Shopping Spree

I don't like shopping. The only actual purchasing I enjoy honestly, involves either books or food. I could spend every last penny on either. I love browsing the gourmet grocery store and the book store with equal lavish abandon.

Because my kids have music lessons in the evening, my husband is home with the littles. I can gallantly volunteer to bring the olders to the music store and spirit myself into another world for the thirty minutes. Sometimes I go to the upscale grocery and stare at the beautiful foods my kids won't eat. Other times I go to the Borders and pour over the new books and imagine my name there.

Then there is the ritual. At the grocery store, I examine the vegetables I've never cooked, chocolates I've yet to taste and fantasize about making a French Onion soup that taste just right or Stromboli on some Friday night just for fun, or artichokes with melted butter that I don't wind up just eating by myself for four days. It's fun to dream.

If I'm at the bookstore, a similar ritual plays out. I pick up at least three political books to read the back cover, a history or two in a fit of dutifulness, and then head to the area I really love.

It happened over time, my love of food and my love of books merged. I noticed it with the book Like Water for Chocolate, and again as I found the cook books I liked best, had stories sprinkled in them like extra ingredients. "The Frugal Gourmet," "The Texas Cookbook" and Don DeLouise's "Eat This, You'll Feel Better" all shared a common thread of tasty mental tidbits in addition to awesome chicken and pasta, deadly delicious smoked burgers and a sponge cake that my kids still ask for whenever I offer them the option.

So now I go to the cook book section and drool.

Over the years, I have amassed a collection of cookbooks that is roughly 50 strong, ten of which are so used that they either have lost a back or pages, or have been repurchased used, as they are out of print. As such, I tell myself, I don't need another cookbook.

For a while, I'd managed to justify getting new cookbooks by restricting my purchases to when we were out of town. If say, we were at a civil war battle field touring and the gift shop touted "Cookbook of the Civil War, Union and Confederate dishes," I'd buy it and say, "We can learn a lot from this about the lives and history of our country." But most of these type of cookbooks, if accurate, are largely filled with recipes more inedible than hard tack. Conversely, if they contained "Cajun Spiced Sushi" or other inventive meal offerings that wouldn't have been found within 100 years or 1000 miles of the historic site offering the book, I can't be bothered. As such, I had abandoned this excuse to buy new cooking tomes and allowed my collection to top out at 51 as of last year.

So when I ducked into the book store and was hit with the sales pitch for Julia Child's Joy of French Cooking as I'd picked up the book "Julie and Julia," it took all my mental will not to plink down the extra forty bucks and get the matched set. But the addictive/suggestive part of my mind had been triggered.

By the time the kids got back in the car, my brain was already firing on the gourmet experience I'd spring on my husband. There were mushrooms and potatoes and fresh cherry tomatoes and chives. The neurons were so busy making connections and plotting the whole meal they didn't register that the cell phone rang so my daughter picked it up.

Their father had treated the kids to some fast food and had some waiting for us at home.

"That's great." I murmured. The kids cheered in the car. My pseudo foodie rush crashed hard.

But I vowed silently, next week I'd be serving artichokes and everyone would be eating them. That, or I'm going back to get those two bonus Julia Child cookbooks.

Man Shop

The battle of the sexes is never more clearly thrown into relief than in the quest for food. There is something of a primal revolution between the hunter/gatherers and the nurturer/growers that takes place when one or the other utters the phrase, “Honey, I’m going to the store, do you need anything?” When this Darwinian battle between male and female is combined with the stated New Year’s Objective to be frugal about spending and only buy what we need, not what we want, there are issues.

First day. Man makes the offer, more as a courtesy, as he already has a preconceived notion of what he will get. Woman responds by saying, “Wait a minute, I’ll make a list.” Man is impatient. Wants to get going. Waits for list. List is left in car. Woman angrily goes to grocery store to get items on list, also feels entitled to free associate spend, after all, he did. Critical items get forgotten until a third necessity shop via running into the 7-11 is done.

Four days later. Man makes the offer. Woman is ready, having pre-prepared the list with legible print. She hands him list and coupons. Man follows list fitfully and willfully ignores coupons due to hassle factor. Woman complains about budget. She shops the next day, uses coupons and gets things, makes a point of how she saved money. Man points out they would have saved more if she hadn’t shopped at all.

Friday. Man is driving home. Gets drafted to shop by Woman via a text message list. Man goes in to get target items only. Man cannot find items on list. Buys every possible alternative he can think of, except the ones that would actually serve as acceptable substitutes.

Weekend. Woman decides to go shopping for the week. Man gives budget. Discusses need to pare down and simplify. Woman goes and gets items SHE KNOWS she will need . Blows budget by a factor of 4. Man shakes head.

The Next Week. Man decides to go shopping next week. Gets items sparingly. Stays in budget. Brings home humble offerings. Woman and man both complain that there aren’t any special things on the menu. Midway through week, order take out the rest of the nights for dinner.

The following week. Woman decides to go shopping and splurges just a little bit, staying mostly on budget, cutting corners where she can and still getting a few extras for a gourmet meal that evening. Man has invited friends over for dinner that weekend. A splurge shop at the high priced gourmet grocery store follows.

The Tipping Point. Man goes to shop with sole stated goal of staying on budget. Comes home with Four gallon Jar of Ragu and seventeen boxes of pasta. “We’ll drink water.” He says. After three days, both go together to the store and buy like drunken sailors.

They also order pizza to eat for dinner, being too exhausted from gathering food to cook.

Next Week’s Battle of the Sexes: The Laundry would take up much less of our time if you just followed my system.