Posts Tagged ‘no grocery challenge’

Because I’m always looking for something new to drive me nuts. . . .

November 9, 2011

 

Dark Days

 

So my friend Amy over at Vegparadise found this challenge.  Since I joined her in the no grocery store challenge, she figured (correctly), I was up for the task.  Now we are up to this one: The 5th annual dark days challenge.  Ok, this one is a bit of a twist: in winter, cook one meal a week with items only grown 100-150 miles from your home.  Since I’m a pure lunatic, I’ve decided that I’m going to try for 5 days (15 meals) a week.  I’m adding one caveat: my meat and cheese will come from the fantastic 8′Oclock Ranch in upstate New York which is 300 miles from my for a few reasons: they have humanely raised, organic meats and a fantastic CSA program I’m already a member of!

Now, I did  get lucky in that I placed an order for dried beans from my current CSA from a western Massachusetts farm.  There is also a great winters farmer’s market in Somerville and a decent one in Wayland close to my place.  Finally, for staples like oh, eggs, I can rely on the Mass Food Co-op.  Still, it will be a challenge.  I mean, first, it’s New England: things like oats, rice, avocados simply don’t grow here.  Fortunately, my canning hobby addiction kicked in and I have a variety of items in jars and frozen for the winter.

For me, part of it is about supporting local farmers through the winter – but it’s more than that.  When I leave in the dark and come home in the dark, it’s easy to want to hit a drive thru and head home to curl up.  And yes, there will be pictures, it’s part of the challenge.  Have I mention yet that I created a root cellar in my storage unit? Hmmm.  What can I say? I hate the grocery store!

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A week into one project, 3 weeks into another. . . .

August 21, 2011

So on the 72 ideas in 72 days front:

“Limit your communications. Our lives these days are  filled with a vast flow of communications: email, IM, cell phones, paper mail,  Skype, Twitter, forums, and more. It can take up your whole day if you let it.  Instead, put a limit on your communications: only do email at certain times of  the day, for a certain number of minutes (I recommend twice a day, but do what  works for you). Only do IM once a day, for a limited amount of time. Limit phone  calls to certain times too. Same with any other communications. Set a schedule  and stick to it.”

I was enjoying my Sunday morning Law and Order re-runs (with Mike and Lenny!) and once again what caught my eye is the late 90′s Law and Order technology gap: pagers, payphones and typewriters (do any of those even exist anymore?).  Yes, there is something to be said *for* instant communication: it’s nice to know of a new job, a new baby, to hear a loved one is out of surgery but the era of instant on-going communication is frustrating.  I for one am all for cell phone free zones (like planes. . . ).  I don’t like people knowing how to find me all the time (and no, that doesn’t apply to just my mother).  I read a job ad today: “must be willing to be available 24×7 52 weeks a year via blackberry”.  The job? An administrative assistant to a CEO of an ART foundation.  Look, if somebody is an organ transplant coordinator in rural oh, Alberta, I could see this being a requirement.  I’m pretty sure nobody ever died of an art crisis at 3 am on a Monday night.  The pay? 30-32,000 a year. Um.  That sole job requirement is a bit excessive.

I see the over communication aspect where I work.  People are married to their blackberries.  I told somebody to put one down while we were at lunch at a restaurant.  Another person made a comment about how her husband nearly threw out her blackberry on Sunday night because she kept responding.  Yes.  Me?  I use twitter, Facebook, e-mail and have a blog. The reality? I use Facebook so much probably because I’ve lived in 7 states since I graduated from college.  It’s a way for me to keep in touch with my friends who I don’t see.  I use twitter to follow some sports teams and snark comments with a college friend.  I don’t feel overwhelmed by technology.  I think, in part, because I’ve used it and burned out on it so much that now it’s like diet coke.  I use it for what I need: some days a bit more than others.

And on the grocery store challenge? What’s a grocery store :blinks: don’t miss it a bit.

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Posted in 72 Ideas in 72 Days Project, Popular Culture | Leave a Comment »

And I’ll just blame Wal-Mart . . . .

August 10, 2011

Yick, what a week! One of my friends on Saturday said something about Mercury being in retrograde; I’ll stick to something more simplistic.  I broke all rules of my life and stepped into Wal-Mart.  I should probably be a bit more specific: I transferred a prescription to the local scare-mart because they were open and I was desperate.  When I refilled it on Monday … yup, I forgot to transfer it back to my normal pharmacy.  Normally, I’d just kick myself but on this locavore challenge, I realized a few random things.  I DESPISE Wal-Mart (Look, it’s CHEAP! Yup. And the system of one stop shopping is wrecking havoc on local economies!)  – just entering into one out of oversight irked me.

My locavore challenge for the week wound up ok . . .not 100%.  The easy way out is to blame the 48 hour migraine.  Monday, I found myself ditching into a chain drive thru for breakfast. I felt horrific, the thought of cooking exhausted me and I knew I had to eat.  I picked the ease of a drive thru.  Everything became worse as for lunch, I grabbed something out of the cafeteria.  Ugh. After Monday, I manage to keep myself on track.

Lessons learned: sometimes, the convenance factor has to work.  I know that cooking when sick I a disaster for me.  What I need to do for next time? Make some “frozen” dinners to grab and go.  I also need to remember to stay hydrated during the weekend.  For some reason, I can do so at work … at home? Much harder.

The benefits of the week?  Found a local corn festival at Wilson Farm (a bushel of corn frozen!), grabbed TexMex at Three Amigos (normally, I would have hit a drive thru!) on my way to the opening of the new space for my favorite reflexology place, The Barefoot Dragonfly.  Normally after a morning at the office, followed by running errands and fun, I’d grab and go.  This weekend, I found myself being intentional.  It’s easy to hit a chain or a box store. It’s harder to find as local as possible food/establishments to find what I need.  I have found myself spending less money (probably less impulse purchases) but/and having to plan out what errands I need to run to minimize back tracking and needless time in the car (a pet peeve).  A side bonus? I’m not really missing my afternoon Kit-Kat bar.

The key for this challenge for me is planning (and a skill I lack in the getting myself together and out the door department).  Next week will be a challenge.  I’m headed to NoVa for the weekend so I’ve got to figure out what I can do for food next week since I’ll loose my cooking time.  I’ve suggested a few restaurants for the people I’m visiting to I can stay local inside the beltway.

Still, I’m blaming my slip-up on the fact I stepped into a Wal-Mart a few weeks ago.  I’ve already switched the prescription back!

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Posted in Cooking, CSA | 1 Comment »

Work week almost over … a bit harder than I thought!

August 4, 2011

The work week is almost over, I’ll admit, the first week avoiding grocery stores and drive-thrus, it has been much harder than I thought.  While I have managed to pack my lunch each night (ok, that is not that hard!), the complexity has been in finding the balance between a few long days in the cube farm and realizing how easy it is to slip into the convenience of, well, a drive-thru morning.

For example, yesterday, I made went into the office at 7:00 am.  I left my house at 6:10 (ah, those long city commutes!).  I left the office at 11:30 pm.  Yup, roughly 16.5 hours in the office.  Now, we did break for dinner (a local sushi place which was fun given my seafood allergy but fantastic spicy eggplant!) but by the time I made it home, packed my lunch, showered and crawled into bed, it was 1 am.  Normally, this would be the ‘excuse’ for catching about 30 minutes more of sleep, hitting a drive thru on the way in and probably on the way home tonight, I dug in and decided I wasn’t going to cave over a long day (but oh it was so tempting).  I managed to eat breakfast at home (the safe yoghurt and some granola one of my adorable nieces made for me), take my packed lunch in to work and pick up my CSA share on the way home (up for this weekend, more bread and butter pickles to can, some more potatoes, corn to be frozen and a few different types of squash for a squash casserole).  I stopped by a local farmers market that I normally miss: it was ok but right now we are frustratingly in between seasons in New England: the tomatoes aren’t quite ready and what I really want are blackberries.

Tomorrow, is delivery day for Mass Local Food Cooperative.  Think of the co-op as a collection of mini-farmers markets where members can order items from local farms and pick up in a few central Massachusetts locations.  They are usually my source for cheese, eggs, pesto and a few random things.  I managed to remember to order some of the ‘missing’ items (namely, garlic and onions) from my kitchen.  I’m still on a quest for finding celery that is either organically grown or via IPM and at a farmers market/farm stand or local grocery.  An avocado would be nice but let’s face it: avo trees don’t do well in New England.

What have I learned? There are a lack of small businesses on my commute.  Yes, Dunkin’ Donuts is franchised (so is McDonald’s, Burger King) but on my 25 mile non-interstate commute, there is not a single indy coffee place: it’s a virtual strip mall nirvana of CVS, grocery stories, Dunkin’ Donuts and various gas stations.  I live in a well populated area – I was stunned.  I hadn’t noticed the lack of indy businesses.  I’m sure an argument could be made for Dunkin’ Donuts and New England being joined at the hip: for me, it became an eye-opening event.

The upcoming week will be interesting: a week packed full of meetings and probably working all weekend means I have to coordinate my schedule a bit better to prepare for those long work days.  I need to hit a farmers market this weekend to find some tomatoes, lettuce and other items.  I will give that rationing the Coke Zero has probably been better for me but oh, I could use an unlimited supply in the morning!

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Posted in Cooking, CSA | 1 Comment »

The first temptation

July 31, 2011

As many foodies know, Wylie Dufresne is a notorious, self-proclaimed “egg slut”.  Me? I’m a mashed potatoes slut. I order them on menus, silently critique them in my head and think ooooh.  The adventure of ‘no grocery store for a month’ based on my need for mashed potatoes began with a vexing temptation.  First, I forgot to put sour cream on my list of foods. Luckily, a friend pointed out that yoghurt could be brought over. Perfect.  I had yoghurt.  Failure: it was French Vanilla.  Habit, right? French Vanilla yoghurt combined with potatoes? Yuck.

A friend pointed out that it wasn’t 8/1 yet so I could still go to the grocery store. Tempting. Ok, I gave into that idea. I showered, got into my car and thought “what is the point of this?” Finding ways around? Yes. But not *this* way.  The way around is substitutions, using what is local and a host of other things.  I left my car, cut up my potatoes and figured if McGuyver could make a bomb out of a potato, I could mash them without tossing in sour cream (trust me on this, it’s amazing).  Butter. Hmm. Worked. A bit of horseradish, a dash of BBQ  sauce better.  Parama cheese. Perfect.

Now, I realize that my copy-cat plan wasn’t the best thought out: I still don’t have sour cream . . . I’m missing non-French Vanilla yoghurt and uh, chocolate.  Day one is in the books. I’m about to cook some pork chops and pack my lunch for tomorrow.  (Egg Salad minus celery, crackers and maybe I have a Luna Bar somewhere. . . ).  What I’ve learned: it’s wicked easy in this part of the world to say “oh, I need” and go and buy it from a grocery store.  It as my initial temptation: I worked around it.  Will I keep it up? Who knows.  But going into the week, I have a container of mashed potatoes and already cooked green beans from my CSA at Nourse Farm, hardboiled eggs about to become egg salad and 2 grilled pork chops from 8 O’clock ranch.  Yup.  I can probably make it until Wednesday . .  .who knows?

I also realized I boiled all my eggs. I so didn’t think this adventure all the way to the end.

Ah, survived the first temptation!

The perfect food!

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Posted in Cooking, CSA, Gluten Free | 1 Comment »

Taking a month of …. for now. The No Grocery Challenge

July 30, 2011

So, a friend of mine posted this blog a few weeks ago on Facebook (seriously, how did I live before smart phones and social networking!).  I chased a few links and found what might be one of the original blogs.  (Eh, who knows …).  The rules are pretty basic: don’t go to the grocery store except for what cannot be sourced otherwise.  There are few challenges floating about in the locavore world.  I was immediately interested and agreed to this mad cap challenge. Hey, it’s just me, right? I mean, aside from the sous chef and the prince.  And then I decided to step it up a bit.  I am keeping the basic challenge: buying everything at farmer’s markets, stands with a short exception list (below) and then only $30.  And no, I didn’t stock up on Coke Zero or ice cream!

A lot of the people involved have kids.  I can hear some people in my life now “of course it would be easy for you, you’re single.” (uh, yeah, i also have an hour commute and work roughly 50 hours a week but that is a different blog).  Yup, I live the life of a singleton.  That also means, that if I worked 12 hours that day, there is nobody I can call to say “hey, can you toss on some pasta for me” (well, that and being gluten-free also).  I’m also working for a company that is facing an audit probably in August.  ACK!  So, I know August will be insane.  So why not kick it up a step?

For August, I will not only avoid the grocery store (except the list below), I’m also skipping caffination stations.  Not giving UP caffeine (that would be a danger to others) but avoiding the fast food life style of the mornings and sometimes evenings that have fueled me during early morning commutes or late nights because I’m too lazy to cook something.  I realized how horrific my eating habits (despite some canning adventures) had become when I realized that one day I consumed (seriously) a package of pop tarts from a vending machine, some carrots and a tomato (probably a few thousand miles on those), ice cream with strawberry jam (ok, I made the jam) and 2 dill pickles. Why? It’s what I had either in the house to eat without cooking or had for the vending machine. Seriously.

When the challenge was posted, I realized hmmm. It would probably be good FOR me to do this: I despise chain stores, I try to be a locavore (but let’s face it … some mornings hash browns and coffee from Dunkin Donuts do hit the spot), I believe in local businesses well and the entire menu I listed earlier.  The thing is, to some extent this will already be easier for me than many: I buy my meat from the fantastic 8 O’clock Ranch (which probably means I’m not a locavore FOR meat but since they are a small ranch in upstate NY … I’ll stick with them), I get most of my fruits and veggies from Old Nourse Farm’s CSA.  My issue is more that while I’ll can/freeze food, I forget to USE that food in my I-must-eat-now mode (that and I don’t own a microwave).  So with a bit of planning, I’m going to go free from caffination stations, grocery stores, chains . . . what I do need to buy I will buy from family owned groceries.  This will be interesting.  I’m sure I won’t save money (one of the original bloggers is in Hungary. $2 wine? Ha.) The obvious benefit is breaking myself of this pop-tart diet I seem to be on!

So, with that … my August grocery list is limited to: vinegar, yoghurt (don’t tell me I can make it … epic fail), half&half, cat food (they do like to eat), salt, sugar and olive oil.  The greater adventure … figuring out what I’m going to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner now that I’m avoiding chains and the cafe at the office. If you see me, and you love me? Please hand me Diet Coke.  I’m sure I’ll need it by mid-August.

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Posted in Cooking, CSA, Gluten Free, Health Care | 3 Comments »

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