Groceries

You may have noticed that I like to cook. Here's what I ran out of this week, while I was snowed in with nothing to do but hang out in the kitchen:

Flour: unbleached, cake, oat, bread
Oil: sesame, walnut, canola
Rice: arborio, brown, wild mix
Mustard: stone ground, dijon
Popcorn

In addition to the items above, I did not run out of whole wheat flour or corn meal, olive oil, long grain rice, basmati rice, couscous, or pastina, and I always keep a jar of yellow mustard, as well as ground dry mustard. I'm guessing these are things that most people don't have in their kitchens and never miss. But I always have them, and never think twice about restocking when I run out.

There is nothing on that list that I can't do without. I can make perfectly good meals with olive oil and plain old white rice, and I really shouldn't indulge my taste for white flour anyway when wheat is so much better for you (plus you can't find organic white flour to save your life, plus I have plenty of wheat). Bread flour is just a lazy indulgence (although it does make better bread, I swear it).

I stood there with my shopping cart full of these items (and they aren't cheap either) and dithered and rationalized. I am, after all a cook. It's food, not luxury goods. I use all of these things all the time. Just because "ordinary" people wouldn't know a bag of wild rice if it hit them over the head doesn't mean I shouldn't get it. After all, it's ordinary to me. Furthermore, I haven't bought any vegetables in nearly 8 months, since I was so successful at preserving the harvest this year, so that balances it out, right?

Ah, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. I skipped the wild rice and the stone ground mustard. Everything else is in my pantry now.

What's the verdict? Did I violate my rules?