Making a grocery list is difficult. I know what we need, as far as our “usual” stuff goes. I just don’t know what to put on it in terms of variety and not crap. I don’t know what to put on it in terms of “new” stuff. Bob and I have been learning as we go when it comes to cooking. When we first met, after we moved in together, we ate out almost all the time unless his dad cooked for the whole house. Eventually we started making things that came out of a box like Rice-a-Roni and Pasta-Roni. We could only tolerate that for so long before we both just gagged at the very idea of eating one. more. meal. of that shit.
We’re trying to expand our horizons when it comes to our menu planning. Trying to venture away from things pre-prepared altogether. But anything that can’t be kept in a two-shelf pantry setting or a very limited freezer space, is pretty much off the table. “Fresh” isn’t really in our cooking vocabulary right now. Not because we don’t want it to be. Mostly because it’s kind of not an option.
It sits in our cave. The freezer doesn’t freeze ice cubes and the top shelf freezes random things at random. “Fresh” foods don’t keep more than a couple of days whereas in a full-size refrigerator you’d get a week or more. Oh sure, there’s a full-size refrigerator in the house. Two of them even. But we live with other people, and they’ve commandeered the fridge space leaving us with the mini-fridge Bob bought before he even met me. We’ve made attempts to claim space in the “common” fridge. It just doesn’t last and it’s not worth the D!R!A!M!A! that tends to ensue to keep up the fight. Trust me.
Lacking refrigerator space aside…we wander the aisles of the grocery store looking for ideas and nothing even looks good to us. I would venture to guess it’s because we know we have so many limitations of what we can and cannot keep on hand for food.
I CANNOT WAIT until we have our own place…our own KITCHEN. Where we have the freedom to fill up the refrigerator with whatever the hell we want. Then? Experimentation in the kitchen? It. Is. ON.
If all goes according to plan, once the lease is up on this place at the end of May, Bob and I will FINALLY be moving into our own place. I love my in-laws, they are my family. But it’s time for us to be on our own.
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