Either You Need To Change Or I Do

Ordinarily a meticulous planner of weekly meals, but recently frustrated by the demanding schedules of a harvesting farmer, I decided to ‘wing it’ in the supermarket yesterday.  Initially daunted by the thought of entering into a major shopping expedition unarmed and unprepared, I quickly embraced the new-found freedom of spontaneity.

Vegetables of all varieties found their way into my trolley, as yet unassigned to a particular dish or day.  Moving on to the meat and fish section, I picked up a few deals and made sure I had some fish for one dinner.  And so the shopping progressed.

It was only later, when I was in Wantage’s market square contemplating what to cook for dinner, that I realised that I had pretty much only bought pork.  I’d picked up some steaks, perhaps for a stir fry, some mince for some lean burgers or maybe to stuff a pepper, and some posh sausages – pork, leek & chive and pork with, wait for it, cherry wood smoked bacon.

I laughed inwardly at the irony – I had given myself a free rein in the supermarket and actually ended up limiting myself more so than if I'd had a shopping list.  I continued to muse this over as I entered the deli and absentmindedly selected three small cooking chorizo sausages for a lentil stew.

That evening I recounted the amusement of the day’s shopping to my beef-farming friend.  "I think I need to come up with a new way to shop," I said.  "Or I need to start farming pigs, Ellie," she countered.

With a freezer full of beef-farming perks in one of the farm sheds, I really have no excuse not to replicate this week’s ‘in praise of the pig’ with an ‘homage to the humble heifer’ next week.