"Wasted away in Margaritaville"

(Jimmy Buffett reference)

A CSN friend of mine recently posted about waste, (um, food waste...not the other kind, thankfully), and made some valid points that I wanted to expand upon.

I think I have mentioned recently that following Thanksgiving it has been difficult to figure out what is what in the fridges, due to the fact that everything is in rather nondescript containers (and some of the food, to be honest, is rather nondescript: I have to ask my wife ... Um, what is this?).

But D Lewis (my CSN friend, not some celebrity you haven't heard of yet, although that COULD happen) makes a good point about waste in general. When we begin to eat again, we are likely to experience lots of waste of food. Our eyes are bigger than our stomachs (and our stomachs are bigger than our throats). We remember things as they once tasted and are surprised when that is no longer so. We think that, intuitively, this should go down well, and find out that this is not the case.

So there are leftovers. Or, as D Lewis wisely calls it, waste.

In her case, from what I've recently read, she simply told everyone in the family to get over it, that there would be some waste (maybe much waste) and that they would have to live with it. When she was done with something, regardless of how much was left on the plate, it was headed to the disposal or the can. (Not that can, unless she ate it, I guess.)

A great idea!

Me, I have been Ghandi-like in my guilt about wasting. And so, my wife bought containers. Lots of containers. Lots of small containers. And before long, our refrigerators (we have two, just in case, I suppose, there is a nuclear war in our area OR we need extra beer for the relatives) were filled with a boatload of small containers.

As I started on my journey toward food recovery, (I was going to call it food redemption, but that sounded presumptuous, even for me ), I was eating lots of creams of this and creams of that types of soup. My fridge was filling up with tiny containers of leftover soups.

The thing is, you can live on cream of chicken soup for several days (I've proven it), but you don't want to.

Me, I really did not want to waste anything, did not have D's spirit of "Who cares if there are people starving in Ethiopia, I ain't saving this crap." (Not picking on D, not picking on D ).

I sincerely tried to save everything and still do, although I think she is right.

I have found over time that I eventually have to throw stuff away anyway, either because it is unidentifiable or has become a toxic substance. It gets expensive when you have to call in the HAZMAT crew to clean out your fridge.

OR because my wife is not home to tell me whether it is good or bad: I HAVE made cream of cheddar soup with bad milk and even eaten it. I should be on Jerry Springer.

My tendency early on was to eat sort of the same things for days in a row, once I found I could down them. There was the eggs period, and the soups period, and the salad period, and each time, stuff would collect in my fridges: scrambled eggs I hoped to mix with cream of chicken the next day, a salad in a valdalia onion dressing I just KNEW would be pleasant looking the next day.

And now... Thanksgiving leftovers. I have eaten all of the mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, squash casserole, flubber gravy, and whatever that brown stuff was, that I can handle in any one consecutive series of meals.

I finished off the pumpkin pie, not because I wanted it, but to clean something out of the fridge. Next up: the cheesecake.

In the meantime, I am nearly afraid to make anything new. Where would I put the stuff I don't eat? What if I make soup and can't eat it all? Is there room for the leftovers anywhere?

I think D has provided the solution. What I don't eat goes away. At once. (Except for chili, of course.)