Checking the Hoard

I didn't realize how much food I'd bought until after Passover, when I consolidated the two kinds of menus.  The freezer and pantry look like at least four people live here.  It probably isn't that bad, but I'm not used to eating so much out of storage.  That's how this blog started, and it was such a nightmare to work with my mom's massive stash.  Comparing then and now, it's less than half the food I had to deal with ten years ago, but twice as much as what I carry normally.  I managed to squeeze all the everyday stuff on the middle shelf, baking items on the top shelf where they usually live, and just a few overflow items like unopened coffee on the small appliance/cake decorating/cat food bottom shelf.  At least this time I know that everything was bought within the last six months and is not a hazard.  It's also foods I like, and I have some inkling how and when I'm going to be preparing it.

With the fridge, it's a race to use items before they spoil.  After losing a pint of milk, I learned you can freeze it.  I had to throw away about two ounces of cheddar cheese that got too moldy to cut around.  I'm doing better with the fresh vegetables, but some of the more fragile greens that had to be bought as a bundle are going bad before I can come up with a use.  When so many are having trouble putting enough food on the table each day, I feel terrible wasting anything.  This is why I used to shop twice weekly and only get exactly what I needed.

Like bending the coronavirus curve, I'm noticing the curve in my grocery shopping.  In March, I spent $350 on groceries and another $100 at Target for random essentials.  That's for one person and a cat, with at least $50 of it the special items for Passover.  The first week in April, I only needed bananas.  The second trip, milk, plain yogurt, and fresh Brussels sprouts for Seder.  It's been continuing along those lines since then, shopping only when I'm out of something that has to be fresh.  It barely feels worth the risk of going out.  Of course, I make use of each trip to pick at my "wish list" of items that aren't critically short, but I should get if they are available.  Still, it's been less than $20 per week all month.

Meanwhile, I came up with new ideas to repurpose things I had bought.  I put kimchi and bits of leftover duck on baked potatoes for lunches.  (So many potatoes.)  The duck bones and carcass are going to be turned into a lovely soup now that I finally got some navy beans, filled out with vegetable scraps from the crisper and some frozen spinach.  The rest of the parsley from Seder turned into pesto, and is specifically why I bought a small wedge of parmesan.  I'm still going to have matzoh forever, but that happens every time I buy the big box.  It's not a hoarder thing.

Unlike the shoppers I still see with three weeks of groceries in their carts, I am determined to make up the grocery bills by the time life goes back to something resembling normal.  After all, the point of that frantic grocery panic was to last through the lockdown.  If I can manage to buy only a minimum of perishables until then, my pantry should look normal pretty soon.