Lent

My husband and I are not particularly religious people, although we both grew up going to church. I always participated in Lent, however, feeling that it was a good exercise in self-control while being easy to explain to people. No one questions your reasons if you tell them you gave something up for Lent.

This year we had talked about boycotting chain stores, but after much research and planning, found that it would be far too expensive for our humble budget, mostly in the food category. I can give up a lot of things, but not food. This morning, with Lent just around the corner, we made a new plan. We will give up the middle of the grocery store. Specifically, we will give up buying foods with unintelligible labels and stick to the sorts of things Michael Pollan would define as food. With no Sunday cheating. We had already given up high fructose corn syrup for our New Year's resolution, so this is really just taking that to a new level.

It would be a lot easier if our garden would be ready, but of course, with three feet of snow on the ground, we're stuck buying food. We'll just buy food that's good for us.