Cooking and shopping

Using a communal kitchen has been teaching me all kinds of lovely new disciplines and totally clearing my system of the "years and years I cooked for six people and never quite go over it" syndrome.

First of all, I miss having a big family. They were some of my happiest days. I even loved the challenges. So in the ensuing years as the kids ( and husband) have peeled off, I have kept the tradition of cooking ahead big meals and eating off them.

Suddenly finding myself with minimal refrigerator space and even smaller shelf space, I have had to rethink everything. Oddly enough it has generated better eating. I pay attention to each meal with more consciousness. What I'm eating is space related.

So, making sure I have more veggies and fruits than other carbs becomes easier. Variety is more rotatable --to create a new word.

And because others are involved in the kitchen, I have had to be very aware of when I'm cooking big and when I'm not so as not to add to the burden of other people as they speed about the details of their lives and also prepare their food.

Learning how to cook with others rhythms and still feel like I have a routine has been a work in progress, but this week I think I have it. I'll have to 'cook down' a bit with my inventory this week, but I think I'm getting the equation of how much to buy/how much to eat in proportion.

It all reminds me of when I was seventeen and keeping a household with family in England. The daily shopping trip was just part of the rigors of having a postage size fridge and a hungry family consisting of grown man, myself and elementary age children.

So this week, I stood in front of the deli counter and calculated that while $7.00 seemed extreme for a gigantic hoagie, it was in fact the cheaper way to go than buying all the individual ingredients, condiments and bread and storing them awkwardly in the kitchen. I also reminded myself that eating off it for four days would not be unpleasant. Done and done. check. lunch.

This morning I really wanted my lazy Saturday big breakfast and realized with fewer people working on Saturday, it probably would be an OK time to fix French toast with a side of vanilla yogurt and thawed frozen blueberries. Ta Da! One relaxing brunch before the daily type fest, all consumed while listening to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me".

Thoughts drifting to the future, I realized when I get a forever home, I DO want to have a breakfast bar. I like eating at the one in the kitchen in which I now cook.

So with some leftover ground turkey still to cook, a fully cooked half breast ,onion, bag o' baby carrots, already cooked noodles from pasta with Parmesan last night, I see the makings of stroganoff and some turkey noodle soup for early in the week.

It will be interesting to see what vestiges of these habits I take into my forever home, whenever that happens. For now, I have the luxury of thinking only about the words that have been inside of me longing to find their way to print. It's a life I currently love!