The basics

So, I am a Facebook junkie. I spend WAY too much time perusing its confines, reading people's mundane daily life adventures, stalking their photos, and giggling at the funny memes they post that I saw on Reddit two months previous. Occasionally, someone of my acquaintance posts something that gets me thinking. Today, for instance, my cousin on my mom's side, Kory, posted a question: 

"What are 5-10 of the most common food items that you have in your fridge/ kitchen at any given time?"

That got me thinking...what do I ALWAYS have in my cupboards and fridge? What do I consider "basics" for my daily culinary needs? I spouted off five of six items in the comments without much thought to it and I wish I hadn't. I wish I had pondered the thought further. I know she was looking for answers partly because she has some immediate ideas mulling about inside her head concerning food. For me, the idea has turned into an academic exercise with broader implications. I wonder what kinds of regional differences one would see if you asked this question of people from around the country, around the world! How has my own idea of what constitutes "basics" changed over the past 10 years? 20 years?

Here's a list of the top ten items I always have in my cupboards/refrigerator:

1. Rice
2. Noodles
3. Butter
4. Flour
5. Sriracha
6. Sugar
7. Potatoes
8. Spices
9. Salt
10. Oil

What's in your cupboards that you cannot do without?

Cafe Mob-Madison:putting our money where our mouths are.

I started a Facebook group.

I've started one or two of them before, but they were always meant to be ironic and/or funny. I am one of those people that can come up with lots of ideas, from the most mundane to absolute delusions of grandeur, but what I rarely do is follow up on any of my ideas. If I think an idea has enough potential to become something great, I'll pass it off to someone with the energy and single-minded determination I don't have to get it done. I'm often not motivated by anything more than just wanting something get done that has utility to it, or I just think the idea is neat, but I lack the attention span to see it through.

That changed this past weekend when I started Cafe Mob-Madison. Most people know what a flash mob is, (and if you don't, Google it!) and some people have even heard of a cash mob; where a group of people get together, set a minimum amount of money to spend per person, and then collectively go into a struggling, locally-owned business at the same time and buy stuff. It has an immediate economic impact on said business, but the event can also provide free advertising as well, either by exposing group members to a business they may have never been to before, and/or the event can receive local press, exposing even more people to a place they may not be aware of.

The idea behind Cafe Mob is to organize a cash mob that is specific to restaurants here in Madison. I'm a food guy. For fucks'sake, I blog about it! The least I can do as a food guy who gives a shit about the local dining scene is support it any way I can. I'm a college student, so my food dollars are stretched pretty thin already. But, I know plenty of people who aren't in a position of having to know every conceivable way of making ramen into a complete meal and are willing to spend some of their hard-earned food dollars on good locally owned restaurants that may be struggling a bit. The group is open to anybody. There's 35 members so far, several of whom I've never even met. I'm excited to see where this goes.

That's all for now. In the future, my posts are going to become shorter. I think I could write almost every day if I stick to just one central idea per post. I tend to wander a bit at times, but we'll see how it goes.