Newsletter 2, Episode 3, Pantry Lost: McMinnville Oregon

America, I'm Eating Your Pantry!

Wrapping up from Episode 2; we left Jackie, Daniel Boone, and Matt Sugars at the Coldstone Creamery- and at the end of a solid day of junk food eating and hookah smoking. If you’ve been following these McMinnville episodes and Eat Your Pantry! closely, you are probably wondering how I slipped out of the cupboards so quickly. What about the Manifesto of a Pantry Eater? What about Eat Your Pantry, fool! How could a few licks of ice cream trip up this institution? I have a two websites, merchandise, a marketing strategy- plans for the future. Yet in the past two days in McMinnville, I had already spent more money on food than I had in an entire month during Pantry. Where did things go wrong?

I could try to get philosophical about it, but in reality I just don’t know shit from shinola why it all happened, really. One day I was getting thinner, saving hundreds of dollars a month, feeling active and spry; then the next I decided to eat some ice cream in Oregon- and Pantry all but disappears. It is several months later and I am finally reviving the Pantry lifestyle once again, and with a steadfast course I have returned to writing and promoting it. I guess I’ve learned that whatever I do, Pantry is there for me when I need it. During Pantry this past spring, I felt I was becoming Pantry itself. Now I realize the path of things is to work in association with a concept, and not attempt to become it.

So back to Danny & Jackie, Jackie had recruited me to “become it“ in an way I wasn’t expecting for tonight’s outing to the local country bar- by placing an ubber patriotic tattoo on my head.



By this point I was so sugared-out that I was an easy sell for almost anything, but what I didn’t know was that she placed it on my head sideways.



I thought I was going to be cool that night by going back to the bar looking like I belonged there. I had a hat on the night before, so most people thought this fake tattoo was real (yes, the crowd there never changes), but what kind of dork actually puts a flag tattoo on their head sideways? I guess you have to be almost the same type of dork that would get a flag tattoo on your head in the first place. My real issue was that without knowing it, I looked like a different kind of dork than I wanted to.

But of course it didn’t matter to anyone. Nobody wanted to kick my ass for flying the flag sideways or anything like that. And with this temporary tattoo, I couldn’t even touch the real action that was going on in the bar that night (wish I had some pictures). There was a couple in their upper forties that had been going out for almost a year. Over a game of pool with a bunch of other locals, everyone chatting up- the couple realized that they were actually 2nd cousins! Thank God it didn’t seem to faze them though. They just had a good laugh out of it along with everyone else. I was really starting to really like this town.

Jackie belted out some of the best karaoke I’ve ever heard that night,



but with her amazing poise, I never would have guessed that she was totally loaded...





It sure looked like the Boones would be out of steam the next morning. I plotted my breakfast out of their Pantry to call an end to this Frankenfurteresque decline into indulgence. The next morning, Pantry would be the first to rise!

Danny told me that if I would have done this Pantry visit a few months earlier before they moved, that I would have a whole lot more to work with. I’d say that was probably a fair assessment. I estimate that the Boones had approximately 1 week worth of food in their Pantry. There were a number of items there, though many of which would not necessarily sustain life for an extended period of time, such as diet freezer pops, etc.

But apparently with what they did have on hand, the Boones enjoy peanut butter & jelly sandwiches & pancakes as much as I do. An idea was forming…



I would use the Bisquick to fashion the dough for Peanut Butter & Jelly rolls…



I laid them out



Rolled them up!



They came out of the oven a golden brown…



And set them out to cool...



Good morning Daniel & Jackie Boone, Bon Appetite!



Maybe it came a little late in the game, but Pantry again made it’s mark in the lives of another typical American household. The America I’m Eating Your Pantry! Tour is currently on the road, so we’ll see you in 2006.

Have a great New Years!
Signing out, Matt Sugars with “America, I’m Eating Your Pantry!”

Newsletter 2, Episode 2, Pantry Lost: McMinnville Oregon

America, I'm Eating Your Pantry!

Wrapping up from last week, Daniel Boone and I were stuck somewhere outside of Salem, Oregon - trapped on the wrong side of a river because of a suicide threat on the bridge out of town, and because a lightning storm blasted out an electric ferry further south. Daniel somehow figured out another route that didn’t cross any water (???), and within another hour we were finally at the home of Danny and Jackie.



I was too pooped to even get a look at the Boone’s Pantry when I first arrived, and somehow Pantry didn’t seem to be on the evening’s agenda. Jackie’s mom was a bartender at the local karaoke country bar, so we geared up for the evening out. Once we got to the bar, we hadn’t sat down for more than a minute before the menus were out and we were ordering. Might as well let the evening go and enjoy. I ended the Yakima Pantry tour with ice cream, so I figured I’d do the same in reverse here and start up right quick with a hot fudge sundae and grilled cheese sandwich. I asked for the sundae and sandwich to come separately and later on in the evening. My name was in the hat to sing a song, and I didn’t want both items to arrive while singing. But just as my name was called to sing “Backdoor Man” by The Doors, both items - sure enough - hit our table. After my 5-minute song, I had to tear through the tepid grilled cheese sandwich just to eat the sundae before it would totally melt to slop. But it was already too late; by the end of my set it was sugar soup. Two minutes and eight dollars later, I felt like a sick, played bastard. But the folly only augmented this non-Pantry night at that crazy country bar.

Our next day with the Boones started with a mission. It was the day before Father’s day, and Daniel was trying to figure out what to get his dad. He had seen a pair of Oregon State thongs (his father’s alma matter) at the local Fred Meyer.



But he didn’t feel like the thongs alone were enough of a gift. Somehow the idea came up to turn this gift into a theme, so next we picked up some tongs-



And finally we found a thong to complete the Father’s day gift appropriately.



After that, we met up with Jackie and headed downtown. We were getting hungry, and a place stuck out to us…



Call us suckers for low-tech Elvis ads, but if he was “here,” we sure as hell had to be “there.” Elvis turned out to be a small monkey living within the greenish murk of a windowed cage far too depressing to photograph, but I enjoyed my gardenburger, onion rings, and shake. Jackie took on some kind of insane hot dog with all kinds of crap on it. You know what they say- ‘when at Alfs…’



Jackie then suggested a visit to the local hookah bar. Not yet another sin against Pantry eating anyway, so I figured why not?

I didn’t quite know what I was doing, but the flavored tobaccos seemed pleasant enough. But somehow I didn’t think I was getting enough of a draw…



But Jackie took control and got the bowl cooking…



Now with a healthy mint and lemon-scented cloud in the air, we were able to relax, enjoy, and catch up a bit.



But after the shisha was all smoked up, it left us craving - - - more ice cream.



It was my very first visit to the Coldstone Creamery. I had their largest offering titled “I Can’t Believe I’m Eating This” or something like that. When I dropped 2 quarters in the tip jar, the poor kids working there sang some dumb song thanking me for the tip. Did they really want to sing me to me? I can just see the guys from Corporate in Chicago coming up with an evil idea like this. I hope karma is real. For what these big wig pimps of over-priced sugar death food get paid, seems like they should have to streak down Times Square while singing a medley of “Feelings,” “We Built This City,” and “Susudio” (in falsetto) for adequate payback.

Yet lost far out in the Coldstone Sea without a lifeboat, I had a moment of clarity remembering how sane my world was back in the land of Pantry. Too late for this trip though, I was lost within the walls of the sugar side.



Stay tuned next week for Episode 3, where Matt Sugars, Daniel Boone & Jackie head out to the country bar once more, and finally after a night of drinking (for Jackie) make their way into the Boone’s pantry!

Don't miss the special holiday Pantry event this Sunday, the 18th!

Newsletter 2, Episode 1, Pantry Lost: McMinnville Oregon

America, I'm Eating Your Pantry!

Welcome to America, I’m Eating Your Pantry! This is the 1st part of a 3 Episode newsletter covering the 2nd stop on my nationwide tour. Preparing for my engagement in McMinnville Oregon, it was brewing in the back of my mind (and I’m sure yours as well) that my Pantry tour to Yakima, Walla Walla, and Zillah, Washington could be a very tough act to follow. Oatmeal Masala, Muddy Chai, & Cherry Pop Pie set the standard for a high power Pantry performance. But blazing up with the frying pans and crock-pots on full tilt, this Pantry soldier will stay the course! Preparing for Pantry’s first tour date out of state, I gathered up my Pantry literature and business cards- set to be a solid showman for Pantry.

That was then, however, and at the time of writing this several months later, I can only wonder what went wrong with Pantry in Oregon. The steely will and military determination that most associate with Pantry has since crumbled into undocumented midnight eating binges featuring Butterfingers, milkshakes, and fried whatever. Photos taken on the McMinnville trip reveal themselves to be more likely items of evidence than Pantry promotionals. I will not sweep this incident under the rug. I must face it head on if I am to grow. So here goes.

It started with a morning train ride from Seattle heading south.



I’ve ridden this line several times in the past, but this is the first time I’ve boarded one of Amtrak’s stately superliners. Most routes between Washington and Oregon (and up to Vancouver BC) run the rails with a somewhat cramped Spanish commuter train, so I was excited for the double-decker cars and leg space outrageously huge even for me. But while it didn’t resemble a Spanish train, it did resemble a Spanish bar.



The observation deck windows were lined with empty bottles; kinda like the proud displays on college dorm windows when the drinking age was 19 back in Ohio. And yes, where there’s smoke, there’s fire- and people were just plain lit. A few so much so that they would stumble all around the moving train, looking for people they could talk to whom wouldn’t talk back. It was a drunk’s wet dream, open container in a public place with captive people. As a reader, you must be wondering what it was like for the people who weren’t drinking. I just described what it was like for me, but I didn’t really find anyone else sober with whom to commiserate. Even the happy granny sitting next to me had a few highballs to pass away the hours. I’m sure it would have been illegal for me to bring my lone bottle of wine from my Pantry. Yet another example of the pervasive Pantry prejudice instituted into our system.

When I arrived in Salem en route to McMinnville, my friend Daniel Boone was there waiting to pick me up.



But we quickly found ourselves in a bind. The bridge leading back to McMinnville was closed with some suffering soul standing at its edge threatening suicide. Danny called his wife Jackie to try to think out another route home. We didn’t want to start off the visit with a deep level downer like this.



Daniel and Jackie came up with a plan to venture south to a small ferry, adding 45 minutes to our drive. So we headed in that direction only to find another line up of cars, this one even longer than for the jumper in Salem. Curious if suicide had become absolutely rampant that day in Oregon, we hailed down a nearby motorist and Danny got the lowdown.



The woman in the car told Daniel that a few hours back, a lightning storm blew out the power in the area, and apparently… this was an electric ferry we were waiting for? That didn’t make much sense to me, but regardless, we either had to wait it out till the power returned, or find yet another plan. What made the lineup for this electric ferry even worse were the many folks, who like us, were avoiding the suicide bridge in Salem.

Stay tuned next week for Episode 2, where Matt Sugars & Daniel Boone make their way back to McMinnville, and head out to the local country bar with wife Jackie for Karaoke singing, grilled cheese, and a hot fudge sundae!

Last chance for shipping in time for Christmas! Eat Your Pantry Web Outlet Store

Pantry Testimonials!

“I have lots more cash than I did before!”

Mr. Sugars,

The pantry eating is going very well, I do supplement on occasion, but the pantry focus has really begun to help me save money. I have lots more cash than I did before! I have extra every month, which could be very good for additional expenses.

--Mateo


“You’re giving people good ideas for saving money.”

Mr. Sugars,

I love your Eat Your Pantry newsletters, and now your making a business out of it! Who would ever know that your idea of eating your pantry would be such a big success in the business world, LOL!!!!

I ran out of money to buy food last week, so I decided also to eat out of my pantry for awhile and out of my frig and freezer, you’re giving people good ideas for saving money. Thanks a bunch, Matt.

Warmly,
--Reba


“I eat out all the time. I have much to learn.”

Mr. Sugars,

I am the epitome of the non-eat your pantry person. I eat out all the time. I have much to learn. Come to Cleveland and you can feast on my pantry. It is fat and bloated and needs to become a model of efficiency. I'll pay you consulting fees. Book your ticket to the grand Ohio.

--Sean


“Sugars showed me that Pantry isn't just cheap: it's endless.”

"What was I doing with my food before Pantry came along? Eating restaurant food a few too many times a week, that's what – and sopping up those cheap-ass restaurant oils that go along with the marked-up tabs my wrist got carpal tunnel debiting each time. I knew better, of course -- knew that if I really set my mind to it sometime, I could save a ton of money and feed my body something better than any restaurant could give me. What was stopping me? It's not like I don't have a bunch of cookbooks....

But I hate cookbooks as much as I hate restaurant water. I hate cookbooks about as much as I hate cooking. Which is probably why Pantry worked its magic. Pantry isn't cooking: it's something completely different. Pantry, as the masterful Mr. Sugars has demonstrated, is a whole other animal entirely.

Reading Sugars' Pantry Newsletters, I finally realized my number was up. It was true, I admitted: I'm just throwing cash into the goddamned fire. Sugars showed me that Pantry isn't just cheap: it's endless. Taking his word for it, I hauled out my crock-pot and loaded it up with 2 cups of lentils. A few hours later, I had the base for a week's worth of dinner's, which I could improvise each time with different greens and veggies, not to mention spices, and yes, fine oils -- none of that greasy rapeseed extract served up by anonymous prep staff. No cookbooks, not restaurant water -- and no having to fake politeness to waiters when all I really wanted was to just stuff my face and get back home. NOW when I go to a restaurant, my politeness is genuine, because I'm there to be there. And because I know that back home in my fridge, I've got three days worth of beans waiting to be experimented with, and that in the freezer, I've got 2 weeks more where those three days worth came from....see? Endless."

--L. Bean


“People here at the office eat a lot of junk a lot of the time.”

Mr. Sugars,

I did a fast yesterday. This morning I ate 1 carrot and 1 apple. It feels good. Had to do it, just to balance myself out.

People here at the office eat a lot of junk a lot of the time. There is supermarket birthday cake every other day. Pizza is often ordered on weekend days, and then we go out to eat at restaurants just about every day.

I was getting caught in the cycle a little bit... that's why I'm glad to read that you're going strong with your pantry efforts.

--Cuz Tom


“Eating my pantry has also inspired me to begin using up the many hotel shampoo/conditioner samples that I have collected over the years.”

Mr. Sugars,

I just wanted to let you know that I’ve always wanted to be a pantry eater, and I had attempted it here and there.... but, to me, it always seems to achieve this type of goal when you feel like you are the only one in the country putting forth the effort.

Now that Pantry eating has gone public, thanks to your efforts, I have become quite encouraged to follow my heart and to eat my pantry.

Some of my recent accomplishments have been to finish off a frozen soybean and corn mixture that has sat in my freezer for at least two years... Same for some chicken tenders. (Of course, I had to scrape off a lot of snowy ice first.)

I have also finished off a bag of sesame seed, by adding a quarter cup to all of my evening meals until the bag was empty... I am working on this same regimen with flax seed and wheat germ. (The flax seed is a little more difficult, because the recommended serving size causes your mouth to foam with flax oil.)

... Along those lines, I have to say that seeds just don’t digest very well according to the jewels in my toilet bowl... But this is of no great concern to me, because I feel very accomplished seeing my pantry become less and less filled.

Eating my pantry has also inspired me to begin using up the many hotel shampoo/conditioner samples that I have collected over the years.

My next goal is to begin to consume (at a healthy pace) all of those vitamins that I bought after reading about remedies for various ailments.

I know all of these efforts are saving me money, and I am finding that I do like some of those foods that I had originally thought would be hard to swallow.

Thanks,
--Rick's wife


“…then to my great surprise I spy a big ol' can of Reservation/ Government rationed black and white issued PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!!!!!! Complete with a black and white peanut on the label.”

Mr. Sugars,

Just wanted to let you know that I have been making my own lunches for work (saving 120+ a month) which feeds the pantry with great left-overs, thank the sweet light skinned Jesus for Uncle Joes Trading Post, even better when one dumpsters it.

I wanted to share with you a truly and bewildering pantry moment with you. It began last ???? when I was running to meet my lobe piercing appointment @ Tattoo Emporium (across from the Roman Columns that no longer seat the homeless, but my love object and I are forming a Plan: OPERATION BENCH AND CHAIR: which is comprised of picking up free chairs (dumpster/curb scores) and leaving them @ the Benches that are no longer benches but some sort of city sculpture bullship--skeleton benches (need to find the ordinance # for we plan on painting the chairs a certain color and marking the ordinance # of BULLSHIT on them). So anyhow, I am running on the sidewalk nearing the entryway to the shop. But what is distracting is the well known VOODOO of BOODOO doing his/her thang on the sidewalk -- you know the one --- she/he is gigantic, usually in some sort of tube top thing waving this or that and dancing on the corners of Capitol Hill, always has a V.V. (value village) bag by her/his side. So this thing is going on, and in the street some drunked out freak man has spilled his goods out from his plastic bag, cans and food stuff all over the street, cars are coming his way, he is wavering around like a drunk pirate on shore holiday, cursing and slobbering, having no success picking up his scores - well then to my great SURPRISE I spy a big ol' can of Reservation/ Government Rationed BLACK AND WHITE issued PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!!!!!!! Complete with a black and white peanut on the label. It fucking rivals Andy Warhol’s Soup Cans!!!! I swear to the great Lord of Life that this truly did occur. TO bad I don't have a camera cell phone contraption. It was such a good moment and I thought of you and your pantry pilgrimage immediately!!! So there you have it. May the great Pantry always guide you and be with you thru thick and thin tin.

--Ape Girl


“I have eaten my pantry, literally!”

Mr. Sugars,

I have eaten my pantry, literally! I was going to Chicago for over two weeks and didn't want my food to spoil; so I gave my refrigerator food to friends before I left. To my chagrin, I had I had almost nothing left and had two weeks to go before my trip and payday. I had six dollars and some things in the cupboard such as flour, cornmeal, peanut butter, potatoes, eggs, macaroni and cheese, some pancake flour and jelly. No bread or butter, but just enough to pay for some. The challenge is to be creative and have fun. I must confess that after the two weeks when I finally got paid, I ordered a pizza! My reward, hmmm (Although I could have made my own as I had flour and tomato sauce).

This is a fun web site full of creative ideas that make us think and not take for granted all that we have.

Thank you Matt Sugars !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

--Bobbi LaForce

Google Ads?

For those of you who’ve read the Manifesto of a Pantry Eater, you may be surprised to learn that I am very pro marketing, and that I have recently integrated Google Ads into the Pantry world. But man, everybody is pro marketing when you really think about it. Let me prove it. For a moment, imagine a caveman. He’s got a killer crush on a fine fine sexy cavelady. He doesn’t want to be just like one of the other hairy primitive cavemen, so driven by intuition and hormones—he pierces a decorative bone through his bottom lip to turn that fine cavelady on. Sounds crazy, but it works… We are all marketers.

What I am against is the power of lobbyists in our “free market” system. A perfect example would be the story of Stevia. If Neutra Sweet, Splenda, and Saccharine tasted all that fantastic and wonderful (taste like shit to me), then why would the industries behind these products need to lobbyize Stevia out of the market; a better tasting, healthy and natural competitor (that doesn’t give you cancer). Trouble is I guess, that it is hard to compete with ‘ma earth in terms of quality, so buying off the FDA to keep Stevia out of the grocery store is easier than synthesizing a safe & good tasting product. So you see, organized big money replaces the arbitrary practices of dictators and kings. Where is our “free market” system that we –market- to the world? And let’s not even get into the health effects of Sugar right now.

So the Google ads on Eat Your Pantry! serve the dual purpose of both revealing the money and attention that goes into influencing what you eat, as well as providing valuable Pantry information. I’m not going to get down on marketers doing their thing- more power to them, they are my brothers. In fact, I’m quite impressed with the ad offerings that Google has posted on the Pantry site. I get a rush at the thought of somebody reading one of these EYP Newsletters, clicking on an ad for cheap airline tickets, and then flying to Yakima to have their own Pantry tour. While in Yakima, they can reference the Google ads on Eat Your Pantry to check into a fine Yakima motel, enter the Pillsbury and Betty Crocker sweepstakes, learn tips how to make Snow Ice Cream, and perhaps even purchase real estate in the Yakima area. These ads lay out a Pantry roadmap that I never could have imagined!

So keep your eyes on the Google ads, they should change to fit the Pantry content as this site grows. Click on them, read them, scope out the marketing angle they are getting on you, and at the end of the day, EAT YOUR PANTRY, FOOL!

Upcoming Events

This Sunday, December 18th, Essence of Estarr Holiday Studio Sale & Eat Your Pantry! Consultation With Matt Sugars

Need to get a few more stocking stuffers for the holidays? Do you know a certain somebody who could use a bar of soap before Santa will come down his or her chimney? Welcome to a holiday sale with style featuring Essence of Estarr soaps, lotions & bath fizzies. Also for sale, spider plant babies raised on hillbilly music. And don’t miss a bonus Eat Your Pantry! consultation with Matt Sugars.

When: 1PM to 5 PM, December 18th
Where: 1012 E. Harrison St., Seattle (one block off of Broadway on Capitol Hill)

See you there!