Shopping

So in preparation for moving to Europe one of our goals this year is to change the way we buy groceries. Both Sasha and I have spent time living in Paris and Europeans approach grocery shopping differently than Americans. Usually I'll go to Winco once every payday and stock up on all essentials and then go to Safeway or Raleys if I need anything in between. Winco tends to be cheaper but I often end up wasting food because I can't eat it in time. Europeans shop on a daily basis (or every few days) to get the freshest food available. Maybe it has to do with living in a flat that you don't have a lot of room to store food? Or not having a big enough freezer to have an entire pork loin cut into chops just waiting to be eaten? Regardless it seems a more efficient way to do things and it's my mission over the next few months to accomplish it. I say this after just spending $150 at Winco stocking up on meat and fruit and veggies. I'm not a food hoarder but I like to have options. But what sounds good for dinner while I'm making a grocery list or at the store isn't always what I want to cook or eat later in the week. I have, in the past, created a menu for the week. It helps to quantify what I need to buy and how much time I'll need to allot for cooking dinner. So that's an idea, reinstate that system. Then I would need to shop just once a week. I also need to work on my, and my family's, mental approach to food. We have to learn to eat what's in the fridge/pantry. That means that I need to be more creative with my meal ideas. I try to be, I have a million cookbooks, magazines and recipes I've printed offline (or off online? they both sound wrong) and I have grandiose ideas. But when Wednesday evening rolls around it's usually steak, chicken or the aforementioned pork chops. We eat a lot of meat. Always once a day and sometimes for every meal. Not that that's a bad thing. But I don't know how affordable meat will be in Prague so I'd like to decrease our culinary dependency on it. As of now our "vegetarian" meals all consist of some form of pasta, which is delicious but I'd like more of a variety. I also find myself wasting a lot of fruits and veggies that go bad before I can (want to) eat them. So maybe instead of buying 5 bananas at once I buy 2 and go back to the store every few days. Some things to work on...