Food Clutter

Today’s post is really a survey. Sometimes, when I am presented with a survey for something that I want to give positive feedback, my intention is to fill it out when I have time. I don’t ever fill it out because I never have time. Oh the guilt surveys bring us! I feel like I’m always letting someone down whenever I don’t fill one out. And yet here I am expecting you to fill out my survey below.

This first part of the survey is really ironic because if you know me, you know that I want things to be as easy as possible when it comes to serving food. Unfortunately, lately “easy” has been ordering take out five nights a week! Yikes! I’m getting back to the kitchen soon, I promise. Anyway, if it were up to me, I’d serve any meal on paper plates (compostable of course). Using paper plates for Thanksgiving dinner is never an option but I would completely embrace it if I were given a choice. Here’s where it gets ironic. When I serve food to the electrician, computer tech guy, painters, handyman, house cleaners, gardeners, the plumbers etc. - I always make them wash their hands, sit somewhere not by their job site and eat off of real plates. Of course this situation would be completely appropriate to use paper plates. However, since I’m not asking them to eat their lunch in an area where plates are more likely to drop and break, I think about dignity. If I allow people to come into my home to help my family have a better quality of life because they are using their expertise and trade to do so, then I think they deserve a meal served with respect.

My school of thought about feeding contractors is three-fold: they can eat and get back to work much quicker if they don’t have to leave to go buy lunch, it is my way of saying thank you and I think I have a better chance of someone doing their best work if I feed them.

A simple meal I served when the dry wallers were at my house for hours repairing all the patches from the work being done in the house. I made a lot of bacon for breakfast that morning so I made BLTs, leftover tunafish, Costco’s Kirkland Kettle Brand Himalayan Salt chips, veggies and sweets that my kids were not eating.

If the number 1 represents “not at all” and the number 10 represents “most definitely” please consider the following questions:

Question #1. If you haven’t thought about serving food to your contractors before, how likely are you to serve them food if they plan to be at your house for hours prior to and/or after lunch?

Question #2. If and when you serve food, how likely are you to change the way you serve food to anyone that helps you?

As a side note, I wanted to share something that I saw on my neighborhood block a few weeks ago. One of the houses was getting a full-on yard make over both in front and back. It involved masonry, lawn care, sprinkler systems etc. It was a big job. Each day at noon, the landscapers would unload a gas grill from their truck and cook lunch for all the workers. I thought about the hot meals that a grill provided and I think the next time we have a big home project, I can just grill up some hot dogs (very easy!) or chicken breasts. Something so basic but I think it would go a long way. Not that pizza, Mc Donalds, Jimmy Johns or Chick-Fil-A are bad options - but that a home-cooked meal would be a nice gesture. I always have buns in the freezer because they are sold in packs that do not align with the number of hot dogs in a pack and chicken breasts defrost easily in time to serve for lunch if left out the morning of.

Blue Pan pizza serves Detroit style pizza. We ordered a lot because we were tasting the different offerings.

We took home one full pizza plus a half and I froze them. But because we eat pizza every single week from a restaurant walking distance from our house, no one was eating the frozen pizza and it was taking up space in our freezer. So I re-heated it and served it to the three painters who worked on my basement for a full week. They loved it.

Now this part of the survey is about what is appropriate to serve or not. Because I hate wasting food, I usually have food that I nor my family could possibly eat. Prior to Covid, the caterers at the Broncos stadium used to donate uneaten food to an organization that would facilitate getting the food to those in need. Nowadays the caterer isn’t able to do this (but hopefully they will resume soon) so the food is thrown away or I have been taking home boxes of food. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach and after realizing that we cannot possibly eat all that I brought home, I tend to serve the excess to those helping around the house (see above).

Question #3. If you realize that you cannot eat all of the food that you have before it spoils, would you feed others the surplus of your food?

Question #4. Do you think giving leftovers of your leftovers to someone else is appropriate? This could be to someone in need or just anyone in general.

When my cousin Patricia came for a Broncos game last year, she sent all of these boxes of goodness from Porto’s ahead of time. Her thoughtfulness was to help me serve all of the visitors who were coming to visit to watch games. This was brilliant because it did help me serve great food many times when guests came.

Now this part of the survey is about thoughtful pinches. Because we have very thoughtful friends who send or bring us food - snacks, treats, meals etc. I tend to assess how much of the gifts we can realistically consume and I usually give the rest away to people who deserve some extra thoughtfulness. For example, if I receive a dozen cookies, I may keep most of them but I will give a cookie to the mail man, one to the dog walker etc.

Question #5. Is giving away part of a pinch something that you would do if you knew it would make someone else feel special?

Question #6. If you gave away some of the food pinch to someone as a special treat or because you wanted them to feel good, how likely are you to tell the giver of the gift that you gave some of it away?

At the time we received this pinch, I was not eating chocolate. My kids and hub did but they were not eating the cookie fast enough and I thought it would spoil before we finished it. That would be a waste. So I cut pieces of it and gave some to the contractors who were helping us get settled into our house. I didn’t think about freezing it until a few days after we received it and I felt like it was past the point of freezing it; the cookie wouldn’t be freshly frozen. Does that make sense?

And last but not least, trash versus treasure in food form. Many times I buy snacks for my kids and they won’t even touch them. Sometimes because the snacks are too healthy for them or sometimes because they over ate Chester Fries or Taki’s and won’t eat them anymore. It’s always a hit or miss when I do the shopping for snacks. Or there was that one year that I bought Halloween candy that none of us liked and so there were leftovers and no one touched them. This is when I get creative. I pack it up and send it to college students. I figure if they don’t eat it, someone else will. I have also sent unwanted food into the office with the hub. I also stole the idea of leaving out water and snacks for the delivery guys when Covid kept us home bound and those guys were working like crazy. I would leave a basket full of the unwanted snacks out for them.

Question #7. How likely are you to “push” food items that are not popular in your house onto someone else?

Question #8. How likely are you to look up new ways to use unwanted snacks?

Look how I could make leftover treats from random events look appetizing and fresh by using this tray we received for Christmas. All of this was in my freezer and when we had guests coming, I defrosted them and served them instead of running out to a store to get something. Sweetened nuts from a neighbor, cheesecake from an agent and brownies from a party. It wasn’t enough to offer on their own but served together, guests had choices and it worked perfectly, no leftovers!

My food clutter survey is just a way for me to gage how thoughtful and creative we can be when it comes to food. I think there are many ways, besides the ultimate donating food to food shelves, that we can use food to be thoughtful. Like surplus tomatoes from a garden make wonderful thoughtful pinches. Or when we are in line at Dunkin Donuts getting coffee and a treat, why not get a dozen donuts and share with those who are helping us in some way? It would make their day. My hope is that this post can inspire us to think about our food clutter in ways that can help create win-win situations.

Pinches,

Barb