Monday Spruce Up-Making Room for Special Foods

 

     I don't even have the turkey thawing yet-in fact it's still at my daughters. The picture above with the roaster is to do a placeholder. I spent a good hour taking every item out of the refrigerator, every drawer every shelf, including the doors. The first thing I put in the empty refrigerator was my big blue roaster.  The pictures were taken to show that I feel like I am finally organized. The  jars of pickles and the veg will be eaten. The apples in the crisper will be made into a pie, the squash and carrots roasted with the sweet potatoes.

     The pantry looks orderly, well stocked and ready for the side dishes that do not t need to be refrigerated like green bean casserole. We've got food for the days leading up to Thursday's  one time a year, at least for my family, traditional meal, knowing we will be eating many meals of leftovers post Thanksgiving. Typing this all out, and looking at the pictures taken help me stay motivated to keep the kitchen storage organized and not a mess. It is reminder that we threw out remnants in bottles and jars, and some pieces of fruit and veg that lingered in the back of the drawers longer than they should have and became food waste. On the pantry shelves, we had expired boxes -not just a month or so which I would still use, but in some cases years. I was a bit ashamed, but know our household is  not alone in buying things that ultimately get scrapped. I also look at these pictures and feel extremely grateful for every item that is there. 

     I writing this post with the Today show on that just featured a story of people waiting hours in a food distribution and voucher line. In some case they were able to give some cash and a young man who said he has been unable to work at his job for a while said the $50 he received will just be enough to get him to when he expects to next work and get some money coming in. He said $10 will go for gas, $10 for food now, and $30 towards trying to have a special meal with his family. The look on his face was one of sadness, but also hope. Hope that this little bit of help will be enough to turn a corner financially. 

     Our  traditional Thanksgiving run long sleeve shirts arrived over the weekend. I think I've shared that our local family service agency  raises almost 50% of its operating budget on this one day event alone which of course, will be virtual. They are pretty much all volunteers, with maybe a paid staff of 2-3, and I believe space provided. It's a food shelf that is set up like a grocery store that patrons can shop for items their family needs and will use. After cleaning out the refrigerator and before writing this post, I went to the site and made another donation of $60, about what I expect I will be spending on our Thanksgiving menu give or take a few bucks. Because the food shelf can buy through a food distribution, the $60 will buy 500 pounds of food or enough groceries for a family of three for I think roughly a month. I remember a statistic, and I can't find it exactly, that cash will buy  something like 10-20X more food than retail because of the way food shelves can buy food. Here was an old NPA program that said something similar. 

     Not everyone can do that though, and food drives are a way to get anyone involved with collecting extra food here and there. You supershoppers I know are awesome at figuring out how to leverage coupons and deals especially for items like household, health, and beauty that is so needed but not part of the low cost food buying program, and make donations of non-food items. (Sluggy shout out here!). There are so many holidays between September and  January, across the globe, across so  many religions and cultures. For my family, this week starts the whirlwind of Thanksgiving to New Years. 2020 will be less a whirlwind, and more of a reflection for me as the parties, the gatherings, the concerts, the dinners out and about are not happening. The spirit though needs to be here more than ever. My cleaned pantry and refrigerator should be the reminder it is that my family has more than most and to never take that for granted.