Waste stream: Days three, four and five
Leftovers. That pretty much sums up these last three days. And salads. Lots of salads.
Breakfast has been a really basic meal consisting of a few pieces of expired bread made into toast and coated with honey (the same that used to “house” a fly) and some free cherry jelly. Nice, sweet and filling for the morning.
When I get to work there is always a selection of bruised or ugly fruit from the previous day’s culling, so I usually pick one or two to eat for a snack before lunch. The last two days, lunch has been plain sandwiches – overripe tomatoes on expired sourdough bread.
Dinner on day three was a bit different as it was not 100% out of the waste stream. A Wilmington Star News reporter and photographer came over to do an interview and sit down to eat a local, foraged and scavenged meal. In order to satisfy one of those qualifiers, I defrosted some chicken soup from the freezer. That was the 100% local part of dinner. The chicken was from Grassy Ridge, the rice from Carolina Plantation and all of the veggies (potato, green bean, yellow squash, garlic) were from Black River Organic Farm.
The foraged part was some sassafras root tea. The scavenged part was the salad.
The lettuce was two days out of date. The carrots were a month out of date. The tomato had a bad spot. Same with the turnip, green pepper and zucchini. Dressing was Annie’s Organic French out of The Stash. Overall a very good meal and an interesting conversation about regional food systems, community and the general disconnection that most folks have from their food. Jessica over at Fresh Thinking was interviewed for the article as well, and we are both anxiously awaiting its publication.
Last night and tonight I had some leftover soup and some of the poorly packaged hot dogs I brought home Saturday night. To the usual salad fixings, I added some broccoli bits dug out of the bottom of a case that was emptied of its bunches.
I also found a nicely sprouting onion that would probably do better in the ground waiting for spring than hanging out waiting to be eaten.
I expect tomorrow to be more of the same, although I did find some out-of-date tortillas and a dented can of refried beans. Could be a theme if I could ever find a decent avocado in the dumpster…