What's for Dinner?

What's for dinner?

How many times a day do you think that question is asked?  A million?  A billion, give or take a couple million?  I'd say that all of us, regardless of what culture we're acclimated to, has an evening meal. 

If we all do it, then why is it so hard to figure out what to have?  Is it a matter of being so tired at the end of the day, that we just don't want to think about it?  Are we so overwhelmed with choices at the grocery store that we don't know where to begin?  Do so many of us have dietary restrictions that it limits our choices as to what we can eat?

Just a couple weeks ago there was a story on TV about a Texas family who have their meal plans all laid out for the entire YEAR.  Yes, they know what they're going to have on August 16.  You can see the menu here.
Okay, maybe that's a bit extreme.  But maybe we would all eat healthier meals if we planned them ahead of time. 

And whatever happened to certain foods that people would eat regularly?  Was it Gen X or the Boomers who decided that aspic was disgusting (and for the record, it is.)?  Or how about Spam?  Does anyone eat Spam (or its lesser known counterpart, Treet) anymore?  And let's talk about vegetables.  A restaurant in Fond du Lac called Schreiner's is a statewide landmark and has been a part of our city since 1938.  And judging by its menu, not a whole lot has changed.  For example, on certain days you can get creamed rutabagas as your vegetable side.  Rutabagas!!  Have you ever had them?  Lord knows they were never served at our house, mainly because my dad, who you'd think would've liked that sort of thing because he grew up in the Thirties, really didn't like many vegetables at all.  So I gave them a shot.  And you know what?  They were really good.  Of course, they were creamed so that may have had something to do with it.  But Schreiner's also has more "elderly" fare like liver & onions.  I never had that growing up, either, and I found I love that dish as well.

You might be saying, "Wow!  We can't eat those things anymore; they're all so high in fat and full of cholesterol!".  Well, I have a (very medically unfounded) theory about that.  I think that processed foods are what are making us heavier, not necessarily fatty foods.  I think back to when I was a kid, in the 70's, and there were a couple of people on the block that were really heavy.  Now think about your neighbors - chances are that the heavy ones are in the majority (and yeah, I can count myself in that majority, too).  We're eating a lot of fast food (sometimes all three meals) or frozen pizzas, when those things used to be a Friday night treat.  We're eating Lean Cuisines and ready-made stuff instead of from scratch.  All of it has high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).  I think there may be a connection.  And I don't think our "scratch" foods have to be Certified Organic, either; I just think we have to be smarter about what we eat, however hard that may be.

So if you haven't eaten yet tonight, there's some food for thought.  Now, what's for dinner?  :D

I Heart the Grocery Store!

I just returned from a power-shop at Festival Foods.  Yes, for those of you outside the N.E. Wisconsin area, we have a grocery store called Festival.  I imagine that the owners wanted to create a carnival-like atmosphere whilst shopping for your pork roast.

Works for me!  I LOVE the grocery store!  Who's with me?  I may be in a very small minority, but I truly enjoy slowly (but not so slowly that I enrage those around me) perusing the aisles in search of tasty meal ideas.  And oh my Lord, there are so many choices!!  I would love to find out the number of new products that come out every year, and how many fail.  Wouldn't that be the coolest museum ever?  One of my Flickr friends has an awesome collection of old packaging, mainly from cereals and snack foods.  If you're interested, take a look:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/25692985@N07/

My fondness for the grocery store goes back a looong way.  When I was a kid, every payday my mom, dad, Jen and I would all go McDonald's for dinner, and then the grocery store.  Sure-Way was a great one for looking through all of the great mags like Tiger Beat and "16" and the fun cheap toys that were made in Japan.  But the best shopping trips were the ones we took about once a month, to Copp's Warehouse.  In my 5th grade world, that place was HUGE (in reality, it was probably much smaller than a typical regular grocery store today.  In 1979, though, it probably was huge).  But it was big enough that we would take our walkie-talkies and hide behind all of the stacks of food  and play hide-and-seek (it was a true warehouse, where you had to mark your own groceries with a grease pencil).  A couple of times, we ran into our friends from down the block and had a BLAST!  It's actually one of my favorite childhood memories.

I've even had a collection of play food nearly my whole life.  When I was 8, in the summer of '77, my great-grandpa died (he was a wonderful man - my mom's maternal grandfather).  He had this huge 6-bedroom Victorian house in Hoopeston, IL and my Mom, my Grammie and her sisters, plus all of my mom's brothers helped clean it for the estate sale.  There were TONS of toys that Jen and I got to bring home, and one of them was a play grocery store complete with play boxes of food from the 30's (these were my Grammie's and great-aunts' toys)!!  I adored this set and when we cleaned my Grammie's house when she went into assisted living a year ago and it was still there, I was ecstatic.  It got a little rusty, unfortutnately, but miraculously the food boxes survived.  I've attached photos for you to see.

When I started doing ATCs about three years ago, I realized the potential of making some fun art with grocery store-related items, and started collecting even more.  I currently have a set of cardboard foods that are fairly tiny, some of which I've used in my cards.  I also have some vintage tiny foods from 1965, and some vintage French and German versions of play food as well. Here are some photos of those as well!

As with most collections, it didn't end there.  I started thinking about all of the arcane objects associated with grocery stores of the past - the cha-chink stamper used to price cans; old plastic signage that's been replaced with LCD screens around the store; old labels, stickers, price tags, etc.  that the price scanner took care of 20 years ago.  If you search Ebay you can find some of these items very cheaply, but people are starting to catch on that the way we shopped years ago is in danger of becoming totally extinct, so they're buying up all of this vintage stuff.  I'm probably partially to blame for increasing the value of it all!

I hope I always find the fun in food shopping, instead of the chore that most people feel it is.  Granted, I don't have kids, so I can afford to be leisurely.  I'll be one of those 90 year-olds, mowing down people in my motor scooter, too stubborn to stop driving, just so I can get my weekly grocery store visit in.  Hell, it'll surely be the highlight of my day.