Not Much of a Shopper

I’m not much of a shopper. In fact, I hate to shop so much that I am practically never able to get things on sale. I just can’t stand the jostling and bumping of the crowds. I’m not good at watching ads. I don’t have the patience to dig through piles of whatever to find a matched set. One of the women that I work with can furnish an entire room on $150 and it will look like a magazine cover. She buys broken or unfinished or mismatched and, with a glue gun or paint, she makes it look fabulous. I really admire her for it. That is not me.

For people like me the Internet has been a blessing. I especially like those suggest a gift sites that you can keep putting in filters and key words until you’ve eliminated 138,000 possible items leaving the perfect gift for your favorite nephew or a great friend. Plus, they’ll gift wrap it and ship it for you. I love it.

Still, I find that I end up with a surprising number of things for me that, truly, I could live without. If you remember George Carlin’s riff on stuff, you know what I’m talking about. Craig Wilson writes about a year of not buying anything. I’m intrigued by the thought and am considering adding that into the mix of 2006’s edition of the NEW ME. Already I’m thinking of ways that I’ll have to qualify it. Of course I will still need to buy gifts for birthdays, Christmas, graduations, etc. So I’ll exclude buying gifts for others as part of the not-buying-anything rule. Then, if my weight loss/get fit resolution works out, I’ll simply have to buy new clothes. But that will be ok because that will be necessary buying; I can’t go to work naked.

Other than those few exemptions, I think it would be an interesting experiment. Already I recycled the latest Chef's Catalog even though I really want to get a few of those Scanpans. And I’m totally ignoring the shoe sale at my favorite store. Although that is not too hard since no one makes comfortable, yet utterly cute shoes anymore. But I’m also a gadget junkie and I’ve been eyeing one of those Garmin Forerunner GPS devices for when I start running to get in shape for one of the other ’06 Edition of ME items: a marathon.

Yes, this will be something to think through before signing up. But I like the concept. There is way too much consumption in my life. I wonder if I can stay off of Amazon for an entire year.

A Practically Perfect Day

Today is the last day of my holiday break; tomorrow it is back to the salt mine. The house is a mess. I should be cleaning. I wanted to go to Target to pick up a few odds and ends. I need to update several months of sales data in Quicken. I’ve planned to work out every single day until my birthday. So what am I doing? I’m reading recipes online.

I started off well. I got up, ate a healthy breakfast and came downstairs to sort through piles of papers. Once I sorted everything into stacks I just checked Salon and HuffPo to see if anything was going on even though I’m listening to NPR and know that everyone is in holiday mode. The next thing I know, I’m on Cooks.com checking out Chicken Saltimbocca recipes.

I love to read recipes and to shop in kitchen stores. Give me a Williams-Sonoma catalogue and I’m in heaven. My sister-in-law sends me Wegmans magazines as gifts even though there isn’t one within driving distance. No trip to Barnes & Noble is complete without checking out the cookbook section to see what is new and exciting or the magazine section to see if a new Fine Cooking magazine is on the shelf.

I’m not sure how the recipe reading evolved, but I got this love of food from my husband. My mother was a good everyday cook. Her biscuits were light and fluffy. She could make the lightest coconut cake. Her fried chicken was incomparable. But she wasn’t creative or imaginative. If it was Wednesday, it was Tuna Roll. Years later, with a job and family of my own, I can understand her lack of imagination, if not totally appreciate it. With a cranky boss, limited budget, and hungry kids to deal with, who can come up with a new exciting menu?

My husband is from Chicago. He grew up with all kinds of choices of food, many of which were not fried. It was only after I married him that I was exposed to so many new foods and cooking methods. I had never eaten corned beef. Steak had to be well done. Pizza was by Chef Boyardee. Eating an Italian Sausage Tomato Pie in New Haven, Ct. was the moment I figure my addiction was formed. I evolved from loving to eat to loving food. Our vacations involve eating at as many new places as we can find. Friends will mention a trip planned to a city we’ve visited and I immediately jump in with “I can tell you a good restaurant.” It’s a boorish habit that I’m working to correct.

As I read recipes, I imagine the taste of various flavors combined into a dish that I’ve never tried. Over the years, I’ve learned to taste the food without having to cook it. If it tastes good in my imagination, I’ll usually prepare it. My kitchen is small and not cooking friendly and certainly can’t hold my burgeoning cookbook collection. I finally bought recipe software to organize my favorites that I’ve torn from catalogues and magazines. It is fairly efficient if that is what you want to be. You can create a menu, resize a recipe or generate a shopping list. But nothing replaces looking at photographs of beautifully prepared food artfully arranged on a lovely serving piece. It doesn’t compare with searching for a recipe using a specific ingredient on Epicurious and winding up with an entirely new dish that uses pomegranate, say, instead of leftover turkey. Still I faithfully copy and paste into my digital cookbook more recipes than I can possibly make in a lifetime.

So this is how I’ve spent my perfect day. I’ve accomplished nothing on my to-do list. The day is nearly gone as it is now mid afternoon and I need to start thinking about what to cook for dinner. I don’t have the prosciutto to make chicken saltimbocca, I wonder how it would taste if I used Virginia baked ham instead? And added sundried tomatoes?

Well, wasn't that fun!

Great! Here I am trying to figure out how to get all the settings working and get things going. I get a comment right away - remember, I already told you about the introvert thing. I immediately get self-conscious because someone is watching me as I stumble around. I'm not ready for company yet. But what do they want? Someone wants to sell me sex toys. Sheesh!

I'm not much of a rules person but apparently we'll have so set a few:

1. This my neighborhood.

2. Use company manners and play nice or go home.

3. I don't mind constructive criticism.

4. I don't mind dissenting opinions.

5. But let's stay on topic,

6. Try not to be intentionally offensive and

7. Try to have intelligent conversation.

8. Have fun.

That's enough rules. Frankly, I'm surprised I could come up with eight. I think I've got this thing set up so that I can edit out inappropriate comments. So, let's start again.

Hello World. Merry Christmas!

Jumping off the cliff

Well, here I am jumping off the cliff and starting a blog. Me, the supreme introvert, has decided to think out loud where people might actually hear me. Me, the one who can't even keep a private journal for an entire year, is making a commitment to journal in public for the entire year.

I'm working on an agenda that includes goals for 2006. Today I'm just going to get things up and running. I've got a week to finalize the list I've been working out for '06. The trick is to be ambitious but realistic.

Meanwhile, enjoy your holiday and check back when you can.