I haven’t written a post for a while – why is that? Because I’ve been distracted. I’ve been using all my energy and imagination trying to decide what to cook and what to eat! It all started when I watched a TV commercial for an ultra-premium dog food called The Farmer’s Dog. It’s very close to human food. As I tried to wrap my brain around that concept, I wondered why there isn’t The Farmer’s Cat? My research found that such a product wouldn’t be profitable because of intense competition in the cat food market, and the fact that cats eat a wider variety of foods than dogs.
Think about it. Dogs eat pretty much what people eat. Cats not so much. Cats have a different palate. While fish may be something that both cats and humans eat, lizards, mice, rats, and song birds do not make it on our dinner menus. So I thought, why don’t we humans have something simple to eat like The Farmer’s Dog? Then it dawned on me that perhaps we do! Ready-made meals are widely available, and some are pretty tasty.
But my daily challenge remains: What to cook? What to eat?
Breakfast isn’t much of a challenge – eggs, cereal, fruit, bacon, sausage, yogurt, bagels, toast, juice, and coffee, of course. There’s plenty to eat for breakfast. I left pancakes off my list on purpose. As kids, the only thing my baby sister would eat was pancakes. And that’s what we had – morning after morning, year after year! Lately, I’ve come to enjoy a pancake now and then – but only if it’s topped with a soft-boiled egg and drenched in butter and maple syrup! Lunch is pretty straightforward too – a sandwich, salad, soup, cheese and crackers, cold cuts, etc. If desperate, celery and carrot sticks will do.
Dinner? There’s the conundrum. Growing up on a farm in midwestern Minnesota, we called the noon meal dinner and the evening meal supper. The noon meal was always meat, potatoes, gravy, and pie or jello. Jello was either considered a salad or a dessert. Supper was a hot dish, or as you more citified folks would call it, a casserole. The hot dish was always noodles or potatoes with tuna or hamburger. Our favorite hot dishes were goulash, tater tot, and macaroni and cheese. A boiled hot dog was okay, but it was never put on a hot dog bun. Sometimes we would get fish sticks! In the summer, a cool glass of Kool-Aid accompanied the meal. Water was the drink of choice the rest of the year. Why not milk? Because on the farm, we saw where it came from!
Of course, over the years of being a wife and mother, I’ve cooked many meals. And having lived in many places, I’ve been exposed to a wide range of recipes and diverse food types. To fill the time, I occasionally took a cooking class. Despite all this, cooking has never come naturally to me. The first time I cooked spaghetti, I didn’t push the noodles all the way down into the pan. They fell over into the gas burner, catching themselves on fire. Oh well, half the noodles turned out okay.
Making a Caesar Salad was my first experience with romaine lettuce. The directions said to tear the lettuce leaves lengthwise. No big deal, right? Wrong! I tore the leaves into strips lengthwise, resulting in many lengthy strips, with some strips leaving only the spine of the leaf and no leaf at all. Uh oh! I misread the directions. The recipe said to separate the leaves lengthwise. It didn’t say to tear them lengthwise! (Did you know that if you separate the heart from a head of iceberg lettuce, it will last longer. Also, cutting a head of lettuce with a knife causes the lettuce to rust!)
So what’s my problem now? My problem is Hubby. For the past several years, he’s done the cooking. Then he discovered writing. Along with this new pastime and golf, his cooking contribution has been reduced to simple sandwiches, a pot of beans, and only an occasional proper meal. I was okay with that for a while, but seeing that dog food commercial makes me obsess about food, and I become hungry. But things aren’t all bad. My clothes aren’t as tight, and I can take my rings off my fat fingers without lubricating them.
So I decided to get back on the shopping and cooking bicycle. Costco is still a fun place for me to shop, but going to the local grocery store was always more of a chore. Trader Joe’s isn’t bad, but I can’t buy everything I want there – it wouldn’t fit into my cart! For years, if I waited long enough, Hubby would be the one to go to the grocery store. Not so much anymore, although he did have groceries delivered once.
Going to the grocery store has been good for me, and believe it or not, I’m enjoying it! I get to drive the car, which boosts my self-esteem, especially when I back out of the garage without hitting anything. Then a problem arose while driving. Because it’s so dusty in the Coachella Valley, my eyes constantly water. It isn’t fun to drive around with tears streaming down your face. It makes it hard to see the road, and other drivers glance at you with misplaced sympathy!
Once at the store, I search for a parking place. Years ago, I would park as far away from the entrance as possible. I wanted the exercise, and I didn’t want to park next to another car and get a dent in my door. These days, I park as close to the store as possible to save my strength. It’s also easier to locate my car in case I forget where I parked. My doctor approved a handicapped sticker, but I have to go to the DMV. Going there can be stressful in itself, as you may know.
Getting a grocery cart can sometimes be a challenge. First, you have to acclimate to the freezing air conditioning in the store after traipsing across the parking lot under the hot desert sun. Then selecting a cart that is free from the previous shopper’s garbage can be iffy. Sometimes I take a cart with some items left in it, depending on what they are. Finally, the perfect cart is located, only to realize it’s irrevocably jammed into the cart in front of it. Occasionally, some kind soul will come by as I struggle to detach it myself. Pitiful, isn’t it!
Okay, I’m in the store ready to begin my onerous task. Where’s my shopping list? Did I leave it at home? Is it in the car? NO! It is in the pocket of the pants I decided to change out of when I left the house. Oh well! I pretty much remember to get everything I need. And I did, except for two items, pickles and blueberries. (Hubby eats them – but not at the same time.) I don’t like either, so that’s probably why I forgot them.
Wine and fruit are usually the first items I add to the cart. Those are priorities. Milk is a must, and I always check the expiration dates. Probably foolish since it’s typically good for two weeks, and we use it within a week. However, out of habit, I continue to check the dates.
Eggs are almost always needed. Do you open the carton to see if any eggs are broken? I usually don’t, but the other day the carton looked suspicious – not quite intact. It was a good thing I checked. One egg was missing! I hailed down a clerk and showed him the carton with only 11 eggs. He commented that someone must have taken it. Since then, I’ve pondered whether someone would have shoplifted that one egg or if it was left out at the egg factory. Why would someone take only one egg? If someone were to take the egg, where would they hide it? What if they forgot where they hid it? Why can’t we buy just one egg? My mind races with interminable questions. Later, when I check out, I tell the clerk about the missing egg. She just shakes her head and says, “Someone must have taken it!” What do you readers think?
I scan the various meats, moving quickly to those items on sale at a reduced price. Even so, they are pricey. I always end up with the same thing: hamburger, roast, chicken, and hot dogs. Boring! As I leave the meat department, someone yells at me, “Hey!” I accidentally started pushing someone else’s cart away! Later, when I told Hubby about it, he confessed he used to do that when he was young and single, and the cart owner was a pretty female shopper.
A bit later in the produce section, I hear a man cursing. He’s trying to open one of those thin plastic bags used to put fruit or vegetables in. I try to help him by pointing out that he’s trying to open the wrong end, but he doesn’t seem to want my advice. Trying to open them from the correct end is hard enough! Come to think of it, I probably spend half my time in the store trying to open those *#@##$ plastic bags.
Hubby insists on bottled water, which I never understood. Why not fill your Tommy Tippy cup from the tap? The water is filtered after all. He says it’s for convenience. A case of forty bottles of water is the best value. The problem is the weight of forty bottles of water! I hail a store employee and ask him to load the heavy case of water into my cart. He does, but he struggles. I hadn’t thought about how I was going to get it into the car or the house.
Well, now my cart is heaped with stuff and hard to push. Rats! I forgot ice cream. The ice cream is several aisles over. It’s worth it! So I struggle! On my way, I pass many frozen prepared dinners. HMMM! I might as well get a few! The Farmer’s Dog indeed!
At the checkout stand, I realize I’ve forgotten my plastic bags. Since the store charges 10 cents a bag, I decide not to have my groceries bagged. Once I get to the car, I will bag them myself! By this time, I am exhausted, so I ask the bagger if he minds taking my groceries to the car. He graciously agrees. When we get to the car and open the trunk, I see all my empty bags. Why not ask him to bag all the groceries? Where does it say groceries need to be bagged in the store? He’s courteous and bags everything, but I sense irritation as he stands in the 105-degree sunlight, bagging all those groceries. I probably should have tipped him, but I didn’t have any cash. It was in the pocket of the pants with the grocery list.
Once home, Hubby helps unload the groceries. He strains his back lifting the case of water and winces in pain as he struggles to carry it into the house. Again, I launch into my tirade about why he should drink tap water. Rubbing his back and scowling, he asks me where his pickles and blueberries are.
“Oh, I didn’t bring my grocery list, and I forgot them. By the way, are you cooking dinner tonight?”
“No,” he groans, “I think I’ll just have a sandwich.”
Do you enjoy the constant routine of shopping and cooking meals? Is that just an aging thing? Your comments are always appreciated!
4 Comments
Roberta, you’ve delivered yet another ‘spot on’ Rave for which so many can relate, especially moi.
Trader Joes, Clarks, Bristol Farms all qualify as ‘grocery events’ for me. The rest #mainstreamgrocerystores rank as a CHORE, necessary pain in the butt; avoid whenever possible.
Our households are very similar. Hubs does his own meal-thing, at his own time, while I nosh a frozen entre’ -or ‘leftovers’ from fridge, if/when a hunger pang occurs. Also similar, we purchase favored water products in bulk and Hubby’s the guy to unload it (as well as my many wine bottle cartons).
YOU ARE NOT ALONE!!! RAVE ON, ROBERTA!!!!
We must be related. Grocery shopping can be a chore. Thankfully, hubby and I are in an eating rut that we rarely leave. I fixed tacos last night and had to make a special trip to the store because I didn’t have those simple ingredients on hand. I remember the days of planning a week of menus and extras in my head to feed two teenage boys. Now, when they come to visit with their kids, I almost feel put out that I have to stock everything they may want to eat. I keep telling my hubby that the only reason I married him was that he said he liked to cook. I didn’t know it was isolated to chicken on the barbecue grill. I’m the writer these days, so we do potluck most of the time around here. Dinner is light, which is good for us because my continental husband can’t possibly eat before eight. Ha! Love your posts!
I have the same problem. What is make for supper. My son lives with me and it seems the older he gets the fussier he gets. I on the other hand have lost my appetite in my old age. I do enjoy grocery shopping though.
Wow! So many topics in one post. Your comparison of Farmer’s Dog food to human food unlike cat food because cats have a diet of lizards and mice and things that humans don’t eat caught my attention. I immediately thought that during my travels around the world that there isn’t anything that isn’t eaten somewhere. Sparrows in Shanghai, dogs in Hong Kong, guinea pigs in Ecuador, grasshoppers in Oaxaca, raw horse meat in Japan, etc., etc. Thought you could do an article on the strange foods that people do eat. And yes, a lot of my friends in Ohio called lunch dinner. In my mind, dinner was another name for supper, not for lunch.