When there is nothing left to eat, eat cookies.

It has been three weeks since I have been to a grocery store. Yes, you read that correctly. Three weeks! There is something simply wonderful about that last stretch of time between the moment the cupboards seem bare to when they are actually bare. It has always been my impulse to schedule a shopping trip on the front end, when it first seems like there is nothing around to eat. Lately however, lately as in the last year, I have enjoyed really stretching that time. I continue to be amazed at what a person can come up with to eat for so many days after the point in which it was thought, "we have nothing here to eat". Suddenly rice makes an appearance at nearly every meal, along with carrots or other root crop-y types of vegetables. Dried beans begin to come out for an overnight soak and the barley sitting at the back of the cupboard is moved directly to the front for review. Recipes that were looked at briefly but seemed to "exotic" and were put aside are now searched for feverishly as the lunch hour rapidly descends. I find myself perusing various cookbooks saying things like, "African Millet Porridge, ah yes, that's just the thing. I believe there must be a bit of millet around here yet." And then when it is really truly nearing the end, the very end, how nice it is to scrape together the last little bit of butter, a few bits of dried fruit of all varieties, whatever little flakes of nuts that are left at the bottom of the jars along with some flour, sweetener, and some good happy love to produce just the finest of all desserts. The cookie.