Sticky Acres

I’m working at my friend’s clothing store this weekend, so today my lunch was paid for by the boss’s husband. Yay! It was another delicious panini sandwich. I’d brought coffee with me to get me through the morning crush and then just made tea from my emergency caffeine stash of tea bags that I always carry around in my purse to get me through the afternoon. I tried to eat lightly all day, in preparation for our panini dinner party and honey tasting.

I returned home to Food Stamp Challenge disaster.

At some point, between the time I left the house at 11 am to when I returned home at 5:30 pm, Mr. Foxypants had gone grocery shopping for tonight’s dinner party at Trader Joe’s three times. I knew I was in trouble the moment I walked in the door and he excitedly whipped out the cold cuts he’d bought at Gelson’s. “Taste this,” he insisted, running his finger along the black peppered edge like Vanna White. “It’s cotto ham.”

Ham. He bought HAM. Damn Cotto ham for $10.99 a pound.

And, of course he bought a pound of it.

“Why did you buy ham when I bought Honeybaked ham YESTERDAY?” I tried not to sound annoyed by the fact that my boyfriend sometimes doesn’t listen to me.

“Oh, I forgot you bought ham!”

(Okay, I can get over the fact that I had a huge conversation with him yesterday about how I’d gone to Honeybaked Ham specifically to pick up ham for tonight’s sandwiches, that had apparently been so unmemorable, that he’d forgotten all about it. But how did he not see the two GIANT ham bones thawing in our tiny refrigerator, that are on a shelf, at eye level, in front of all the condiments)?

There seemed to be far too many grocery bags on the counter for my liking. I rifled through them and pulled the receipts. Here’s what Mr. Foxypants bought today for the sandwiches:

$10.99 WTF? cotto HAM (1 pound)
$11.49 smoked turkey breast (1 pound)
$5.49 pork sausage (1 package)
$5.98 par baked panini rolls (8 rolls)
$2.69 sliced whole wheat sour dough bread
$1.79 chunky salted peanut butter
+ $4.59 sweet and sassy BBQ sauce
___________________________________________
TOTAL: $43.92

Did I mention that there are only four people eating dinner at our house tonight? Why did he buy BBQ sauce when we have an unopened 32 oz. container of it in the kitchen cabinet? What’s with the sour dough bread? We still have four kinds of bread left over from his last shopping trip twelve days ago.

FOOD BUDGET LEFT FOR THE MONTH: $43.13

He spent half our remaining food budget for the month and that’s not counting the salad ingredients.

What he spent on the salad ingredients:

$5.69 lump crab meat
$2.49 pineapple tidbits
$1.49 bamboo shoots
$3.19 coconut
$4.49 marcona almonds
+ $2.58 2 red bell peppers
____________________________
TOTAL: $19.93

FOOD BUDGET LEFT FOR THE MONTH: $23.20

There were also a couple impulse buys:

$3.99 palmier petite cookies
$5.56 frozen lemonade concentrate (4 cans)

Hello, we have a LEMON TREE.

FOOD BUDGET LEFT FOR THE MONTH: $13.65

Luckily, Mr. Foxypants makes a really good $20 salad. Our guests brought over some homemade middle eastern walnut-chili sauce, a homegrown avocado and some tomatoes to add to the sandwich mayhem. They also (thank God) brought us six eggs from their backyard chicken. With these eggs, we’ll be able to make it through June without having to buying eggs. Yay! Free food.

Dessert consisted of the ridiculously overpriced pretzels, but the nine different varieties of honey we served were all gifts to us, so luckily that part of the meal was free. We drank fizzy lemonade, homemade Orangina, and coffee with the meal.

For Christmas last year, our friend Lonnie brought us a bunch of honey from New Zealand made from plants that only grow in the southern hemisphere. This is actually the third honey tasting we’ve done with these honeys, plus our own backyard honey, of course. The honey tasting has been a huge hit with everyone who has done it. We still have at least a half jar of each kind of honey left. Hopefully, Lonnie will bring us another batch of Kiwi honey this year. It was by far my favorite gift.