Klatsch: a week without shopping

[Klatsch team]

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Welcome back to the eGullet Klatsch Series! A Klatsch is "a casual social gathering for conversation," an opportunity to discuss a current culinary adventure with the eGullet community. For more information, see the Klatsch Announcement; you can ask questions here.

In this installment, Steven Shaw ("Fat Guy") challenges you: go without shopping for a week and live on the bounty that's already in your fridge, freezer and pantry -- but we'll let him fill you in on the details.

Tomorrow we'll be posting some simple rules for the challenge, so stay tuned!

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Do you have something coming up in your culinary life that you think would make a great Klatsch? Head over to the Klatsch Announcement page and review the information there, and then send a PM or e-mail to the Klatsch Team!

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(Just a reminder that all of the regular eGullet Forums rules apply to the Klatsches: we are here to discuss food and cooking-related subjects, so hosts will be working to make sure the discussion stays on-topic.)

[Fat Guy]

Thank you, dear Klatsch team, for that kind introduction.

Hello people.

Like many, or perhaps most, people in Western industrialized nations I shop for groceries once a week. Sure, I supplement with trips to smaller stores, greenmarkets and the like on an as-needed basis, but I do my main shop at a supermarket. In my case, that supermarket is Fairway on Broadway between 74th and 75th Streets in Manhattan. My family has been shopping there since I was a little kid, and ever since I moved back to New York City after graduating from college in Vermont in 1991 I have been going to Fairway most every Sunday morning to shop with my mother. Sometimes things come up. I may be out of town, or back when I had a real job I often got too busy to shop. But for the past 18 years I have gone most Sunday mornings to Fairway with my mother, and for the past 10 years we have rarely missed a Sunday.

The drill is that I get myself over to Fairway either by bus, on foot or by taxi. (I live on the Upper East Side; Fairway is across town on the Upper West Side; my mother lives just a few blocks from Fairway.) I meet my mother there, we shop (independently, for the most part), then we load all our stuff into a taxi. I drop my mother at her place, and then I take my stuff home in the taxi. The taxi costs about $12, but we easily save more than that by shopping at Fairway instead of the supermarkets near where I live -- and we get much better stuff, because Fairway happens to be one of the best supermarkets in the world.

In the past three years, my son PJ has become part of this equation. Shopping at Fairway every Sunday morning with grandma is a highlight of his week. But I digress.

A few months ago a Sunday came around and we had plans that made shopping impossible. I figured, okay, I'll just go on Monday without the team. But when I went to make dinner on Sunday night, I noticed that my freezer and cabinets were overflowing with edible foodstuffs. Why was I saving all this stuff, when I could be eating it? I resolved just to skip my grocery shopping for that week and eat what was around.

We ate quite well that week, though the last couple of dinners reminded me of the 14-day Atlantic-crossing repositioning cruise on the Windstar, where you start off with an abundance of fresh produce but as you progress toward Portugal things like lettuce start disappearing from your meals until you're basically on the Atkins diet for the last few days. (Well, the version of the Atkins diet where you also can eat lots of freshly baked breads.)

But it got me thinking . . .

Surely I'm not alone in having a freezer and pantry full of food, much of which will get thrown out as it expires over the course of the coming months and years. Indeed, I live in a small apartment. People with houses, basement freezers and walk-in pantries surely have far more of this stuff lying around than I do. Surely I'm not alone in having overbought at the supermarket last week. Surely I'm not alone when I get home from the supermarket and can barely fit the new food in the refrigerator because there's so much of the old stuff. Surely I'm not alone in being able to skip a week of shopping and still eat well.

So let's do it again, together. Let's all skip a week of shopping. Let's declare national eat the stuff in our freezers and pantries week.

Think about it from an economic standpoint. Times are tough right now. If you spend $100 a week on groceries, this experiment will put $100 back in your pocket quicker than you can say stimulus. If you're home 50 weeks of the year and you perform this experiment once per quarter, you'll reduce your grocery bill by 8%.

So this Sunday, I'm not going shopping. And whether you shop on the weekend or on another day, I'm asking you not to shop either. Instead, let's eat all the stuff we already have around. And let's talk about it, compare photos, help one another figure out what to do with that jar of giardiniera or that packet of pilaf.

I'll be starting my week-without-shopping diary on Sunday. If your normal shopping day comes sooner, feel free to start ahead of me. The parameters for participation will be posted tomorrow.

[Chris Amirault]

All right, I'm in. Kicking and screaming, but I'm game to try it. I confess that I've already started thinking about whether I can justify the need for citrus fruit to address my scurvy problem. The fact that most citrus in the house makes its way into my evening cocktail is coincidental.

I need some clarification regarding rules flexibility. We're talking about not having that one big shop for the main meals and sides, yes? With two kids and an adult addicted to morning cappuccino, it's impossible for my house to operate without 2% milk, for example, and I'm not going to do without dishwasher detergent if we run out. But I'm willing to promise not to buy any proteins, produce, or prepared foods for the week.

That pass muster?

[MikeHartnett]

Was that 2 kids who like milk and an adult addicted to morning cappuccino, or all 3 family member addicted to morning cappuccino?

ETA: I can't possibly do this. As a student with enough free time to shop more than an average person, I can't bring myself to decide what's for dinner earlier than the morning of... Maybe the day before at the outside.

Edited February 19, 2009 by MikeHartnett (log)

[nakji]

Well, it wouldn't be possible for me to go a week without shopping, since my kitchen is so small, I only keep a day or two's worth of groceries on hand as it is. My fridge isn't even big enough to pass muster as a bar fridge to most North Americans.

But I'll be happy to play along with suggestions to help people use things up.

[Fat Guy]

All these questions and more will be answered in a forthcoming guidelines document. Soon.

As a side note, there's talk of this on the New York Times "Diner's Journal" blog and on Eater.com. I hope as many of you as possible will participate.

[elfin]

We have actually done this but not on purpose. An outdated ready to toss out packed freezer coupled with an overstocked pantry and busy schedule prompted the store 'boycott' two years ago. I did not want to waste anything and the pantry was overflowing with stuff I had not used for years. Our pantry was full of canned soups, canned corn and baby peas, tuna, pasta, olives, chipotles, and Kraft (aka'Crap' )mac and cheese. We always have basics- eggs, onions, garlic, celery, carrots and potatos and apples and cheese. If I recall our only fresh veggie was broccoli. I made pies with the berries I had frozen, we cooked the meat-pork chops, hamburgers, hot dogs, italian sausage, and pot roast and I made a sauerbraten that we ate at the end of the week. My husband would eat the mac and cheese while I ate the soups. I would have done some casserole things but he does not like these kinds of dishes. The only thing that we missed dearly was fresh bread. I had all the ingredients to make bread except for yeast and frankly I am not a bread maker and do not have the time to do it. We made a lot of pasta in different ways ( and our favorite was the one with anchovies (that sole tin way back in the cupbaord)and olives and Romano cheese. We did pick up milk and beer at the train station Osco (now CVS)for our kids. Now I find ourselves over stocked again! I thought it was fun and it saved some money but my husband's memories are not so fond.

[SobaAddict70]

I've actually been doing this for quite a while now.

I food shop twice a month. It's an exercise in creativity and frugality.

[JTravel]

I'm really in need of this. I don't think I am playing fair though as I shopped yesterday at "day old" bakery, Asian market and Aldi's . Maybe I have to go a 2nd week.

Big freezer in basement is in need of defrosting so I should be using from that. Cupboards are overflowing. Aside from a gallon of 1% to pick up today I'm set for a LONG time....if the power doesn't go off.

Tonight, for DH a (frozen) boneless porkchop cut from a huge pork loin from Sam's Club and a jar of (closeout) Bush's chili. With lettuce salad. Can you see my cooking efforts are wasted on him? For myself a big bowl of my Chinese style soup that I made on return from market. Broth, ginger, green onion tops, celery (cheap at Aldi's), an old carrot and a dab of tomato paste (from Halal store) from the bottom of the jar. Cooked, strained, a frozen chicken breast added along with mushrooms, green onions, the last of a sad baby bok choi, seasonings. Excellent.

Can you see a theme of "cheap/bargains" not be resisted?

Now, as to the rest of that celery.....

[mssurgeon81]

This is actually quite timely for me too...I've been cooking a bit more frequently of late and was just contemplating how much in the way of leftovers I have stashed in my freezer.

And lord knows I could use the extra $100...

[Klatsch team]

. . . . The parameters for participation . . . .

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1 - No stockpiling. We are announcing this today because we want to get some participation and more people read the forums on weekdays. But that doesn't mean you should go out tomorrow and buy double groceries. Please, go about your normal routine but skip your shopping day.

2 - No endangering your children. If you decide to participate in our experiment but you run out of milk for your child, please just go out and buy milk. Don't worry about it. Nobody is going to hold it against you.

3 - No making yourself miserable. If you really need some more lettuce (or a lemon for your Sidecar) in order to make it through the week without going insane, go ahead and get provisions on an as-needed basis. We're not trying to be totally doctrinaire about this. It's supposed to be fun and save us all a little money at a time when we can use it. And it's supposed to prove a point, not cause chaos, despair and profound awkwardness.

4 - If you decide to participate in this experiment, you're making a commitment to chronicle a week's worth of meals starting on whatever day you normally shop. If you decide not to participate directly, please limit your involvement to cooking and menu suggestions and otherwise constructive commentary. This isn't the place to extol the virtues of shopping every day, buying only the freshest ingredients and letting seasonality and local availability guide your consumption.

5 - Have fun, and keep everyone posted on your progress!

[andiesenji]

This is an admirable project. My routine is normally shopping every other week and I don't have a family but do have friends and neighbors for whom I cook at least once a week. Last shopped on Sunday, 2/15 at Trader Joe's.

I will have to admit to "cheating" with eggs, because they are delivered to my home every week and I use a lot. (local poultry hobby farmer needs to dispose of his excess and I am happy to pay to feed his pets.)

For dinner today I am defrosting some pork medallions in a sherry/vinegar(homemade)/herb and garlic marinade, which will be served with homemade potato gnocchi, roasted root vegetables (roasted a couple of weeks ago and frozen in serving portions) and a salad. (2 guests)

Lunch will be a chicken-salad sandwich made from leftover roast chicken (from Sunday) and some grapes.

[SobaAddict70]

I'll be participating but as the week's already begun and I normally shop on Saturdays, you won't see anything from me until this upcoming weekend. I also bought a bunch of stuff last weekend so I'm working through that.

[Peter the eater]

I'm in.

This is just what I need to put a dent in my weird Asian food drawer -- a neglected stash of impulse items whose labels I can't read.

Friday is fish market so I'll start tomorrow.

[Fat Guy]

Excellent, people! I won't be skipping my shopping trip until Sunday so I too won't be chiming in much until the weekend. Please everybody feel free to join the cycle whenever your schedule presents the opportunity.

I want to emphasize that the idea here is to have fun and eat delicious food, while saving a bunch of money. When I focus grouped this idea, I heard various reactions ranging from "great idea!" to "why would I want to eat canned and frozen food for a week when I live in California and everything is in season all year round?" Let me say emphatically that this is not about eating canned and frozen food for a week. Or, if it is, it's about eating really good frozen food like that extra lasagna my wife made a few months ago that has been taking up 20% of the cubic volume of our freezer.

(If what you want is privation, Eater.com reports that this blogger is trying to eat for free for a week in New York City. Namaste.)

This should be an interesting week for me because right up front on Sunday, the day I normally shop, we have guests coming for dinner. I think this week's salad ingredients will hold, though, and I think we'll be having lasagna.

What I hope to show the world, once we all start posting our photos and descriptions of our pantry meals, is that for a lot of people there's not any privation involved in this experiment. It's more of a fun challenge to our kitchen skills.

More to come.

[David Ross]

What a great challenge. It comes at a good time for me considering the disaster I wrought on my stomach last night. I didn't use my resources appropriately and I suffered for it.

Last night's delicious meal was composed of canned peaches, freezer-burned tamales, (previously canned tamales at that), dill pickle spears and Hershey's kisses left-over from Valentines Day.

That certainly is not the type of meal that Steven is proposing we prepare for next Wednesday nights dinner. (And it is not the type of menu that a self-proclaimed 'food sophisticate' would ever share with anyone but my friends here).

But don't feel sad for poor destitute Mr. Ross. I have plenty of nice things stowed away that I could have pulled out of the freezer had I not felt pity for my tired old self. Feeling sad for yourself means you end up eating the above disgusting concoction. I didn't have to go out and spend money at the take-out, I had wonderful ingredients on hand, I just didn't use them.

The following is a real-life example of what I could have prepared last night had I just done some thawing and pre-planning. (And just maybe the type of dish that we'll see come out of our cupboards and freezers in the coming days).

I have some sweetbreads from D'artagnan in the freezer and a nice pot of homemade preserved lemons sitting on the counter. I've got a head of fresh Napa cabbage in the produce drawer, along with a knob of ginger and some green onions.

What I could have done with just those few ingredients could have turned into "Crispy Sweetbreads" with a "Napa Cabbage Slaw with Preserved Lemon Dressing." It would have been fairly quick to saute the sweetbreads and slice the cabbage and it wouldn't have cost an extra penney. (Sans having sweetbreads on hand, I could have done the same dish using the chicken breasts I have in the freezer).

So I'm onto the challenge and look forward to seeing the whimsical and delicious creations that we'll come up with.

[Katie Meadow]

This a great experiment; I do it on a small scale every week. Typically we do our big shop on Sunday. Usually by Friday and always by Saturday we are into "kitchen sink" or scrounge mode and I get very creative. But I could never survive this challenge, and here's why:

We buy almost no canned or jarred or frozen foods. (And that's not a "why would I in California" whine!) We used to buy lots of Italian canned plum tomatoes, but I can't eat tomatoes right now. Anyone who has a pantry full of San Marzanos and a few boxes of pasta can probably make it through the week--if they are allowed to buy milk. Nothing like milk and cereal for dinner--too bad, no blueberries or bananas! Anyone who usually overbuys can probably make it too.

We also don't freeze any pre-made meals or any meats. My small freezer now contains 1 bag of edamame, several quarts of stock, and what's left of a bag of stone-ground grits--about 1 cup. We don't buy crackers or cookies or chips. (Okay, yes, I indulge in Panzanella once in a while, but no longer on a regular basis!) 90% of our pantry items are carbs, most used for baking bread. So yeah, we could bake a few loaves and eat nothing but peanut butter sandwiches, chicken broth, rice and popcorn all week. And I would start with a major deficit: by week's end I'm lucky if I have two zukes and a potato in the veg drawer.

How are you factoring eating out? No one should be allowed to eat out more than they usually do, at least. We don't eat out ever, and that includes lunches. My husband bags his, and I eat leftovers. The two of us can't make it on one bag of edamame and two zukes and no other vegetables. If my normal budget included two or three dinners out and all lunches out I might be able to survive this.

I would do pretty well if a future challenge went like this: do the weekly shop, no further shopping allowed all week, no eating out, and you use up everything you bought, ending up with empty shelves in the fridge (except for condiments of course)--no rotten food, no waste. I'll wait for that one!

Good luck to all on this one!

[Fat Guy]

My battle plan for the week is starting to take shape, though it's not possible to have a set-in-stone plan given the unpredictability of my schedule. There will surely be some meals out of the house, some unanticipated preferences by the wife and three-year-old son I cook for, etc. Plus I still have three more eating days before my non-shopping day, thought tonight we'll be out for dinner.

As an overall strategy I'm focusing on dinner. That's the main meal of the day around here, when we all sit together at the table on most nights and have a real meal. I think creating the centerpiece dish for each of those meals will be relatively straightforward, as long as I get the timeline organized. I see in my freezer a piece of brisket that is begging to be made into chili, some chicken breasts that can have something done to them, a whole lasagna that we'll serve to guests on Sunday night, some hot dogs, some frozen ravioli, a ton of bread products, some frozen peas, corn and broccoli, and plenty of reduced beef and chicken stock.

There are also some things toward the back of the freezer that I can't even see, so maybe there will be a discovery or three. In the cabinet I have an embarrassment of beans, lentils, rice and pasta. Lots of tomato products. Above the refrigerator, plenty of onions and potatoes, and maybe enough garlic. I have to coordinate all that into seven main dinner dishes, then flesh it out with starches and whatever fresh vegetables are still in the refrigerator and will survive the longest.

Breakfasts and lunches are a simpler proposition. Most days breakfast is something like yogurt or an egg, and there's plenty of that around. I can see lentil soup taking shape from the pantry ingredients, so that should cover some lunches. On three days this coming week I'll have to pack a portable breakfast, lunch or both for my son -- that's usually sandwich-type stuff. For lunches at home I anticipate plenty of dinner leftovers.

I'm thinking there are enough of the relevant ingredients around to make some cookies or something along those lines, but I'm not the baker in the household so I'll need to get a second opinion there.

I'm already starting to see where we're going to have problems: 40+ weeks of the year I have enough eggs and butter in the fridge to carry over for at least a week or three, but right now those supplies are kind of thin. I'm going to need to think about how to allocate those.

Monday I'm going to need to prepare dinner for the family but I'm not going to be here -- I have to go to Philadelphia for the afternoon to judge the Philly Cooks! event. So I'll be fed there but my family responsibilities will remain. At this point I have no other meals away from home planned for the week, but you never know what will happen. If I only have one meal out that will be a lot less than in a normal week.

The travel day so early in the week, and the company on Sunday night, introduce a little weirdness into my cycle here, but the way we did this was that in order to keep me honest the Klatsch team sprung this on me yesterday. I proposed it a while back, but they didn't want to give me too much warning lest I stockpile. It so happens they caught me at a challenging moment. Which is good, because the last time I skipped a week of shopping it was too easy. This will be more of a challenge.

[alacarte]

Good luck! I wonder if the stores will notice a downtick in sales this week.

Anyone remember Pete Wells' article in Food & Wine a couple of years back? I'll have to find a link. He journaled a similar "survivalist" week, where he ate only what was in the house, no shopping allowed. If I remember correctly, the final epiphany was the pain of peeling a found bag of tiny onions, and the joy of slowly caramelizing them and eating them pissalidiere-style.

Can't wait to see what everyone else's epiphany turns out to be.

[SobaAddict70]

So I thought it'd be helpful if I detailed the current contents of my pantry keeping in mind that there are a few things that I'm in the process of consuming, not to mention there was a big shopping trip last Saturday. I'll be using this as a point of reference throughout the experiment.

I'm only listing "must-use" consumables and some dried goods between now and the next shopping trip. I've left a few things off the list such as a couple tins of oatmeal. I could probably survive for the next two weeks on oatmeal alone but that would be boring. Staples like olive oil, chicken stock and spices are a given.

gnocchi*

fettucine

rigatoni

tilapia fillets*

whole organic chicken

potatoes (various kinds)

yellow carrots*

regular carrots*

parsnips

turnips

Swiss chard*

cabbage

celery

leeks

wild mushrooms (oyster, cremini)*

regular onions

cippolini onions*

garlic*

ginger

sage*

parsley

eggs

navel oranges

unsalted butter*

milk

RG beans (various kinds)

lentils (various kinds)

rice

olives

anchovies

P-R cheese

coffee ice cream

fromage blanc

Anything marked with a single asterisk is slated for dinner in the next two days. And very likely I won't use all of it in one shot.

There's also a pot of risotto that I'm slowly finishing off.

One other consideration: I don't have a microwave so you won't see much in the way of leftovers.

edit: added a couple of things

Edited February 19, 2009 by SobaAddict70 (log)

[Fat Guy]

Anyone remember Pete Wells' article in Food & Wine a couple of years back? I'll have to find a link. He journaled a similar "survivalist" week, where he ate only what was in the house, no shopping allowed. If I remember correctly, the final epiphany was the pain of peeling a found bag of tiny onions, and the joy of slowly caramelizing them and eating them pissalidiere-style.

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I figured somebody, or a million people, must have thought of this first. At least there's no shame in being scooped by Pete Wells. Just please don't tell me that Guy Fieri dude has done anything on this.

[andiesenji]

Regarding milk needing to be purchased more often. I always buy two types of milk. Trader Joe's Organic low fat and Lactaid whole milk. All of the Lactaid milk varieties have extended sell-by dates and they have excellent keeping properties. The two half-gallons I bought last Sunday have a sell-by date of March 31! One of the two half-gallons of TJ's low fat Organic is 2/27 and the other is 3/02 and it will be easy for me to subsist on those until it is time to shop again.

I began using the Lactaid milks a few years ago because one of my friends, who visits often, is lactose intolerant but has no problems with these products.

It does have a slightly sweeter taste, which I find is beneficial because it means one does not need to add sugar to cold or hot cereals, a plus for diabetics such as me.

Also, remember the "Cleaning out and Cooking from the Pantry" (not the true title) topic from last year? I did have fun with that one also. And, there were some very clever and inspirational recipes posted.

I found the thread about Pantry stocking & etc.

Edited February 19, 2009 by andiesenji (log)

[Fat Guy]

I was thinking that if I had milk slated to expire next week I could put some in the freezer on Sunday and dole it out.

Then I realized that I have two cartons of ultrapasteurized Organic Valley milk, purchased two Sundays ago, dated March 5. And in the cabinet I have . . . powdered milk. I guess back when I went through my yogurt-making phase I bought two big boxes of the stuff. I hope we don't get to the powdered-milk stage but if we do I doubt our son will mind for a couple of days. I think I may have some Parmalat milk-in-a-box too, though I don't actually see it anywhere.

[daisy17]

I like this.

But I don't think I will join in. I live alone in NYC (small kitchen, not a lot of storage space) and I don't buy a lot of prepared/packaged/canned foods. I also don't freeze proteins, I just buy what I need when I need it. (I've been cooking a lot lately, but what I buy gets used up pretty much immediately.) At any given time all I have in my freezer is an Amy's burrito and half a pint of frozen yogurt. So I would probably die. But I look forward to reading your results.

Fat Guy, do/can you freeze milk? I've often wondered about this when I'm standing in my kitchen on a Sat morning with the coffee in the french press and realize that my milk is spoiled and I really don't want to go out and get more.

[Fat Guy]

Milk, in my limited experience, freezes very well.