weekly shopping

yesterday we did our weekly grocery shopping. we look through the weekly circulars to see what meats, fish, and veggies are on sale, figure out our individual schedules for the week, and then try to make a rough plan of what to have for dinner throughout the week.

this week's meals will include salmon, chicken breasts, and ground turkey. we also bought romaine, red & sweet onions, grape tomatoes, parsley, cilantro, lemons & limes, yogurt, soymilk, eggs, jarlsberg cheese. we already had 1/2 a head of cauliflower, broccoli, red peppers, potatoes, hummus, and etc. we did by something in a bag or box: baked tortilla chips.

i like to stick with one store rather than splitting up the shopping. and though shopping at whole foods for meat and produce would be nice, their prices are a bit expensive. we buy our store's version of natural meats. and i did real Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, so i do think about where all my food is being shipped from. it's a lot to think about, a lot of important factors - oftentimes conflicting factors - to weigh with each purchase. and i'm sure i'll post about that in the spring when my community garden plot starts producing.

two items i don't have to worry about are my sausage and potatoes. i got them from my family's farm. i was raised on a potato farm on long island (yes, a farm on long island). i rarely buy potatoes. my family's potatoes taste better. i can taste the dirt from our farm in the thin skin. from working on the farm as a kid i am sure i ingested a ton of dirt, so when i taste the potatoes, i'm uniting some of what's in the potato with what's in me.

the sausage - it's amazing stuff. my brother raises some livestock for family use, and my father has a special recipe for the sausage. my sister and i bought a pig from my brother this past christmas, and about 1/2 of my 1/2 is sausage. i'm not sure if it's technically organic but the pigs are raised on food from the farm. it's delicious. when my friends gather for a weekend party, it's expected i bring a couple of packages.

in fact, i'm about to cook up a couple of patties for myself.