On Food

Justice Bus 2027

More than once in the past, I have written about how Hope and Larry Ware of Under the Median strongly lecture viewers like me to inventory their freezer (well, all of their pantries) on a regular basis so you know what you have on hand before running out and buying more. We last inventoried ours in October, 2025, and I wrote then about how embarrassing it was to see how much FOOD we had tucked away that we just kept adding to rather than using up. 

As 2026 winds down, I had been telling myself it was time to get the downstairs freezer organized and, while I was at it, might at well inventory it too. What finally pushed me from "thinking I should" to actually doing it was the arrival of November and turkey sales beginning for Thanksgiving. As I have written about before, we buy frozen turkeys in November, then I roast them, shred them, freeze them in gallon bags, using them every month to make shredded onion/turkey sandwiches for our clients and volunteers at our monthly Justice Bus Clinic. 

So yesterday, after purchasing the first frozen turkey, I announced in a loud voice, "I am going to organize and inventory the freezer!" Otherwise, there would be no place to put the turkeys until I could get to them later this month. I then marched down to the basement and began emptying out every single item in the freezer, putting them in groups (chicken drumsticks here, quart bags of sliced zucchini there) on towels spread over the top of the washer and dryer.

Emptying the freezer was one thing. Facing up to what we had stuffed in it was another. 

Back in October, we spent an overnight visit with close family, Tom and Melody and their four children, in Washington Court House, Oho, attending a Senior Night football game at the local high school. Nathan is a senior and this was his last game with the marching band. His little brother Calvin is a freshman in the same band. It was a wonderful mix of family and community and laughter and hugs and marching bands (my favorite when I was in band). The next morning, having made a breakfast casserole, Melody was dishing up a hearty serving to everyone around the table. She paused before serving me and Warren, asking if perhaps we'd like a smaller serving. Absolutely. I added we had both noticed that as we are getting older, we ate less. Calvin, across the table from me, looked up with a stricken face. "That's sad," he said, and he meant it.

Calvin's sad face came back to me as I stared at the, ahem, bounty of the basement freezer. Let's just say there was a lot of food. 

A. LOT.

There was a considerable pile of wrapped portions of ground turkey. (When I freeze food, I wrap it in portions and label the package.) That one baffled me: what the heck? Then I remembered that way back when, I had made a hasty purchase of high-end ground turkey at Kroger. How way back when? Four years ago. Over time, those portions got shoved into the back of the freezer and lost behind newer items. 

There were considerable stacks of other items as well. Going back to my statement that as we age, we eat less, I realized we can eat for months (I am not exaggerating) from the freezer. 

Months. 

I reorganized the food and (gasp) drew up an inventory that is now on the front of freezer. How many packages of chicken thighs (2 per pack)? 10, that's how many. Quarts of zucchini? 19. (And as I type this, I suddenly realize that what I categorized as peppers, there were two quarts bags  that are, I believe, actually sliced yellow summer squash. Oops! No, I'm not redoing the inventory.)

On the strength of my basement discovery, I went into the kitchen and emptied out the freezer on the fridge. Not as staggering as the basement freezer (well, it's a lot smaller) but already there were items I had forgotten about, such as the tomatoes I roasted for winter pizzas.

Oh. Those. (Even more embarrassing to forget about them because I blogged about them even! Not to mention I put them on Instagram!) 

And yes, I did a much smaller typed inventory for the kitchen freezer, to try to keep better track. (No, I am not posting either of my inventories; it is embarrassing enough just writing about them!) 

It was a learning lesson in so many ways. I discovered far more chicken broth than I thought, and said to Warren, "I am NOT making any more chicken broth until we use this up!" (I will be making turkey broth as I prep the Bus turkey for 2027, but that's a different matter.) 

As I look at finishing 2026 and our tallying how much we spent on groceries for the whole year, the final quarter of 2026 looks a lot lighter. A. Lot. Yes, we will still be buying perishables. And yes, some of the pantry staples such as oatmeal will continue to pop up on the shopping list. I will be making sure we have the ingredients for December's biscotti; Warren will do the same for the peanut brittle he makes at Christmastime in the footsteps of his father. 

But I think we can go for a long, long time on the bounty of the freezer! For the record, I thawed two of the small bundles of 4-year-old ground turkey and we cooked it as part of supper. It was (a) fine and (b) tasty. 

Grateful? You bet I am. For all of this!