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December 3, 2005
Do You Always Walk Around With a Knife Hanging Down Like That?
So said the pleasant sales woman at Ten Thousand Villages store to MR as I purchased our fair trade hazelnut coffee. I was amazed at how long it took someone to notice that a skinny and otherwise non-menacing orange man was carrying around a large kitchen knife. There is an explanation: we had gone to several stores along the street to find somewhere that would sharpen knives, and much to our frustration, no one did it on the spot. MR wasn't about to part with his favorite salad-chopping device for ten days while it got sent out to a knife sharpening place, so we took it home, but not until we'd done a fair amount of shopping knife in hand.
Shopping with April and MR is always fun, at least it's fun for us. We did a Whole Foods and Trader Joes run early this morning to beat the crowds. There are so many advantages to being morning people. Whole Foods was quite pleasant minus the crazy crowds, and we enjoyed our usual habit of kissing in the produce section without fear of blocking others as they reached for their napa cabbage.
We stocked up on fresh veggies at Whole Foods, then meandered to Trader Joes to pick up frozens, eggwhites, and dairy. We were disappointed to see that a lot of dairy items we were hoping to get at good prices at Trader Joes were not available in organic. With the amount of dairy I eat, I'm trying to go all-organic, so we'll have to bite the bullet and pay Whole Foods (aka Whole Paycheck) for the expensive stuff. Our shopping trip was overall highly successful, and I'm looking forward to cooking a leisurely Saturday night dinner tonight.
For lunch I made a quick and easy veggie dish for MR out of a bag of TJ's harvest hodgepodge, 80 grams of cooked eggwhites, a half cube of no salt vegan veggie broth (Rapunzel brand) a half teaspoon of olive oil, and a few shakes of low sodium soy sauce and garlic powder. On the side I served pears cooked with cinnamon and Grains of Desire spice grinds, then topped with a half teaspoon of hazelnut oil and 16 g hazelnuts.
Tonight I am planning a fancy dinner, but I can't tell you about it because it's a surprise for MR and I don't want him to read the blog while I'm not in the room and find out what it is. Details after all is said and done, or cooked and eaten!
Posted by april at December 3, 2005 12:48 PM
Comments
Hi April,
Since you bring up shopping, a question for you: do you find that you spend more money on groceries now as opposed to when you ate ad-lib? As a single CR practitioner (before the days of the 2-to-1 MR and April portions), what was the minimum weekly or monthly amount you had to spend on groceries? Could a mostly-broke grad student make the jump from ramen noodles to eggwhites and organic veggies and still cover rent?
I've been enjoying your blog for well over a year now -- thank you!
Kara
Posted by: Kara at December 3, 2005 2:30 PM
Kara, I know that my grocery bill is definately a little more expensive now (maybe 20% higher), but I eat out less and eat less food in general, so I don't think it chanegd much on balance.
Posted by: Aaron at December 3, 2005 4:54 PM
What?!? He wasn't immediately surrounded by armed guards and hauled away as a terrorist? I'm amazed. On a more serious note, there are mobile knife-sharpening services here (mainly for restaurants) that he might seek out, or try calling a specialty knife or kitchen shop. JD
Posted by: Judith at December 5, 2005 8:20 PM