna fish.

If you really can't find them cheaper, you'll have to eat the cost or adjust what you eat in general. In our case that might mean less peanut butter sandwiches, breakfast cookies and straight up scoops out of the jar (say it isn't so) and more of something else. We're just going to hope it doesn't have to come to that, but if it does, my new year's food goal is to get my oldest to eat oatmeal (is anyone else hearing the Mission Impossible theme music rolling right now).

Food Essay Friday: Watch Your Checkers, A Conspiracy Theory

You weren't expecting something intellectual for your first Food Essay Friday? Were you? Because I have to tell you that my intellectual state is such that I started this essay on a Thursday that I thought was Friday because, well, that's how my brain rolls. Or, well, sometimes doesn't.

On Thursday Kip and I went on a lovely morning date. One of the advantages of having a husband who works odd hours is that you can use other odd hours to do things. We went ice skating (there were only 4 other people on the rink), which we haven't done since the dating years. Sigh. And then we did errands (duh, we're married people, remember).

We went to Walmart, Target, and Menards (a home store like Lowe's/Home Depot). At Walmart we were overcharged $.30 on some muffin liners. At Target we were almost overcharged $7 on a pot. At Menards we were almost overcharged $10 on a new thermostat. Three for three.

At Walmart, I believe the muffin liners were mis-racked and $.30 wasn't worth torturing our elderly checker.

At Target, there was only one pan left and a big yellow sign that said, "Clearance, Save $7." When it rang through at full price, I thought, "So, have all the other pans run up wrong also?" It seems that they must have.

At Menards, the thermostat was marked at $24.77 on a label that didn't look to be a sale price, and rang up at a mysterious $34.00.

All in all, if we hadn't caught and commented on the 2 biggest mistakes we would have been overcharged by $17.00 ($18.19 with tax).

All in all, we purchased a total of 10 items, and 3 rang up wrong. That's a 30% rate of mis-done sku-age.

All in all, we spent close to $200. The extra $18 would have added 8% to our bill.

Think of the implications. If this happened at every shopping trip (and for all I know it does because I almost always shop with my children who I am inevitably trying to keep from shoplifting all the candy and gadgets that will fit into their chubby hands instead of vigilantly watching my checkers as I was today). If you've budgeted your food for $400/month (a low estimate by most people's standards) and you spend 8% of it in badly skewed goods, that's $32/month you've overspent. Over the course of the year, that's going to come to $384, which is a little hefty for a tightly budgeted family. It could mean the difference between a vacation and no vacation for us.

Are the stores to blame? Well, heck yeah they are. But are they doing it on purpose? (You were wondering where the conspiracy theory part came in, right?) Are they marking things as sale items and then purposefully not changing the sku's. I doubt it (although if you love a good conspiracy theory, you can believe that they are; I won't stop you; they do, after all, position all that candy where little hands are able to reach it--I know I don't do that in my house...). Whatever you believe, I think it's clear that stores don't appear to care about being very careful, especially with their sale sku's. Which is why you have to.

Moral of the story: Watch your checkers, shoplifting wannabe children be darned (though good heavens don't lose track of your children in Walmart, okay). I know it's not the checkers' fault stuff is ringing up wrong. Though the near eye rolls they give you when you call them on something that rang up $10 too high, I could do without.