Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions--Jan. 17, 2014

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. 

This Week's Food Waste and True Food Confessions

This past week I was unexpectedly called out of town to be with my mother in the hospital. Consequently, eating and food waste from my refrigerator were off my radar. But yet, food played very much into my week. As is often the case, it was a bonding element among those of us who were spending many long hours in a difficult situation.

Image from food.com

In the beginning of our stay, my sister and I soon got to recognize familiar faces and nodded in recognition. Next, as we were taking a few minutes in the lounge, we had brief discussions about the weather. However, the conversation soon evolved into something that everyone was interested in and something that took our minds off more serious matters--the cafeteria and its food.


Most everyone wanted to know how to get there. Directions were not as easy as they could have been because two of the elevators were broken. This caused lots of silly jokes like how you had to start calling the elevator for lunch as soon as you finished breakfast. Next item for discussion was what was on the menu for the day and what everyone had tried. Roast beef and hot dogs were favorites. (Familiar comfort food played a lot into these choices.)

And the hotdogs bring me to one of the better parts of this difficult experience--getting to meet Hotdog Man. We first met Hotdog Man when he asked where the cafeteria was. This was later followed with a discussion of what he had for lunch which was a hotdog in a square bun. He was none too fond of of this square bun and debating the pros and cons of square vs. round buns led us to more personal discussions. He was 78 and was at the hospital with his wife who had fallen and broken her back. He had seven kids and lots of grandkids. He used to be a coal miner and a truck driver among other things and had a botched hernia operation. We smiled every time we saw each other and chatted like we were old friends. Despite our friendliness, we never got to know Hotdog Man's real name. It's funny how we were so close in many ways, but real names didn't seem necessary. I already miss his smile and have been pondering a question, "If we called him Hotdog Man, I wonder what he called us?"