The Type Who Enjoys Lists....

Before we got married Rhys and I had to go through a series of marriage counseling sessions with the minister who would be holding our ceremony.    I actually really enjoyed these sessions as they usually involved some exercise or test that would shed some light/give me 'light-bulb' moments about Rhys, myself and our relationship.   (Note - the minister stressed not to take these things too seriously as they are only tools to get a general idea about the important talking points for the sessions).

One such light-bulb moment was when the results of one test that showed that Rhys liked to live a less structured life while I thrive on lists, plans and structure.   Why this was a light-bulb moment to me I don't know because it should have been obvious. 

I love lists.   I'll write lists about anything - about things I want, things I want/have to do, things I have done, how I plan to do things to be done..... I can be outlisted and outplanned by no man.   The itinerary I made for my last trip to Japan was a thing of meticulously planned beauty.

So perhaps it shouldn't be a giant surprise that I keep a spreadsheet file on my computer called 'groceries2.xls'



It lists in different sections:

• What was in each of my food connect boxes and the price comparison to woolworths & coles for each one (still doin' well!)
• The information about the latest grocery shop - what was bought? for how much?  who was it for? was it for meals/stock/bathroom necessities/tools/junk food? 
• The total cost of my latest grocery shop and totals on how much I spent (and on what) and Rhys spent (and on what) as well as totals for how much was spent on meals, stocks and junk food. 
• Information about each of my grocery shops since February last year.  Where? when?  who went? total spent?  Cat total spent?  Rhys total spent?  Totals spent on meals, stocks and junk food?

Why bother with all of this ultra-anal-retentive-list-making?

The idea is that it is like a food diary of sorts and that over time you can see patterns or changes in behavior.

An interesting fact made obvious by my spreadsheet is that if I go shopping by myself there is nearly always $0.00 spent on junk food and snacks.  If Rhys or Dan joins me this figure usually changes for the worse!

Another interesting thing I've noted is how much my grocery bill has blown up since I've been eating properly.   But it's also interesting to note how much of each shopping bill is for what I call 'stocks' - i.e. herbs, flour, rice, sugar, sesame oil and other items that will last for a long time and provide for many meals.


But no matter how detailed the list I am not satisfied.  I want more.  My current system means that the finer details of the latest grocery shop is kept, to be overwritten next time I shop.   The broader details kept in the grocery register don't provide me with details like whether I purchased meat (which can really bump up the cost), what was the most expensive item I bought (because a 10L can of olive oil can make a total shopping bill go up drastically!) and other such details that I'd like to keep stored.

What I really want is a database which allows me to store information about each grocery shop linked to an overall register.  This would make the list-maker-detail-storer in me happier than Larry. 

Truly Supporting Local

I really want to support local farmers. A few of the reasons are:

• to boost the local economy,
  
• help out Queensland farmers rather than those in California,
  
• support the smaller guys rather than the corporate giants like Coles or Woolworths (often owned overseas),
• to reduce the 'carbon footprint' by cutting down the distance my food has to travel for me to eat it.

I have already stopped shopping for fruit and vegetables at the big supermarkets and instead attend fruit and veg markets. However, it was disappointing to realise that a lot of the food sold there is not local.

So I was very happy to discover Food Connect, a company which was started in the Brisbane area but now seems to have developed sister companies in Adelaide and Sydney.

These guys connect with local farmers around Brisbane (or Adelaide/Sydney if using their sites) who meet certain organic growing standards. They collect the produce from farmers, drop it to a city support family/person who subscribers can then visit to pick up their order of fresh fruit, vegetables, bread, eggs, drinks, meat, cheese etc.

I already make my own bread and yogurt (more about that on another post!). I hope soon to get laying chickens and get some vegetables and fruit trees working in my little garden. I also want to learn someday how to make cheese. In the meantime this seems like a good option for buying things like cheese from Malaney or the odd piece of meat (which I don't eat that often anymore). Even the fruit and veg is very reasonably priced for what you get - considering all the growers they use must meet organic standards. Buy all that organic produce at a supermarket and you'd pay a small fortune.

I may give them a try out and do a review on here - once I get my life in order post wedding.

Grocery Shopping - aka Why Rhys Won't Go To the Supermarket With Me.

Sundays tend to be my grocery shopping day, mostly because that's when the local markets are run on the peninsula.

These days I always do meal planning first because no matter how cheap beetroots are per bunch, if you have nothing to do with them it's a waste of money and food! On the menu for this week is Tuna Risotto, Fetta and Tomato Salad and, lastly, Roasted Red Capsicum Tarts.

A quick trip to the local fruit and vegetables market and $15 later I had all the vegetables and fruit I needed.

Then.... the supermarket, a place where Rhys no longer treads with me. Why could this be?

To illustrate the whys of this situation I thought I'd make a list of what I bought in Woolworths today and why I bought each item.

AO = Australian Owned
AM = Australian Made
S$ = On special

• Hercules bin liners - got excited that degradable bin liners existed. Spent some time comparing brands offering degradable bags - none AO or AM. S$
• Archibald Honey - Glass (recyclable) jar. AO and AM (other AO company in glass jar was using imported honey). Bulk size. S$
• Devondale UHT Milk (for my next yogurt making attempt) - I find it hard to determine in Devondale are AO and AM - (it says so on their butter products but not their milks?). Tetra pak is recyclable. 1L to prevent wastage.
• Cedel Toothpaste - Only AO, AM toothpaste on the shelves. I dithered for about 4 minutes determining if it was a waste of money (same price for small tube as for a large Colgate tube) and if Rhys would shun an unknown brand.
• Bundaberg Brown Sugar - Determined that it was AM and the only other brand CSR is also AM but neither appear to be AO. So looked at location of production and decided Bundaberg QLD was closer than VIC (CSR) and so was less travel miles to get to me. Larger size as it was cheaper per 100g and meant less packaging.
• South Cape Fetta - Low Fat. AM.
• South Cape Parmesan - more expensive than other brands but only AM that I could find.
• Pampas Shortcrust Pastry - Low Fat. S$. (This is my one regretful purchase because as I was unpacking later I realised that I could have made shortcrust pastry myself easily enough and prevented the unecessary plastic packaging.
• Mirabella Light Bulb - AO. Will plant a tree for every bulb purchased. CFL (Compact Fluorescent Light) uses less energy, lasts longer than incandescent bulbs.
• Nestle Condensed Milk - Low Fat. Buy 3 for $6 - S$. Purchased these as a start to my stockpile (buying non perishables when they are cheap on sale.)

For each item on the list above I spent time looking at all available products, checking for cheapest prices, checking packaging to see if anything was Aussie made/owned, considering packaging (recyclable? biodegradable? bulk? individually wrapped?), considering health (low fat? low sugar? more fibre? vitamin fortified?). THEN there was dithering time added. THEN there was the time I spent doing this for other products that I didn't end up buying at all (e.g. olive oil).

And that level of anal retentiveness, good people, is why Rhys (and most other people) won't grocery shop with me anymore.

I don't think everyone should have to put that amount of thought and deliberation into their grocery shopping but I do think our environment, economy and health would be in a better way if we all did.

Weekend Business

Beacause I tend to ramble.... key words in the post below have been highlighted to allow for quick scan-reading for the lazy.

Saturday...
saw a bit of shopping for the imminent arrivals of our newest family members, two little Devon Rex kittens.

I also took the chance to head to Bunnings to get the gardening supplies I've been wanting to get for a while. Oh... and Rhys wanted a catnip seedling kit so that went in the trolley too. All up, pet and gardening goods totalled $140, a lot of money for me to spend in one hit these days.

Once home I gave my potted basil a much needed transplant into two ceramic pots. They were so root-bound I felt ashamed for having neglected them all this while. I am wondering how well they will survive transplanting with, admittedly, plenty of torn roots in trying to separate them. I opened and started the catnip growing kit. I then raked up the back-yard after Rhys had mowed and collected the liquid fertiliser from my worm farm. Phew! But it was a good day to be out and in the sunshine.

Some laundry, washing up and a clean of the shower thrown in there somewhere.

Sunday...
I quickly made a food plan for the week then hit the local market and supermarket for the fortnight's groceries.

Sometimes I find it amazing how quickly money adds up. $20 here for a set of decora containers, $20 there for some women's multi-v tablets, $10 here for some bread flour and $5 for peppercorns in a mill and suddenly I'm up at a $98 supermaret bill! I haven't seen a shopping bill that high for a while and I became skittish as I watched the tally rise. But I reminded myself that everything in the trolley was needed and it was just unfortunate that I had to buy them all at the one time. The total between the markets and supermarket of $125 is still less than my budgeted allowance for food for the fortnight so all is well.

Once home I put on the breadmaker, made some gnocchi, made some cookies, experimented with how to alter bought natural yoghurt to make it more to my tastes and started my first attempt at making yoghurt.

Unfortunately this morning show my first yoghurt attempt to be a failure. The consistency was was more like those delicious yoghurt drinks you can buy and when I began to strain it through muslin I realised that any yoghurt solids remaining wouldn't be worth the amount of milk wasted in the attempt. I must have done something wrong. I think perhaps it was too cold overnight so the bacteria's process was halted. I'll buy some more milk later this week and try again but this time early in the morning to cure in the warm oven during the day. Anyone have any tips for making it work better next time around?

On the other hand the cookies, my own recipe creation, were a raging success - at least with Rhys who I had to smack away from the cookie jar. I fear to look and see what damage he did late at night once I was asleep!

Also, my gnocchi attempt was successful. I use the term 'successful' rather loosely as though the result was pretty darn delicious once baked with a cherry-tomato and white wine sauce it didn't seem worth the amount of fiddly, time consuming work involved in making the gnocchi.

Vaccuming in the late afternoon finished off the day nicely.

Such a lot of weekend business!