Monday, February 14, 2011

another way that i'm looney tunes.

It's Valentine's Day, so I'll start with wishing you a very happy one. I hope you get a lot of chocolate. I hope someone you love supports a local florist because I used to work for one, and like all small local businesses, all of your business is appreciated and needed. I wish you were here to smell the chocolate cake that I'm baking for Mr. Ouiser. So, Happy Valentine's Day.

Instead of talking about romance and gushy stuff, I'm going to regale you with the story of just one other way that I'm totally nutters. And I mean that in the sweetest possible way. It's all about my grocery list. Mundane, yes. A little crazy, absolutely. I got eye rolls from three separate family members that I ran into at the store yesterday.

Here's the process, which I've hinted at before.

I sit down and try to think of a menu for the coming week. Sometimes it's easy. Sometimes I've just got a hankering for chicken and dumplings or fajitas. Sometimes Pioneer Woman has spoken to me in my sleep. But sometimes it's not as easy. Sometimes making a menu requires that I sit down for an hour with a cup of coffee and every single word ever written by Ina Garten, plus my handy dandy recipe binder (aka The World's Greatest Cookbook). However it goes, a menu is made. So the paper has the days of the week and the corresponding night's entrée written upon it.

Somewhere else on the paper, I'll usually already have written down all the basics that we need for the week: milk, juice, bread, nineteen kinds of cheese, Cheerios, creamer.

Then I have to add all the ingredients that I need to make the stuff on the menu. Lots of times I've already got half the stuff, but you know how it goes. You have to look at every recipe (if you're using a recipe), and then you have to think to yourself, "Wait, do I have enough flour to make pizza crusts this week and make bread? Is there enough butter in the house to make four batches of cupcakes?" You know what I mean. You have to prepare. Like a Boy Scout.

Once the list of everything is written out...all the staples, all the ingredients, all the random stuff like deoderant and contact solution that your husband will not tell you he needs until after you've been to the store and therefore you must anticipate...then I have to write it out again. On the other side of the paper.

I have to break down the list into categories. Produce. Dry. Dairy. Meat. Frozen. Other. For the most part, we could get by on produce and dairy...except we need bread and cereal and Eggos. And gummies.

The list works like a charm. I am like a well-oiled machine when I walk into the grocery. Until I run into my family members and they look at my list and wonder where it all went wrong. And then I start to worry that I should seek therapy.

Happy Valentine's Day indeed.

6 comments:

Angie said...

Well, that sounds completely normal to me actually, so maybe it's the other people that are crazy. If the list isn't separated into categories, then don't people spend all kinds of extra time criss-crossing all over the store? Or you would have to scan the list a million times to make sure that you've definitely taken care of all the produce before you leave that section. No thanks. Efficient grocery shopping is cool, not crazy.

mo wask said...

if you are looney-tunes... then so am I. i might not put official category headers on the paper but i chunk all like items together based upon where they are in the store. i want to go in one end of the store and make it to the other without doubling back... EVER and avoid aisles that i don't need to go down.
angie said it well..."efficient grocery shopping is cool, not crazy." amen!

Unknown said...

Uuuuuuummmmm, doesn't everyone do it that way?

OH NO! Does this mean that we're all nutters???

The Perfect Space said...

There's an app for that.

feather nester said...

Agreed! This is further evidence that your FAMILY is nutters, not you! Hee hee!

die Frau said...

Mo Wask, I do the same thing with regard to where they are in the store. I don't re-write the list, but I do many, many of the same things you do, Ouiser.

Who doesn't do this? THEY are the nutters!