getting it prairie style

when i put flour, coffee, sugar, butter on my grocery list, i feel very laura ingalls wilder. not that she was getting butter... they were probably churning butter. but i know they purchased coffee and sugar because i read about it in little house on the prairie. thing is, there's just something about composing a list of the basics... feels pioneerish, uncomplicated.

you know they weren't getting greek yogurt and bananas at mr cooper's general store. they weren't getting bottled water or air filters or tin foil or boned, skinned, de-feathered chicken carcasses. mr cooper didn't carry kleenex or coconut oil or velveeta.

one time when i was shopping with mini-me, we were procuring a cake mix because someone's (can't remember whose) birthday was in the offing. she was small enough to be sitting in that heinous wire cage some masochist invented for children to sit in while their parents grocery shop, which luckily the kids don't know any better and just sit there merrily... point is, small child very young. she says to me, what's in cake mix? and i am all like, well flour and sugar and probably powdered milk and salt.... and she is like, you mean we could MAKE a cake? and i am all, no no no - there are special cake ingredients we can't get.... ugh. is that child abuse?

i am not a basics kind of girl. i am a processed and packaged kind of girl. i mean, not processed like sweetarts and doritos... at least, not since high school. nowadays it's processed like fig newtons and shredded cheese and flatbread and greek yogurt in little serving-size containers. and when i need to bake a birthday cake, i get a cake mix plus icing in a can.

of course, my list does have one thing in common with that of the prairie dwelling ingalls -- coffee. and i even get it prairie style: whole bean, baby!