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

[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.