May 3, 2007
It’s Time For: Everything I Know About Salmonella I Learned From Reading Bossy.
The other day Bossy went to the supermarket and put twelve items in her cart and the man at the checkout told Bossy to fork over one hundred dollars.
Minutes later Bossy was unloading her grocery bags into kitchen cabinets that already contained most of the pantry items she just purchased. This made Bossy scratch her head. Of course that was just dandruff brought on by cheap supermarket shampoo — the real issue here is surplus.
Bossy and her family typically eat fresh seasonal food purchased daily, which Bossy’s friend Amy likes to call European-Style Shopping but Bossy likes to call Will This Business Of Trying To Figure Out What To Have For Dinner When I’m So Bored Of Cooking I Could Pass Out Never End?
Regardless of her shopping style, the plain fact is that over time Bossy’s freezer and cabinets have become overrun with things she regularly avoids using or forgets she has. Which leads us to this little experiment:
Bossy’s Cook The Entire Contents Of Her Cabinets Challenge!
From now until her cupboards are as empty as Ventura Avenue on Yom Kippur, Bossy is going to prepare dinners incorporating those very
ingredients not worth using back when they were first purchased!
Bossy isn’t saying she won’t supplement the meal with fresh fruit and vegetables, because a meal without a salad is an eal. Or a mea. But what Bossy is saying is she’s going to use every one of the rusted cans and freezer-burnt roasts that have been squirreled away in her kitchen since the Eisenhower administration. Because that’s Bossy’s commitment to you, her readers reader.
Shall we have a look? This is Bossy’s freezer:
That photo doesn’t quite capture the fact that if you go into the freezer to fetch an ice pack for a broken hand, a package of basil ravioli will fall out and break your foot.
This is one of the cabinets:
And this is the other cabinet:
On the very first night of Bossy’s Cook The Entire Contents Of Her Cabinets Challenge! she assembled the following items:
She sautéed some stuff:
Then she sautéed some more stuff:
And finally it was a mass of green goo complete!
Which leads us to tomorrow night’s challenge:
It’s seven o’clock in the morning and I am trying to figure out why there’s pasta and Cheerios in the freezer.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!! Teach me O wise one! I too have cuboards of “why’d I buy this?” I hate to cook, the family hates to eat my cooking, and yet we torture each other every night. Lately I’ve been having wine with a side of wine and tell them to fend for themselves. Keep me posted. I promise to take prisoners (I mean notes)
Do you want the contents of my frige and cabinets, too?????
Hey, Bossy, how did you get into my house and photograph the inside of my freezer???
is gafilta fish supposed to have a green furry coating? I have never gone fishing for gafilta. When does gafilta fishing season start in PA?
Hey!
It’s GEFILTE FISH! Not GAFILTA!
I too would like to know why there are cheerios in the freezer. And when you’re done eating through your cabinets/freezer, come to my house and have a gander. I have a frozen cryovacced pig tail in my freezer – what should we do with it? (I like taking it out to scare guests with.)
I see a cookbook in your future. It will be a best seller. Because what you are really selling here is Complete Fantasy – the fantasy that the food you spent $50,000 collecting (capers! Such optimism!) will not be scorned by your children and left rotting in your overstuffed freezer, but instead will be assembled into Elegant Meals that you will consume with good wine, surrounded by the people you love. Hah! Better pour a big glass. There is your title: Bossy’s Big Glass of Wine Fantasy Cookbook. Where can I pre-order?
Why does Bossy have Cheerios in her freezer you (allllll) ask? Because apparently none of you have heard of Bossy’s Giant Rodent. You know – the rodent who slipped into Bossy’s house through a gi-normous hole in her screen porch, the rodent who enjoys a nice bowl of cereal while reclined on the sofa watching Shear Genius?
Giant rodent= Princess Bride = pirates and wuv, twoo wuv. So, now I’m just free associating.
It strikes me that my mother’s goal in her plan every meal on Thursday night, go to the market on Friday morning, cook and feed us daily routine wasn’t to actually use the entire contents of her cabinets –Each Week! So, Bossy, I wonder if this isn’t a move back to a simpler (more primative, patriarchal, traditional, pointy bra’d, and girdled) time?
Bossy gets back to basics…
You have chick peas, chicken broth, canned pumpkin, rice and canned artichoke hearts (in water)? You get back to me and I will give you a great recipe. Oh, and turmeric.
‘kay, wait. Let’s back up a bit and consider Bossy’s Giant Rodent. Herein, methinks, lies the solution to your problem. Why not let the little bugger loose, encourage him to invite a couple friends, supply him with beer, cigars, and some rodent porn, and let the party commence? Within a few hours, you most likely will be able to start from scratch all over again and this time, be much more mindful about what you toss in the cart.
I think the ones that live in the Delaware river are Gafiltas
What is a sausage sweet it?
Who freezes cheerios and why?
What EXACTLY does teen son have frozen in there?
I can help with the capers.
OK, so like, Sausage Sweet It is clearly Sweet Italian Sausage. Bossy’s husband scribbled that culinary reminder and so what if maybe Bossy’s husband Dyslexic is.
Next: Bossy is teaching her teenage son how to cook! Here’s how: she buys him frozen macaroni and cheese and threatens his life if he forgets to remove the plastic film.
Also: You say Gafiltas, Bossy says god bless you.
Cheerios in the freezer? I got that beat! Salt shaker and empty coffee pot in the fridge. No, not because of a rodent but because I have no logical reason for accidentally rearranging my house. The inside of my brain may just look like Bossy’s pantry!
Hubs and I both cook during the week, and one day a week, we take all the leftovers and make something that uses all of those. It’s usually pretty good, but sometimes it’s one of those “I could have had a V-8″ kind of thang! I am a “gatherer hunter” type personality, so I go to the store a lot like you do Bossy. Only? We have all this canned stuff, but not enough meats to with it. Sometimes it’s a challenge I tell ya! Good thing hubs will eat just about anything I put in front of him. Just sayin’..(heh) You just slay me on the daily yo! Love, love, love it!
Your story reminded me of the freezer at my brother’s house. He was learning to become a taxidermist (??why??) and had some various rodent road-kill type carcasses wrapped in foil (unmarked – ??why??) for practice. He had a pack of 4 eternally ravenous teens who scavenged every bit of food they could eat and often the kids wouldn’t even leave enough for them to prepare a decent meal (notice the m – we grew up believing salad with dinner was the 11th commandment). Well, one hungrey niece grabbed a foil wrapped package, expecting to find some leftovers and found one Very Large Furry Rodent. You can fill in the details. Result: permanent fridge phobia turned 2 of the 4 teens into permanent fresh food junkies!
Whenever I go shopping I buy lots of things that get consumed very quickly. I never know how to turn groceries into dinner. I’m just not that kind of multiple intelligence. Wine, that would help most of my non-meals seem more satisfying/blurry.
I/m mailing Bossy some food! I et my roast is older than your roast! (Naa naa.)
Nrsng whle I typed tht!
Dear Bossy fans – fan – thank you for your emotional support. Bossy is only a couple of days into the Cook The Entire Contents Of Her Cabinets Challenge! and she has this to say: Where’s the chinese takeout menu?
*shuffles through take-out menus**
I’ve got it here for you, somewhere. You’ll have to order something you can add peas to…
But how do you know how to combine the food without the handy directions on the back of the hamburger helper box? Helper- it’s right there in the name.
Do you have any melamime in there?
Get a neighborhood kid to string those peas. Stretch said strings ( say that 3 times fast) across your new porch.Voila! “green” decorations. Al gore would be proud. It’s a good thing.(I think I just channeled Martha Stewart–either that or the scotch is kicking in)
I bet that sausage would go really well with the Aunt Jemima Waffles. Maybe even some frozen (dry) pasta.
It is obvious that Bossy has a TJ addiction. All the signs are there. Not that I know…
I always buy stuff, then forget I bought it then buy it again. So I’ll have 18 cans of tomato sauce. And sometimes it is the opposite. I’ll think to myself, hey there’s probably 18 cans of red beans, so I won’t buy any. Then when I want to make chili, there’s no beans.
Looks good! I didn’t know you could freeze Cheerios…..
Wait you can freeze pasta?
Why do you not live next door? I will just keep saying that over and over again. Then we could COMBINE FORCES, and I would watch you cook the contents of both of our homes, and keep whipping up Bennigan’s Mudslides or Chi-Chi’s Margaritas in my blender.
….my son froze his dead goldfish.
We found it a few years later.
I think you should have a potluck Bossy.
I won’t bring the dead goldfish, i promise.