Tuesday, December 20, 2005

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!”

6 comments:

Matt Sugars said...

Yo Jackie, I wouldn't put the picture up if I didn't luv ya too. It was central to the story though. We found redemption in the morning with the peanut butter and jelly rolls. Everybody had a good time, anyway. Pantry is all about a good time.

pete. said...

They look good. How'd they taste?

Matt Sugars said...

Pete,

They were quite tasty actually, but perhaps flawed in design. They were too much a thick square lump, so as a result, the center was not done. I should heve kept them un-rolled or baked them at a lower temp.

philavox said...

Sugars,

Are you suggesting that Pantry might be a seasonal phenomenon?

philavox said...

...that was a rhetorical question.

Indeed, it seems that you are suggesting as much.

Well, this makes sense to me. I mean, it really helps me to not eat apples from Spring thru Summer, for example -- or pickles, or olives, or garlic. That way when Fall & Winter do roll around, I GET to eat that cold-weather food, rather than HAVE to.

Things I have stopped eating during the cold season include: bananas, salads, spirulina, and most fruits besides apples, frozen berries.....and pomegranites.

Next on the docket for my pantry self-education: bean pies! After reading about them in Malcom X's autobiography, I haven't been able to keep them out of my head.

L. Bean

Kathy said...

omg and lol.