Dog food
Potato chips
My husband uses paper plates and paper towels like crazy! I am now marking on the calendar when I buy the massive packages from Sam’s Club so I can show him how ridiculous his use is.
Bananas
Cinnamon-Rasin Bagels
Honey Nut Cheerios
This menu, or a variant thereof, has been my breakfast for the past 30 years.
Combination of things. We do have a larger house, over 4800 sq feet. Also, in the winter we have space heaters going in our greenhouse and storage shed. Plus radiant floors in three rooms that take a lot of power. Two water heaters, five refrigertors of vavious sizes, two electric cars, and two heat pumps. Plus, we pay extra for “green power” so I can feel a little better about all this.
When COVID struck, we had a hard time finding paper towels in our local store. My BIL works at a restaurant supplier and he suggested buying white multifold paper towels instead. (They were readily available.) Since then, we’ve bought the multifolds by the case (4,000 towels per case) and use them for just about everything we used to use roll towels for. They’re about $40/case.
Rather than try to deal with a dispenser, we purchased a loaf pan and keep the towels in that on the kitchen counter. Just grab as many as you need. At one point, we were a little concerned that they might not be the best thing to allow to come into contact with food, but we then realized that we seldom have any need for them to do that. In our opinion, they are just as good, if not better, than roll towels for most tasks.
Blueberry Chex cereal. It’s getting hard to find, so when I do I buy five or six boxes at a time.
Well, even here in the (comparative) lowlands, it isn’t easy for her. She buys seedlings in pre-spring, raises them at home in a small scale fiberglass greenhouse, then transplants them in later spring to small outside planters while hoping we don’t get ANOTHER late snow, and then finally into raised, soil filled beds (what passes for “soil” in Colorado Springs is laughable) at her garden, under a tight woven enclosure that helps mitigate the sun and extremes of temperature.
Colorado foothills are a semi-challenging location to garden, especially compared to some of the lush valleys around Salida, or the open plains covering much of the rural parts of the state, but a whole lot better than the extremes you see in a lot of the mountain communities.
Yeah, I’m sure Colo Spngs is challenging. All I grow is rocks up here.
You said “beer” twice… For us it’s cheddar–recently discovered the Costco “Coastal” english cheddar which has supplanted the Cabot “Seriously Sharp” in our repertoire.
I shall have to check for that next time I hit Costco - we tend to buy the big bricks of Cabot there.
For us: baby-cut carrots. My husband’s doing, really; he uses them instead of other, less-healthy snacks. He goes through at least 6 pounds a week.
It’s really really good–very sharp, flecks of salt. Not really a melting cheese, though, although we use it for everything. The Costco Gruyere is phenomenal also!
Thats 30 eggs a week, or 15 eegs per person per week, and yes, that is unusual. Not weird, mind you, eggs are good, but unusual.
I love Blkue Crab co "Sea Salt nuts’- which are gourmet peanuts with salt. Crunchy and good.
Pet supplies. Two medium sized dogs, a cat, and until recently a 36 gallon aquarium. Our bags of dog food went from $63 to $73 to $85 to $93, and the last time I was in, $103. We go through one every 3 weeks or so. The cat gets wet food that costs $3.18 per can, plus dry food that costs $65 a bag. Then there’s treats, medicine when needed, grooming, accessories… We’re probably spending $300-$400 per month on our pets.
Healthy: Salad (in season, part home-grown, every day); Charlotte potatoes (home grown - the best); high end sourdough bread; fish.
Less healthy: Beer, whisky, cheese.
Uh - I dunno: French mustard.
j
Sparkling water & Diet Coke. I’m constantly just guzzling a different beverage. If it’s not making my throat tingle with bubbles, it’s not for me.
Tires
You need to get them dogs on Ol’Roy. That’s crazy expensive dog food. Are they on special diets for some reason?
Surprisingly, that combination is delicious. Saute the mushrooms, add a little water to steam the spinach (with a closed lid) then stir in a tablespoon or two of peanut butter. Serve with starch of your choice, though my experience with sadza does it best.
Heh, among dog people Ol’Roy is a joke. It is super cheap. I feed our dogs Merrick, which is expensive but worth every penny.
We’ve been feeding 4Health, but I’m sick and tired of the bags splitting. Once this load is gone, I’ll find something else.
Thank you for that thoroughly fascinating and informative article.
I loved this:
“…the fine granules of the cornmeal that would stick in small clusters on a couple of Ndaba’s [African guide] fingers and his palm, would find their way up my arm, into my lap, in my beard and in my hair. For Ndaba, washing up after eating sadza was a straight forward affair, but I would need to have a shower.”
That would have been me, too. Except for the beard, that is.
ETA: That guy’s whole site is incredible! Worth a look.