Surviving summer without the supermarket
Home » Blog » Six Months » Surviving summer without the supermarketIt’s been twelve weeks since Will Tong and Rachel de Lacey started their challenge to live without the supermarket for six months.
Keeping on top of routine tasks through the summer holidays can be pretty difficult, but navigating Christmas, New Year’s barbeques and two birthday celebrations without the convenience of a supermarket is particularly daunting.
It’s lucky for Rachel and Will that the chickens are laying, the roadside stalls are laden with fresh produce and their garden has kicked into action, producing potatoes, herbs, courgettes, cucumbers, garlic, carrots, beetroot and finally tomatoes (a late crop this year, due to a rainy summer in Hawke’s Bay).
Three months into the challenge, the family has encountered a few difficulties along the way. For one, they have discovered that beekeeping is a very intensive task due to the need for rigorous hygiene standards to deter the varroa mite. They have decided not to keep bees until they have time to research more.
They have also not been able to source cream in bulk to make butter, so they have had to adapt much of their butter-based baking to oil, as they are able to buy oil in bulk.
Rachel and Will also both admit that the summer holiday season was tough going. “Sticking to the routine of hunting and gathering was definitely harder without the school routine, and keeping to our schedule of cooking and baking got harder as the summer heat kicked in.
"Once Christmas was over, we really just wanted to relax things. This meant that the fridge was pretty empty over January, and our friends came to know that a barbeque at our house might consist of only marinated courgettes!” says Rachel.
But the Christmas and birthday celebrations were all the better for the challenge. Christmas Day itself was a simple affair, and that is just how the family wanted it. In keeping with their goal to get back to basics, the family aimed to keep their Christmas traditions as wholesome and eco-friendly as possible—and all without a supermarket.
“It’s like by taking on this project we had a reason to step out of the pre-Christmas madness, and it has made us acutely aware of how we are sucked in and made to feel like we need more.”
Instead of the classic shopping frenzy to prepare for Christmas, the family got creative and made as many of their presents as possible. Under the Christmas tree there were handmade duvet covers, pyjamas, cushions, headbands, posy brooches and bags, as well as homemade relishes and jams,” says Rachel.
After the presents were opened on Christmas morning the children had fun digging up the ‘Christmas potatoes’, the first potatoes of the season. The fresh uenuku potatoes accompanied an organic chicken and fresh salad from the garden for Christmas lunch. The trifle was a highlight of Christmas Day, with homemade sponge and custard with fresh berries. This was served up with a favourite summer treat: homemade berry ice cream.
Lily’s birthday was celebrated at Blackhead beach, and party snacks were a triumph of healthy domestic creativity. The birthday table was laden with sushi, vegetable sticks with hummus, quark dips and nut butter, roast beef sandwiches with tomato relish and more homemade ice cream. The big chocolate cake was decorated with ten beautiful little candles from the Hohepa Homes shop, and instead of the traditional party mix of lollies, the family visited an old-fashioned sweet shop for supplies.
Now that the family is back into the school term, Rachel and Will have been able to slot back into the routine they established before the school holidays. They bake bread daily, and work hard to keep the tins full with biscuits, crackers, muffins and cakes. The couple are also busy making strawberry and plum jam for the coming months.
Rachel is currently taking time out of her job as a teacher to care for their youngest child, and she is thankful that she is able to make her weekly rounds of shops and stalls fit in with her work as a Porse caregiver and her after-school commitments with her older children.
“I make sure that I go to shops on the way to and from places rather than waste petrol driving all around the district. Time-wise, I think I still spend less time at the small shops than I would have in the supermarket, as generally there isn’t a queue. And I also make the most of the opportunity to get to know the local owners while I am there,” she says.
The family has a new challenge to add into the equation: they are moving house at the end of February. They are already making regular visits to the new garden, preparing and planting the vegetable patch, and making a hen-house for their chickens. Next month I'll visit Will and Rachel in their new home, and find out how their challenge has survived the move
Recipes

- To make nut butter: Roast peanuts and/or almonds, cashews, sunflower seeds in the oven. Put nuts in a food processor and add salt to taste. Blend it to a puree. This is a good accompaniment to bread, and to use as a dip.
- To make instant ice cream: Put a cup of frozen berries into the blender with sugar to taste. Drizzle cream in until mixture is at the consistency of soft serve ice cream. This can be frozen for an hour for a harder ice cream.
Where to purchase essentials
- Milk: through a regular organic milk order from a local farm
- Essentials like washing powder, yeast, lunch wrap, honey: from local health food stores Cornucopia Organic Shop and Chantal Foods (no more than 10 items a week)
- Bulk products: the family have created a co-operative with some of their friends in order to buy in bulk from Chantal Organic Wholesalers (organic staples like flour, oats, sugar, dried fruits, rice, beans, maple syrup, bulk baking soda for cleaning and cooking)
- Meat: from a local farmer
- Tea towels, bleach and flea treatment for cats: from Farmlands
- Organic fruit, vegetables, cheese and gifts: from the Hohepa Homes shop
- Organic produce and juice: from roadside shop Te Koha
- Razors, toilet paper, cream, and other essentials: from the local Four Square (no more than 10 items a month)
- Fish: through a weekly work fish-order from Hawke’s Bay Seafoods
- Treats like extra meat, vegetables, cheeses, coffee, olive oil: from the local farmers’ market in Hastings
- Chicken feed: from a health food shop or from a local farm
- Spices and sushi ingredients: from a small local Asian grocer store
- Extra fruit and vegetables: from seasonal roadside stalls and pick-your-own farms
- Beer and wine: from vineyard shops or the local wholesaler
Fri March 05, 2010 @ 02:47 PM
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