The Friday Five's Life in Food

[magnetic_pole]

Full disclosure: embarrassingly, I do very little cooking and only a bit of the shopping for our household. R loves cooking and shopping and is very territorial in the kitchen, so that's fine with her, but everyone once in a while I realize I'm like a 1950s breadwinner, arriving home just in time for R to put a dish on the table for me. I do try to do my fair share in other ways.

1. Do you make up a dinner plan for the coming week?
Not usually. We usually plan my lunches and even make them ahead of time because it's bit of a push getting me out of the house in the morning, but dinners are more freeform.

2. Do you make up a shopping list and stick to it when shopping?
Yup. Lists are crucial--otherwise I'll forget. Every once in a while I'll realize I have more time than expected and can make a detour to one of the grocery stores, but even then I'll make up a mental list en route. I stick to the list so faithfully that sometimes I'll be wandering down an aisle in the store and realize I wasn't even aware the store sold these things. I'm not a browser. R hates shopping with me--she goes aisle by aisle, looking at everything.

3. What is one thing that you always buy, but never put down on a list?
Everything's got to go on the list! Oh my word, I have a list of everything, including the things I need to check before walking out the door to make sure I don't lock myself out / get caught with no money / have matching shoes on. (Seriously. I double check because I have two similar pairs of brown shoes I've been wearing recently, and one day I realized I'd mismatched them.)

4. Is there anything that you always think you are out of and come home with it to discover you already have a year’s supply on hand?
Not really, but we do get various Asian supplies in the mail from R's mother, unsolicited, and we have enough Chinese sausages to make fried rice for the rest of our lives. Mostly R's mother just wants to stay in touch, and who can argue with getting care packages of food? But the refrigerator is just stuffed with lap cheung. (sp?)

5. Do you get your groceries delivered?
Not the usual groceries, but we do get a box of produce seconds every other weekend. It's super exciting to get surprise veggies that you didn't have to carry home.

What's the most unusual shopping or cooking habit you have, flist?

You can see see both the questions and folks' responses over at thefridayfive.

Comments

[therealsnape]

Next time we meet up R and I can go supermarket-shopping. I'm just like her. Lord S likes the shopping, too, but he's much faster than I. I usually end up either saying or wishing Just give me time to LOOK!

Great Friday Five this time. I'll nick it, then at least I will have posted something this week. So good of you to keep at it!

[magnetic_pole]

I usually end up either saying or wishing Just give me time to LOOK!

That's exactly what R says to me! I fact sometimes she says, "You go on home and leave me here. I don't like being rushed."

I go so fast that sometimes I get the wrong item--vanilla soy milk instead of regular, etc. R is not happy when that happens. :(

Always fun to talk about food, isn't it? I'll look for yours! M.

[minervas_eule]

My answers would be too boring: "No" to everything :-)

2. I do make a shopping-list when I try out a new recipe which calls for ingredients I do not have at home, or to buy the right amount of something for it.
3. I almost never leave a Supermarket without having bought milk and yoghurt.
4. I one or two times in my life brought home noodles or rice because I thought we needed a new package, but I had already bought some a few days earlier.

[magnetic_pole]

:)

Ah, milk and yoghurt. We buy milk (soy milk) fairly often, too. It's the heaviest item, so we can only get one at a time.

How do you find new recipes to try? M.

[ancientreader]

Oooh, I like this meme. It affords so much opportunity for self-righteous ranting -- which actually is a reason for me not to do it.

My cooking habit that I don't know how unusual it is but it certainly does seem to startle some people is that I grind my own spices, using a mortar and pestle.

[magnetic_pole]

Wait, wait, self-righteous because you've worked out the most efficient way of shopping and cooking? Every one of these points is a bit of a mess for me.

Fresh spices are the best! You always post about the most delicious food. M.

[ancientreader]

Ah, but I could go on and on about how menu planning saves money and obviates much food waste ... See? Self-righteous. Told you so!

[magnetic_pole]

:) M.

[splix]

I think your situation would only be a problem if you expected R to greet you at the door wearing a Saran Wrap dress with a martini in hand. :)

[magnetic_pole]

Heh. Well. You know.

:)

M.

[splix]

*eyebrow waggle*

[magnetic_pole]

*innocent eyes* M.

[ancientreader]

Sounds like a happy domestic life to me! *is brought up short by memories of The Total Woman*

[magnetic_pole]

Oh my word, The Total Woman is a gem. (And by "gem" I mean "horror.") M.

[spikesgirl58]

Hahahaha! You sound like me and the lists. My memory is so bad these days that I'm surprised I don't need one to get dressed in the morning.

Those Chinese sausages never last long here. I make stir fries with them, soup, some times I just heat one up and eat it. I love the suckers. It's good that R's mother doesn't have my address. :P

I'd love to get a box like that. Sigh... it would be fun.

Thanks for playing the Friday Five.

[magnetic_pole]

Lists for everything! I'm on board. Lately I've been trying to walk through the door again when I've forgotten something. It's surprisingly helpful...but not as good as a list.

I wished you lived closer, because I would be *delighted* to find someone who wanted our sausages.

Thanks for posting over at Friday Five! It's so good to have a prompt to get talking. M.

[spikesgirl58]

* I've been trying to walk through the door again when I've forgotten something.*

Around our place, we call that the Short Term Memory Tango. What's nice is you can dance along or with someone. :P

I love The Friday Five, I just wish the other moderators would be more on board with it. They never comment or even answer themselves. Where's the fun in that.

Have you moved here permanently. I've noticed that you haven't posted on your account over there for nearly a year. That's where I hang out 3/4 of the time, only coming over here for The Friday Five.

[magnetic_pole]

Short Term Memory Tango.

Ha! Well, imagining myself doing it to the chords of a tango makes it seem more fun and less sad. I'll try that next time.

I'm sorry I haven't been more active at The Friday Five! I'd been commenting on other folks' replies for while there. I'll start again as soon as I can.

You know, I didn't make a conscious decision to move here permanently, but unbeknownst to me, my DW stopped crossposting to LJ, and it took me months to realize that no one was commenting over there because the posts never appeared. I should update my profile in both places. I do drop in at LJ to read journals, but less often. Should I friend you over there? M.

[spikesgirl58]

Hey, anything that makes getting older fun, I'm all for.

That's wild about DW, but I sort of think there's a love/hate thing going on with them and LJ. You can friend me here or there or better, both! And I will friend you as well. I'm that way with DW. I drop in now and again, but not often while I'm always in LJ.

[kelly_chambliss]

Oh, I'm with R -- browse every aisle every time. You never know what fun new things might have shown up.

[magnetic_pole]

That's what she says, too! M.

[delphi]

Having a lifetime supply of lap cheong is definitely the opposite of a problem!

As someone who lives on my own and doesn't drive, I'm very much a planner (to avoid letting food spoil or having to buy more than I can lug home on any one trip). But my pickiest shopping habit has to do with bananas. I really only like bananas during that magical window when there's not a trace of green left on them but before they get mushy, so I will in fact be stopping by the grocery store on my way home from work twice later this week for the express purpose of getting a small number of individual bananas that will be sufficiently ripened next week.

...it was probably redundant to mention that I'm single, wasn't it.

[magnetic_pole]

Bananas are tricky, aren't they? It's not just split-second timing here but the timing associated with specific stores, since bananas from one local supermarket seem to ripen more quickly than other. (Don't ask me how that might work. It seems to defy logic.) I admire your systematic approach to the problem!

I do think the not-driving issue is key. R is planner by nature--she's great at buying only what she needs and intends to cook and eat. I'm a planner because I'm lazy and just don't want to carry a single extra thing home.

Are you an advance cook, too, like secret solitaire above? M.

[delphi]

Laziness is an underrated contributor to efficiency.

I've never quite been able to make the whole meal prep thing work for me full time without inviting my week to derail, but I do periodically cook stashes of 'plan b' meals for the freezer. I've usually got some polenta that I can take to work and microwave if I miss breakfast, some creamed spinach or sweet potatoes I can sub in if my fresh vegetables went bad, and a couple of portions of pasta or curry for if everything's gone wrong.

[liseuse]

I love supermarket shopping and it is one thing I love to do when I'm abroad. I spent a good 45 min browsing the tiny supermarket near our AirbnB in The Hague, just deciphering the labels on cheese and admiring the range of yoghurts. I don't actually get to supermarkets very often being carless, but tomorrow I have a walk to Aldi planned (I know how to live!). So I depend on a monthly delivery of heavy/inconveniently shaped stuff, and then I do a market trip every Saturday and pick bits and bobs up on my way home. I probably spend about the same as if I did a weekly supermarket shop, but it does occasionally mean my vague meal plan for the week has to change because the little supermarket doesn't have x, y, or z.