Whatcha Got In That Box?

Today, I picked up my box of food from the local Food Bank, that is to be my source of nutrition and sustenance for the next seven days. Box in hand, I headed home to inspect my wares.

I was immediately nervous. Having always eaten from scratch, and having a mother teach me how to cook, and make everything from scratch as a young child; I have been able to whip up interesting meals when my pantry was more Mother Hubbard, the Upper East Side. I had hoped to be able to combine a few of the five staples we as challenge participants were able to have with what I had been given into what I could surmise to be full meals.

I was dead wrong.

With the milk I had been given, and the Becel, combined with Flour, and salt/pepper, I could have whipped up a Bechemal Sauce and add stuff from the box to it (my tomato soup for example), for a different style of pasta sauce to get my through a day or two, but I would then need something to put it on, and having only received half a Ziploc lunch bag of pasta; come the time I would need to whip up something new, the pasta would have been used on the can of pasta sauce I had been given.

As a snacker, and constant muncher - I have found staring into the content of a box that has been termed the 3 Day Emergency Box, and trying to figure out how to make it last seven days (minus one meal at our local soup kitchen), I've needed to take a big, realistic breath in, and pray I can make this work.

Lunch: Which consisted of a few piecces of french bread (that expires today), and a bowl of cereal will not be enough to sustain anyone, but I am an nervous at portioning the food items I have been given. I knew this challenge would be far from easy, but have already been gripped with a severe case of worry, and a case of; "Is this what people must survive on?"

We should be lucky to have the food we do, from local individuals who donate, and stores who bring in items they may have thrown out, but the reality of this is that my three day kit would not feed a single person healthy and to a point to where the person could say "Wow, am I full" for more then a day and a half on the staples, then a day and a half of toast. Thank goodness for the bread, buns, and the milk.

This will prove to be one of the most difficult challenges I have faced in a long time, and truthfully; I hope I can mange.