Little House, Big Flour

It wasn't long ago that I didn't understand why anyone would buy food in bulk quantities. Who, outside of a family of 14, could possibly consume enough of one product to make that worth it? Of course, that didn't stop me once from buying a Costco-sized bag of chocolate chips. But even factoring in regular chocolate binges with my college roommate and tons of chocolate chip cookies, it took a good year plus to get through the whole bag.

On the other hand, back then I didn't cook a lot. Or almost at all. Once in a while my roommates and I would get it in our heads that we wanted to spend a bunch of time trying to create a masterpiece of a dinner and would walk the grand 4 or so blocks to the grocery store to get exactly what we needed. Having everything so close is definitely a perk of living in the tight quarters of urbania.

Fast forward a few years and Aaron and I now cook a lot. Aaron is constantly experimenting with cookbooks (especially How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman and anything by Julia Child), and as of last Christmas (when my parents bought us the pasta attachment for our Kitchen Aid) we've been making more pasta than it's probably healthy for any 2 people to consume. And of course now, our grocery store is not just a stone's throw away. At first I was amazed by how quickly we were going through basics like flour, sugar, and eggs. (Clearly we're neither gluten free nor vegan. I love gluten. Gluten is my best friend.) Then I realized that we were still shopping with our old habits: buying small quantities assuming that we'd be lucky to finish them at all, let alone with any particular expediency. Not only were we setting ourselves up to run out of things regularly, but we were also spending more money than we needed to. As much as it pains me to admit it, bulk items are typically cheaper. It became apparent that we have become a household that needs to buy our staples in those quantities that I previously considered outrageous. So, thanks to my gluten-loving dietary needs, say hello to our big ol' bag of flour:

And just for the sake of clarity:

Turns out, two people can eat like 14.  Who knew?