Trivial Conversation: Grocery shopping

[marrke.livejournal.com]

We haven't ever met another multiple face to face. We're not even sure there are any others in the city we live (Corvallis, Oregon). This is a shame because I think it'd be fun to just make small talk with someone else similar to us. Not even about anything remotely serious mind you, but just about something quite unimportant.

Since we can't do that face to face, I figured that we might do something similar here. Today's topic I'd like to talk about is:


Grocery shopping.

As the official cook for our system, this is an area that I have primary jurisdiction over.

Now there are certain aspects of grocery shopping for us that naturally work precisely the same as they would for anyone else. For example, we are constrained by our budget, and our desire to eat something remotely healthy. However, there are multiple other factors to take into account as well. Different personalities like different foods. I love meat. Phoenix is vegitarian. The children like sweets, so much so that they'll happily gobble down those disgustingly sweet breakfast cereals that would make the rest of us gag.

However, there are factors working in our favor as well from our multiplicity. First of all, we have a very planned control structure, meaning that I know precisely who is going to be controlling what day. This means that I can get away with cooking meat on the nights I'm in control, and don't have to worry about Phoenix's tastes. Also, another advantage is that we can switch between us in such a manner that no one has to eat something they don't like. One of the children doesn't want to eat salad? Fine, we can get someone to eat it for them. Also, I have everyone with me shopping, which means I can ask them before I buy something. Mind you, this is also something of a disadvantage when we spend way too long in front of the cereal aisle, arguing the merits of Marshmellow Magic vs. Cheerios.

One other nice thing about this method of grocery shopping is we can let the children out to help, and they'll thoroughly enjoy it. Jill thought it was quite fun to help weigh apples, walk around gathering food we needed, and thought it was even more fun to operate the credit card machine at checkout.

That's what grocery shopping is like for us. What's it like for you?



-Delilah

Comments

[chainsaw-hime.livejournal.com]

I understand, both in the good and the bad, especially with all the asian food Epsilon's been buying lately and, unlike her, I can't use chopsticks to save my life... The stuff tastes good, but she insists on us trying to use the things.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

He still ends up winning from time to time b/c I let him buy unhealthy stuff like hamburger meat. I don't mind well cut steak on occasion, but ground beef just slows me down. I don't get how he can eat it without feeling sludged up.

Well, if you're getting organic ground beef, at least there's less in it to sludge up your body-- or, if you can find it, look for ground buffalo, which has a much lower fat content. (Be careful not to overcook it; the fastest way to ruin a buffalo burger is to cook it as a hamburger.)

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

I'm lucky in that regard, we share so much, with few exceptions. Negaran (a predator) likes meat but the only meat I let us eat is seafood and eggs. Negaran isn't fond of fish, since his species can swim but doesn't like to get wet (they're like oversized cats with doggish faces). The rest of us either don't care or are vegetarians. Fayanora would be a vegan but for Negaran's influence, because her race are herbivores (humaniform).

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

You could try looking for venison, too, but um... the one time I had it, it was like rubber. Deer are very tense animals, so their meat is like trying to eat a rubber ball... it just grows in your mouth. I finally had to give up on it and spit it out after about an hour. It's like meat-flavored chewing gum, but didn't lose its flavor.

[spazishness.livejournal.com]

We have no structured control system, though we need one badly. Just buying lunch is horrible. Not only are some of us vegetarians (Jake only eats meat, which would make sense because he's dragon kin), but Christina is anorexic and tries her best to discourage everyone from eating anything at all. Kayla, on the other hand, will eat an entire thanksgiving dinner three times over. She is not allowed control when we go out to eat at a buffet. It's embarrassing when we discover that one of our mutual friends saw us leave with food sticking out of our pockets.

The body is only 15 and we're still at home, so grocery shopping isn't an issue for us. However, buying lunch at school is impossible. We're a very... disorganized system. We've had up too four people fronting during lunch because we all seem to be very insistent on what WE want to eat. We'll walk into the snack shop during lunch and spend 10 minutes walking around, talking to each other out loud and inside, trying to figure out to eat. It wastes are money. We typically end up with two packages of Dots (our children insist) I get beef jerky, Spaz gets a banana nut bar, ectect. Then we eat our foods at different times of the day.

...All this may span from the fact that lately, we're all very bitter with the fact that all of us have to share one body, and want to do 'our own thing'.

I, also, wish there were another multiple nearby to make small talk with. :( Goddamn. Why can't there be a 'multiple convention' somewhere? That would be brilliant.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Every time somebody tries that it's failed due to lack of consensus and lack of organisation.

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

*giggle* well, you know, there's tons more people involved in the process than most other conventions. ;)

grocery shopping

[submissives.livejournal.com]

ugh, it is one thing we always dreaded the most. Fortunately right now we dont really have to do it because sj is living with her parents temporarily and they usually just do it. But when we get out on our own again...we seriously need a better way of shopping and controlling who buys what at the store.
abby

Re: grocery shopping

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

At my house the parental units decide most things and then ask for suggestions of things we "need" and decides which of those to put on the list. Then everyone gets two "I wannas"... two things they can have for sure, if they're to be found. For example, cheese puffs and candy apples.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

This is always an interesting topic ^^ Usually the biggest consideration for us is money. Ruka tends to at least hang around in the background during grocery shopping so he can go "put it back" if we try to buy something that's too expensive and not strictly necessary. I like to think that what we buy is usually a step up, health-wise, from typical college-student fare, since we try to buy organic and so on, though we do devolve into ramen and doughnuts occasionally (which Shiu refers to as "bad food karma")...

We've modified our diet somewhat because of our partner&, who need to avoid starches and dairy most of the time, and we like to cook things that both of our bodies can eat. I think we're actually eating better now than we used to-- more vegetables and so on, although we only have one strict vegetarian in-house that we know of. We *should* experiment with cooking more; most of the time, we've relied on the people we lived with to cook for both of us, and a couple of us (mostly Anthea) want to know a lot more about cooking on their own. (Ruka tends to cook his own meat because he says other people don't cook it the way he wants; "the way he wants" in this case usually being one step up from raw. You take this perfectly cultured, urbane guy, who doesn't go all 'macho man yarf!' on us, and loves fruits and vegetables whenever he can get them, and yet you give him a piece of meat and all he wants is to eat it raw. He's been doing this ever since we were kids and he used to eat the raw hamburger meat out of the package.)

Even though we actually live with another multiple, we do often wish that we were in contact with others locally, or at least with people whom we could be Out around.

Meeting other Multiples

[jadedmosaic.livejournal.com]

There was this guy in Rochester New York who did Research on Multiples in Groups Behavior and he started a multiple group back in the 80's. His name is Jeff Shoewmacker. He never did it again. Just 89'

There were 8 in his group including Tiea and us .... and all the others

After 6 weeks of us all meeting still nobody was talking, so we did some ice breakers , we lost count on how many people and pets were in the room with us . Everyone was real hesitent to share . Although I find this funny . We all had one thing in common ... How to grocery shop and do it where everyone was happy . It seems to be a Universal thing . Just like shopping for a family with a couple kids in a cart grabbing everything Mom can't afford or won't let you get .

It turned out all poor Jeff learned about us is we all experienced stress when confronted with shopping . A wonderful oppurtunity kinda lost. Oh yeah and we all hated the Emergency Room at Hospitals . Wonder what ever happened to Jeff ? It was nice of him to wonder about us . He looked like he had a major headache by week 12 . I like this allot better , Jade

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

We love to try new things. Once we bought, on a whim, something called a cactus pear. It didn't look like it had pricklies on it. But they were there, too small and thin to be seen. And they didn't come off until we started trying to peel the damned thing. Hurt like a mofo, we were in pain for days afterwords. Two. Words: Never. Again.

And sometimes we buy things that we really shouldn't because we don't eat them often. Like fresh spinach. We eat a little of it and then the rest goes to rot. So we voted that Alexander do most of the shopping.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Chop it fine and put it in a salad. Add bits of cilantro, green onions, sliced tomato, black olives and bits of feta cheese. Use a Greek dressing.

Cook with it by putting it in your lentil or vegetable soup.

Spinach is excellent -- it's good for your liver besides having nutrients like iron.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Oh, spinach. We thought you were referring to the cactus pear.

Breakfast Cereals

[jaga-system-.livejournal.com]

Mind you, this is also something of a disadvantage when we spend way too long in front of the cereal aisle, arguing the merits of Marshmellow Magic vs. Cheerios.

LOLOL..... I sooo understand this one!

Usually with cereal we take turns so that eventually people get some of their favorite cereal to eat. I try to have 2 different choices to pick from at home though, but even that is just not nearly enough. :-) Mostly though we rotate turns on who gets to pick out their cereal. It still leaves us standing in the cereal aisle for a long time though, because we haven't drawn up an elaborate plan and set of rules, etc. with it. We just sort of somehow work it out amongst ourselves. Those who aren't happy with the choice know that they will get their turn next time or very soon thereafter, and ha.... they will definitely remind the rest of us that the next time we're at the store. :-)

Julie/s

Re: Breakfast Cereals

[kasiya-system.livejournal.com]

that's why the multi-flavored oatmeals boxes are good.. little bit of everything in there.. ^_^ -kasia

[melange-fiesta.livejournal.com]

These stories are all awesome. When I thought about multiplicity, it never occurred to me to wonder how grocery shopping, clothes shopping, etc, might be for a multiple. It sounds vaguely amusing, actually. Or, well, I guess it's amusing to someone not actually living it.

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

Some of us living it find it amusing too. ;)

[pleiades-rising.livejournal.com]

Well, mom is one who does the grocery shopping, but I love going with her to pick out stuff :P It always ends in confusion... like Jenny will grab some Lucky Charms and put it in the shopping cart, and a few minutes later, Michi will ask mom if she can get some Trix. Mom will say "If you want Trix instead, put back the Lucky Charms." ...so Michi will put the Lucky Charms back and get the Trix.

Ten minutes later Jenny will come back out, put the Trix away, and get the Lucky Charms again. And they'll keep switching cereals the whole way through, because neither wants to give up her cereal. It irriates mom to death...

[gryphons.livejournal.com]

we mostly let the hubby do the shopping.. (it doesn't take a millenia that way) we try to come up with grocery list of stuff we like.. and he finds what we can afford.. .. then comes the hard part.. actually deciding what to eat/take for lunch at work.. cause there's no telling who's going to be running things for breakfast or any other time.. it can get kinda amusing.. specially when we take something like combo fried rice and one of the vegetarians show up.. can we say we get some weird looks.. (sitting there picking out all the meat or just giving up and putting it back)

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

We solved the work thing by keeping a couple granola bars and a bag of nuts at work or in our bag.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

We're somewhat atypical. Mostly one hears stories about "the littles all want candy and ice cream and expensive cereals", etc. The only thing our young people particularly ask for is watermelon, and we can't always afford that. We can't eat ice cream or most cereals, and even when we could, it was mostly the adults who liked them. The kids want cream of wheat, which Andy also loves but which we can't have, and oatmeal. The only difference between the children and adults is that the adults (particularly Gabriel) put maple syrup on the oatmeal and the kids don't like that.

We usually go by finances and tastes in common; westerners want Greek or Arabic style food (Imoreh inhales stuffed grape leaves; Chris likes roast lamb and makes wonderful salads that are respected by people outside this system), Aureans want Chinese food or sushi, Koveht people like buffalo or venison, beans, "three sisters" soup, cornbread (we're not supposed to have this, but make it as a special treat at times) fruit sauces and fruit pies, and Gabe will eat just about anything you put in front of him as long as it is kosher and doesn't have meat in it. All of this is dependent on how much $$$ there is, and we try to not buy anything that would qualify as what Shao dubbed "pickled hummingbird tongues".

[kasiya-system.livejournal.com]

lol.. Kylene likes to put maple syrup on her raisin bran! *grin*

-kasia

[stealthdragon.livejournal.com]

R. and I rather strenuously disagree on which flavour of icecream to get. We usually solve that one by just not buying any, since we're on a students' budget.

The other end of the spectrum is pizza, where we can all agree on 'as much meat as possible'. Most grocery stuff is in between somewhere.

- An.

[kasiya-system.livejournal.com]

We don't have arguements over food, really.. some have their preferences.. and they might not always find something they like in the pantry if they hadn't put it on the food list on the whiteboard.. *shrug* -kasia

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

Depends on who's been active in the last couple days.

The store usually isn't bad - we live a couple minutes away from three different grocery stores and our two driver people insystem are pretty agreeable. We don't mind going every other day. The hardest part has been learning to get smaller portions of fresh fruit and veggies.

We have someone in here who's food choices look very vegan, several who like a lot of meat in their diets, one who thinks that grape soda is nectar of the gods, someone who doesn't like cooked foods, and a collection of different comfort foods.

You can always tell when we've been switching a lot by looking in the fridge - there'll be a lot of leftovers.

[ridetothesea.livejournal.com]

We have a tight budget, so grocery shopping isn't that bad, usually. Everybody knows that we can buy food that is at least tolerable and cheap, so we can have money for other things. Like music. Which shopping for is infinitely worse than shopping for food.

The body has to be vegetarian because meat does make us feel sluggish and icky. Most of ours don't mind, although Connor, an avid carnivore, does, so he gets some hamburger meat every time and is satisfied with that. The rest of us don't mind fresh fruits and vegetables at all, though Leo must have some carbs so we buy a lot of fresh bread as well.

Our biggest issue isn't the food, really, but what to buy to drink. Some want strictly water, others want fruit juices, others want sodas or tea, or coffee, smoothies... And then there is the arguing over what kind of each to buy, like the debate about hot tea versus sweet tea. We buy more variety of things to drink than we do of things to eat. So our time spent standing still arguing internally isn't spent in the cereal aisle, but in the juice/Kool-aid/beverage aisle.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I shop - neither of my brothers would set foot in a grocery store; Crist-Erui couldn't tolerate all the mechanical noise, and Kír (rightly) doubts his ability to 'pass' as me in public. I try to buy things they'll like - Kír seldom eats, but he is quite fond of chai; Crist-Erui favors fruit, especially the sweet kinds like cherries, apricots, etc. - we all like Thai food, and I've been planning to learn how to make it at home.

Unfortunately, both my brothers hate cheese, which is probably my all-time favorite food - they don't care for any sort of dairy products (except Thai iced tea, which has cream in it) or any grain product except rice. Crist-Erui doesn't like sauces, gravy, etc. and he prefers his meat extremely rare - he'll eat it raw if he gets the chance, but we try not to let him. He'll also sample puppy-treats, even though he never seems to like them - I think that's more just curiosity than a food-preference. He used to sample a lot of odd things, but he's gotten much better about that over the years.

LOL, jhonathand challenged Kír to eat cheesecake, and Kír valiantly rose to the challenge - ate two bites, even though he had a hard time choking down the first one. Unfortunately, it wasn't very good cheesecake, and I think he might have liked a better kind more, but he says he feels no need to try it again. Too bad, but I'll happily eat his share; I've never met a cheesecake I didn't like.

[littlebus.livejournal.com]

Not really related to shopping, but to eating....

Annabelle was out and shaved and dressed this weekend (which she doesn't get to do very often) and I made spagetti for dinner. She watches me take a few bites (I'm American and therefore uncouth and rarely use a knife when eating) and I'm using the the stab-and-spin method. She tries to copy me, but has a hard time. She confesses she's never eaten spagetti before because it "looks messy" and Ash has always been the one to eat spagetti. She managed in the end, but it was something I'd never thought about.

Food and shopping

[chaos-self.livejournal.com]

Seeing as I'm not organised, I don't like to go shopping for the fortnight. Its not that I'm not "allowed to" or anything, but I just tend to vague out under the fluoro lights. She doesn't like to go shopping either, but she gets all prepared. We sit down and think about what we want/need to eat for the fortnight, and see what is in the cupboard, then work out what we need to buy to make those things. Then we go in and follow her plan, and buy everything we need and come out. Sometimes I'll see something I want and I put it in the trolley (when we get home, she sometimes gets confused about all the chocolate - doesn't remember putting it in. Remembers thinking about it, though. It's kinda funny.) other times I just waft through the whole thing.
If it was up to just me, I would eat breakfast cereal for dinner most nights or stop in at the shop on the way home from work and just buy some veges or something.
I'm not going to say "complete vegetarian", but "doesn't eat meat" might be a better way. Sometimes we just crave meat. Then I go to eat it and get revolted. So does she. Which is nice. If it wasn't for me, I think she'd be a vegan. But who can be bothered reading all the labels to see if the bread contains dairy products or eggs or honey. *sigh*.
I blame my over-eating on the fact that we all want something different for dinner! (I wish I could blame my over-exercising on the same thing!)