I don’t believe in writing a lot of “how to” blogs, but I do believe in sharing my wisdom and experience. And if you want to know how to grow your own mold it’s very simple, be single and buy food at the grocery store.
That’s it. Well, and wait. It doesn’t take long, just a couple days of “no one can eat that much pesto in five days!” and “I thought I’d eat more salad than that.” And “it’s impossible. Cheese IS mold.”
I can’t understand how people keep full refrigerators. How is anything safe to eat?? I keep a couple staples in my fridge, and even those I need to make sure I consume regularly, almost daily. Including tortillas (which dry out) and cheese (which is highly resistant to a second growth of itself in a different form). I eat a lot of quesadillas is what I’m saying.
I keep throwing out condiments too. And I’ve yet to have a loaf of a bread that didn’t wind up in my freezer to stave off any mold. And this from someone who eats at least once slice of toast per day. And it has to be toast, because something has to thaw out the bread!
Tonight I realized I had seven eggs about to go bad. So I boiled them. All well and good, but a boiled egg goes bad too! (Not to mention you get tired of them eventually) so I made egg salad. You know the google estimated lifespan of egg salad? 3-5 days. Which means I’m eating egg salad every day if I want to make good on my investment at the grocery store of all the additional ingredients I bought to make one recipe so my eggs didn’t go bad.
Eating when you’re single is a fine balancing act between “I really love home cooking” and “this isn’t worth it just for me”, and “I thought I loved this until I ate it every day for a week” and “cheese and crackers is a meal, right?”
My biggest weakness, however, is the friend who says, “I’m bringing pizza” or “let’s go for dinner after work”. Because the truth is, it’s hard to say no to anyone because “I need to eat some leftovers.” And it’s hard to defend to someone else that you’re rejecting them for day or week old anything. “I’m sorry, I can’t. I have ham that’s going to go bad so I need to go home and eat a sandwich. You can have one!”
On my birthday I had a salad because it was going to go bad the next day. This is the kind of sad world single people live in.
To remedy this abysmal condition we singles suffer with, a friend of mine suggested that we combine forces once a week and share a meal. My instant selfish response was, “yay, someone making food for me!” closely followed by “I have no idea how to make something that someone else WANTS to eat”. I mean, I make food I HAVE to eat, but it’s because I made it. I’m under no illusions here.
The trouble is that there are serving sizes for single people out there. Don’t Hot Pockets come one serving to a pocket? And yet, buying one of anything is somehow depressing and isolating. Not to mention wasteful. Have you seen the packaging for a solo product? I might as well start my own lonely landfill.
So I buy things the way husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, dutiful children, and grandparents buy things. I buy them from the grocery store as they are normally packaged. And then I plan my week around the things I bought. I plan my days around the meals I need to prepare and where I need to be to prepare them adequately. Can I take it with me in my lunch? Do I need to have it for dinner? How many dinners is it good for?
It’s an exhausting new neurosis I didn’t know I could have. And it’s MATH related. All those story problems from algebra might be handy after all.
And then of course, there are the days when you buy a Marie Callender casserole of scalloped potatoes and ham, throw in a bag of steamed broccoli and call it nutrition, because math is just too hard on a Wednesday.
Notes from the Sea 