Do I Feel Proud?

After spending my week cooped up in front of the computer preparing various pieces of coursework for my MA, last weekend I decided it was time to do some baking. I was dreaming of cake.

Just one problem: no baking ingredients! So I was a bad girl and ran off to the local Morrison’s supermarket. It was unsightly and it was heaving with people. But I still came out feeling rather proud of myself. Why? Because out of the trolley full of goods I wound up buying, only two of them included any form of plastic. And I’m not just talking plastic containers or bottles, there were no plastic lids on glass jars, and no plastic film sealing things up tight.

I bought foil trays rather than plastic pouches of cat food – I do try to buy the foil trays whenever I can, but when they’re full price and the pouches are on offer, it can be hard to turn down the saving. I bought some tinned tomatoes, some tins of coconut milk, some beer. And I went for the organic option wherever I could too: organic flour, organic squash, organic chicken for Bron.

So what were my two failures? Well, the chicken, unfortunately. But I haven’t yet found a way to get fresh meat and fish that doesn’t involve plastic, and I can’t imagine ever being able to persuade Bron to go veggie like me. He is a carnivore through and through.

Secondly, a little bag of mixed nuts – I know, I know, far from a necessity, but the cake recipe called for them, and as it was a new recipe I didn’t know whether it work without them. It would’ve, but hey, I know that for the future now. The cake was yummy, and I still feel proud.

The Shopping Dilemma

Is it possible to not go food or household shopping ever again?

Reason One
‘Can I have some money please?’ seems to be my constant refrain to Bron these days. Poor chap, I really don’t like having to ask for it, and I’m sure he’s fairly sick of me always asking.

‘I can’t help it,’ was his hushed and irritated response yesterday evening when I pointed out the fact that April’s rent has now been removed from my bank account, but he has yet to finish giving me his share of March’s rent.

However, it did get me thinking: if Bron can’t afford to give me the rent, never mind his share of the shopping bills, then clearly we’re living outside of our means. Therefore, we (or I) should not be buying the things I do. Hence no more shopping ever again.

And, the more I think about it, the more I realise this would make a rather nice solution to everything.

Reason Two
As a general estimate, I reckon that I’ve reduced my plastic intake by at least half since last summer. I think this is fairly good going, but I know there’s still a long way to go, especially as I’m now getting onto the trickier things. For instance, although I only buy sauces in glass bottles, they still come with plastic lids; and pasta and rice always come packaged in plastic, but they’re such staples in our diet that it’s very hard to contemplate cutting them out.

If I stopped going shopping altogether, would Bron and I be forced to find alternatives? How long until we gave in?

Reason Three
I recently read the fantastic book Real England by Paul Kingsnorth. This investigates the multitude of ways in which corporate blandness and big business are taking over England, the English countryside, and English culture. Supermarkets are a huge part of this, and the inner workings of the minds who run them are officially scary. They are about as close to real evil as anything can get, in my book. If I keep on shopping there then I’m literally buying into and supporting this mindset, and effectively destroying my no-longer-quite-so-sturdy British heritage.

But if I stop shopping then what will we eat? Well, we still get fruit, vegetables, and eggs from Riverford, and we’ve got a cupboard full of tins that will take a little while to work through. Ideally, what I’d like to do is break our habits and go back to the absolute basics, all of which I know I can get from local health stores.

My real reason, secret and shameful though it may be
I wonder how long it will take before Bron notices that I’m no longer shopping? Perhaps then he’ll take the hint that if he can still afford to go out and buy the amount of tobacco, beer and wine that he does, then he really should be giving me the rent money first. I can’t decide, though, whether this makes me more practical housewife, or more bitch.

Say Cheese

I am standing in the supermarket aisle. Dairy produce. Artificial lighting glares down at me and the surrounding fridges hum as blinkered shoppers trundle past, pushing their metal trolleys full of brightly packaged goods.

A myriad of cheeses are trying to attract my eye: soft cheese, grated cheese, fancy cheese, goat cheese, even little mini cheeses. There is milk, there is butter, margarine, yoghurts, and cream.

‘Cheese,’ Bron reads off the scribbled shopping list in his hand.

I want the organic cheddar that is sealed in simple waxy paper. Bron wants the ‘plastic’ cheese: floppy, processed cheese slices. I’m not sure how much actual cheese they contain. A pack of ten for 99p, each slice individually sealed in its own little protective plastic cocoon. I can see myself tearing off this outer layer and reverently laying my plastic slice across the top of my freshly barbecued burger; I can see the edges of it melting and melding with my tomato sauce, and I can taste its fake cheesey goodness as I bite through the soft roll and into the hot burger. I can’t help but salivate.

I want the plastic cheese too.

But I’m not supposed to be buying plastic if I can possibly avoid it.

‘We could get this one,’ I say, holding up the organic cheddar. ‘And slice it up really thinly so that it melts properly over the burgers.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Bron looks at me.

‘Or we could grate it. That would work, wouldn’t it?’

‘Maybe.’

I’m grasping at straws – even Bron knows what I really want is the plastic cheese.

‘Do you think people would really care?’ The group of friends we’ve invited to Bron’s birthday barbecue probably have quite specific expectations as to what will be provided for their eating enjoyment.

Bron is not going to commit either way. Damn. He really, really wants the plastic cheese. It is his birthday, I tell myself.

‘Ok, but we won’t ever buy it again,’ I say tossing it into our trolley as quickly as I can. I already feel guilty. But then: ‘We’d better get two packs to make sure we’ve got enough to go around.'

Oops.