Bulking Up

Who needs a gym membership when you regularly sling fifty pound bags of whole wheat flour over your shoulder, or toss twenty-five pounds of brown rice into your car to later drag into your kitchen?

Once I had a family of six to feed, I saw the value of bulking up.

“Super Size Me” took on personal meaning.

A five gallon, forty pound bucket of organic peanut butter used to last our family about six months. That’s a lot of cookies, sandwiches, frozen nut butter bananas on popsicle sticks, and chocolate covered peanut butter balls.

We’d take a family field trip to Nunda, NY to the cooperatively owned factory, oggle at the stacks of sacks of assorted nuts, cover our ears to the grinding machines, while sniffing and snarffling the roasting nuts. Along with the large container, we’d lug home nine pound tubs of almond and cashew spreads. Back then, we could even find mystery butter, the bargain bi-product of transitioning from one nutty type to the next. Yes, we too were oh-so nutty!

Still are.

When my family lived on a dirt road in Vermont, the nearest store was half hour away. We opted for the convenience of joining a local food buying club. I’d pour over the current catalog, imagining what we might need and enjoy, tracking sale items by the caseload, and send in my order.

A tractor trailer popped into town once a month, avoiding errant dairy cows, circumnavigating the green, to squeeze into the muddy church parking lot, where a group of committed and organized hippie foodies unloaded tons, literally, of bulk goods and essentials.

Once home, I would empty the sacks into jars, storing excess food in clean plastic pails (empty peanut butter buckets, no doubt), or on shelves in our mudroom.

The first thing one saw upon entering our house, were the floor to ceiling food shelves, laden with gallon jars of earth toned products. Every time we’d ventured into the city, I’d collected pickle jars from Gil’s sub shop. My timing was fortunate. Soon after my reusable foraging expeditions, the pickle company transitioned to plastic.

When I moved out of that house, my son, who is usually not interested in material items, emphatically insisted,

“No, Mom. You cannot have the jars. They belong to the house. I need them.”

This was the only argument we ever had.

I smiled appreciation for his practical values. “I surrender the jars, Rich.”

Now, when I visit, I am happy to see those jars filled with his family food supplies.

I used to buy huge quantities of Vermont maple syrup from my neighbor who had a sugar house up the road. Back when folks preferred grade A, the lightest version, he had barrels of the dark rich grade B leftover, that he would sell me discounted, always checking with me to make sure the quality was good.

Sure was. Without a doubt, finger-lickin good.

I would then divvy up the quantity into recycled jugs. There is something about knowing you will not run out of maple syrup that contributes to snowy day relaxation, at least in my belly’s mind.

Ten years ago, while I was living with my friends, Jan and Frank, I’d ordered a quantity of Xylitol, to be delivered. I was avoiding sugar and other sweeteners for health reasons, and had just learned about the low calorie, low glycemic substitute sweetener. I’d try anything to keep my sweet tooth satiated. This amount was so much cheaper than that sold in individual 8 oz bags at local stores. Incredulous, Frank’s jaw dropped when the UPS carrier lugged the fifty pound bag up their rock stairs, rang the bell, and plunked it by the door.

I still have five pounds left.

Although now I live alone, I continue to search out and to stock up on discounted staples, tending toward large containers. I avoid leisurely promenades down supermarket aisles in stores radiating fluorescent light, canned music, and unhealthy expensive temptations. I prefer going in with my list, and getting out as soon as possible.

Instead of microwaveable meals in a box, my pantry is a rainbow smattering of reused jars filled with whole dried foods, grains, nuts, seed, fruits. Most, I have bought at Abundance Food Co-op in Rochester, NY.

This week, in order to continue having variety and meal choice as long as possible during my larder emptying / food buying moratorium, I have paid more attention to consuming items which I have in the largest quantities. I enjoyed multiple servings of curried red lentil stew, a layered butternut, puffball, homemade salsa casserole with a creamy nut sauce, and pudding with frozen pears, blended with blueberries and almond butter—

almond butter from a very small, overpriced jar.