26 ~ In this together

Greetings.  Many thanks to all who joined together and contributed ideas for the ‘desert island shopping list’.  Here’s a summary of the results - you’ve put together a solid and sometimes amusing list. 

In first place with most votes is…

·      Salt

This makes sense, given that salt, along with water, is the product in a grocery most essential to human survival, and it ain’t easy to produce or forage for in Wisconsin… 

Tied for second place are:

·      Cheese (including a vote for goat cheese specifically) – On Wisconsin!

·      Coffee

·      Dried fruit

·      Olive Oil

·      Wine

And the rest:

·      Beer (justified as a staple that can be used in baking things like like breads; sure…)

·      Butter

·      Chocolate (for the dessert island)

·      Coca-Cola (original recipe)

·      Dog food

·      Flax seed (cited as an egg substitute)

·      Flour

·      Lemons/limes

·      Lentils/dried beans

·      Peanut butter

·      Popcorn

·      Rice

·      Rolled oats

·      Sugar

·      Tea

·      Vinegars

This pretty much covers my essentials.  Personally, I wouldn’t need Coke nor, alas, the dog food.  And maybe not dried beans, since I grow my own (dried beans are one of the simplest things to grow and then store from the garden; an annual go-to for me).

Popcorn is good, since a salty snack is often welcome, the kernels keep well and you can make a lot from one jar of popcorn.  I also enjoy the meditation of popping it in a pan on the stove, and listening to its rhythm section. 

I don’t use much sugar, but I need it for fermenting kombucha, so that would make my list.  Ground flax seed is also something I used to buy, not as an egg substitute, but as a good source of Omega-3s, so that might make it for me as well.

Over these past months I have been buying coffee and wine, but don’t count them as groceries – not really nutrition items, and grocery stores aren’t needed as good sources of either (I buy my coffee beans from Madison’s EVP Coffee).

Here’s my list of foundation items – these will be my priorities the first time I return to a grocery store.  The list is assembled almost entirely from your suggestions, with just a couple of afterthought additions at the end:

·      Salt

·      Flour

·      Rice

·      Olive oil, and a few other oil types

·      Vinegars

·      Lemons/limes (or their juice)

·      Sugar

·      Tea

·      Spices

·      Baking powder, baking soda, yeast

Because I have eggs from my hens, dairy from my neighbors, maple trees, and big vegetable gardens (and a pipeline of chocolate from Switzerland!), I can make an immense diversity of good food from this simple foundation – almost anything I wish.  That said, if and when I next roll a cart down a grocery aisle, you can be sure these things will also tumble into my cart:  peanut butter, popcorn, oats, dried fruit, Cheetos.

Recently I’ve had some more good eating from the world.  This time of year, of course, the garden is busting out all over. And last week I did another overnight run to the Viroqua area, of trout fish/sleep in my car/get up and fish some more.  A mosquito net over the hatchback of my Prius makes a fine, simple camper for one.

From the beautiful streams in this area, the Holy again shared her finned children generously – including some fish caught at night, under a school of stars, with the comet over my shoulder. 

Back home I poached a few of the trout (photo at top; poached only in the cooking, not the catching), removed the delicate meat, and made trout salad with additions from the garden of chopped celery, onion and dill, and some mayo I still have on hand (another for the shopping list, if I don’t make my own). This treat feeds others, too:  the hens feasted with relish on the remains of the trout carcasses, and when the protein (and thus nitrogen) laden poaching water cooled, I watered my tomato plants with it.

Breakfast just before I started writing this post was easy and good. I retrieved an egg from the convent (I have only hens, all in matching black and white), and on the way back to the house picked some of the last summer-bearing raspberries.  With bread from Cress Spring Bakery, butter I made from local cream, and maple syrup from this spring’s sugaring session, I assembled some sublime French toast.

Here’s hoping you’re finding your own feasts in this season of plenty – this typical season of plenty, nested within this unsettling time.