Friday, August 10, 2012

On urban hunting....

I'm a bargain hunter. I love shopping around for the best deal, whether it's groceries or a new dress or a flight. I just love it! I'm not sure where the thrill lies in bargain hunting, but it's something of a stress release for me. I have no idea why.

That said, I draw the line at garage sales. I've always hated them. I hate going to them. I hate having them. There's little that's enjoyable about it for me. Growing up, my family hosted more than a few garage sales and we'd end up hocking vegetables from our giant garden during the summer. It turned into quite the adventure getting everything together for those Saturday mornings. It was just exhausting.

Several years ago, I lived with a girl friend of mine who was known for her abilities to garage sale and dumpster dive and wind up with the most amazing stuff you can possibly imagine. She managed - ONE TIME - to sucker me into garage saling with her and I wound up with one of my favorite kitchen items ever. I got my roasting pan. It looks exactly like my dad's but is slightly smaller (as I was cooking only for me at the time and didn't need to roast a 15 pound bird). I love that thing and I still have it...and I use it relatively frequently. It's kind of the reason I love throwing dinner parties. When else do I get to roast a turkey or prime rib? I'm certainly not going to do it just for myself! It makes me want to do a prime rib and have a party right now, actually.

Not so many years ago, when my parents were moving into their new house, they had yet another garage sale. The only good thing about parents having a garage sale is that I can get stuff for free. So I went over to peruse the goods and was shocked to find they were selling my dad's marble rolling pin. WTF?! Why would someone ever get rid of something so amazing and perfect? I took it. It's still amazing, but my dogs, for reasons I cannot understand, managed to gnaw up one of the handles and scar the marble a little. Stupid animals.

Those two garage sale finds are cornerstones for my holiday cooking now. How else would I roll out pie crusts and THE perfect sugar cookies? How else would I gather drippings for what can only be the greatest gravy ever made?

So yes, I hate garage sales and I don't see myself going to another one any time soon...but those were some pretty awesome steals!