The can-can

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I don't donate to foodbanks very often. I should. As someone who takes great pleasure in both food and feeding people, I ought to get nice warm fuzzies out of contributing. But, I'm also a creature of schedules and habits, and pleas for canned goods always come at awkward times, times when my brain is so jumbled with other concerns that I just don't remember. Seriously, if you ask me on the way into the grocery store to donate, I will have long since forgotton by the time I leave.

Often when I donate, I do what I suspect many people do: clean out the pantry and donate all the odds and ends that I just don't know what to do with (and don't remember why I bought). Many a can of tuna has left our house in that way. (For the record, I don't buy the tuna. Or cook it. Nor do I eat it. So why does it keep coming back? And overstaying its welcome?)

This year, the Boy Scout's Scouting for Food bag arrived on my doorknob as I was preparing a shopping list for a much overdue grocery run. And, I remembered my thoughts about living off a foodstamp budget.

So, I actually added decent donate items to my shopping list. I didn't buy a lot--boxed pie crust mix, pumpkin pie filling (requires only eggs and evaporated milk, and a crust), evaporated milk, and a couple of small jars of pumpkin pie spice. The spices don't go with the pie filling--it's all-inclusive. But someone else might end up with a can of blah pumpkin and have nothing in the cupboard to add to it.

Now, I will still be raiding the pantry for any unclaimed cans of food (I think I spotted some baby food jars in there the other day...that's gotta go!), and if I catch a great sale sometime this week then I might add a little more to my offerings.

I do have one request: could one of ya'll please remind me to actually stick the bag of food out this weekend? It would be really silly (and completely predictable) of me to go to all the effort only to forget to actually donate the stuff...