Friday, September 19, 2008

5 days without shopping

Our Fridge (today)

Our Pantry

Here is a picture of our fridge...what do you see:  Rice milk, eggs, pickles, leeks, arugula, cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, pancetta, tomatoes, peanut butter, blueberries, turkey, string cheese.  Below that is a picture of our pantry, what do you see here:  soup, spinach, beans, tomatoes, peppers, tuna, rice, lentils, pasta.

So, we leave in 6 days..actually we'll be here for only 5 more days because we have decided to get up at 4:00 am Wednesday morning and leave.  Why not, we are so antsy to go, if we could leave tomorrow we would.  So we have Friday-Monday left.  I looked in our pantry and decided that we have enough stuff to live on for 5 days, it might not be the "perfect" meal, but it's fine. We are not going to shop at all anymore (except for diet coke and wine).  We are just going to go for it and make what we can with what we have.

I have decided to donate all our canned and frozen food that we don't eat to a local food bank on Saturday.   So I'll plan our meals until we leave and give the rest away.  We don't need to shop anymore, we have plenty to keep us fed...we are so spoiled!  I will NOT throw anything away.

So tonight I pulled out an orange pepper, 3 zucchini, buffalo mozzarella, whole wheat pasta, garlic, tomato sauce and tomatoes and made a pasta primavera of sorts.  We warmed up the left over lamb chops from last night.  Turned out great.  

Tomorrow we will be at B&B's for dinner and Saturday with E&K for pizza night (make your own on the bbq).  Sunday we'll defrost the salmon and do a salad, Monday we have dinner with L, and Tuesday we'll have Talpia tacos and then we are gone. It kind of feels good to not shop, we are so used to going to the market because we don't have the "perfect" meal for the day.  I'm so used to just going to the market and getting what sounds good that night, because the salmon or lamb we have in the freezer doesn't sound good.  We will be on a pretty strict budget in france and we need to plan our meals and not just shop because we feel like getting something different.  I vow not to throw away food that I bought and didn't eat.  That's so pathetic and I know most of us do that. If you don't do that then I so admire you!

So I'm sure by Tuesday night we'll be eating eggs and pancakes, but what the hell, that's a great meal!  Bruce is packing up the bikes right now and on Saturday we are taking everything to the POD (our storage unit), I'll keep 2 wine glasses, 2 plates, 2 forks, 2 knives, 2 spoons, 1 skillet and that's it.  The rest is going away in the POD.  If you could see our apartment you'd be in shock, I'm in shock, the horror!  I'd love to be more "organized" but there really is no way when you have no dressers, drawers, etc...and just have to keep things on the floor until you leave.  It's been good for me, the miss anal virgo that I am!  This year in France will change me I'm sure.







10 comments:

La Belette Rouge said...

OMG my fridge is the exact opposite of yours. We have: milk, Perrier, left over tortellini,half and half and vanilla yogurt. In the freezer we have blueberries and ice. Our pantry is even less impressive. I need to do some real shopping.

Good luck with the final organization and kitchen clearing.

6 DAYS??? WOW!!!!!!:-D

Non Je Ne Regrette Rien said...

OMG-can I relate! getting exciting!

Randal Graves said...

It's going to be a change alright! But for the better, perhaps clear out some of the routine and quotidian clutter that we all accumulate over time. In any case, it'll certainly be interesting and most likely groovy. But having to scope around for peanut butter? Yikes. ;-)

La Framéricaine said...

Hope the B&B dinner was really nice. The eHarmonious nature of the encounters should roll over nicely to France and Spain. Ain't life strange?

I'm still recovering from my out of body experience but one day at a time will bring us slowly to France. In the meantime I'm doing whatever is the opposite of chillin'.

LeF leaves on Thursday so your psychic paths will be crossing for weeks to come!

Almost bon voyage, mes chers!

Rebecca Ramsey said...

Bon voyage, Alisa!
I'll look forward to keeping track of your French life on the blog!
Becky

La Framéricaine said...

Ooooohhhhh! Aaaaaaaahhhhh! It's gettin' closer and closer to blast off! Yippee!!! Hope all is well. See you soon, soon, soon!

islandgirl4ever2 said...

GOSH!! I SOOO just had a flashback of my last week of living in the U.S.!!! But, I shipped MOST of my stuff by boat- so I took a lot of food products with- including a HUGE TUB tin can of refried beans!
I think that when you get to France and settle in, you will find that you do shopping once a week- and the marche' whenever your town has one- either once or twice or more whatever- depending on how much produce you buy.. It's sooo different here....
I can say that I used to "frequent" places like Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and Henry's just for the fun almost every other day and spend a mini-fortune on groceries... Here, I cook actual meals for me and hubby and we don't go out very often to eat... I would rather make our meals than spend a million euros for a semi-good resto... and I am a great cook, so I prefer my cooking to any resto I have eaten in already...
Can't wait to hear how much you guys are loving France.... You will have a great time.. Bon voyage and enjoy your last few days...
P.S. Any local "bio" store should sell peanut butter... and also Monoprix and any other big chain sells--- SKIPPY... or Jiffy or whatever it is...

Leesa

Anne in Oxfordshire said...

How exciting..can't wait to read about your new life in France. :-)

I'm sure you will enjoy it, you might even get to meet expat bloggers :-)

Bruce Anderson said...

Hi everyone,
sorry I haven't been around much, responding to your comments and reading your blogs. Right now I'm sitting on the floor because we don't have any furniture. It's been a crazy couple days! We have tomorrow left and then leave at 4:00 am Wednesday. I'll be back tomorrow with a new post.

La Framéricaine said...

Be sure to stop by Halfway To France for today's post. I finally got us all together!

Needless to say, LeF and I wish you a great road trip and a bon voyage. Cannot wait to see you in France, along with KiMignonne!