Last-Minute Madness Harried Food Shoppers Fill Stores Only Hours Before Meal
Joe Lopez nearly committed a holiday poultry faux pas Thursday.
The first-time cook scanned the Tidyman’s aisle Thanksgiving morning and settled on the perfect turkey for that evening’s meal: a well-muscled Butterball, a 26-pounder - frozen to the giblets.
“How was I supposed to know it would take four days to thaw?” the 26-year-old Lopez asked after an alert clerk steered him to the pre-thawed birds. “Mom always did the cooking.
“I’m just … winging it.”
While most North Idaho residents were collapsing in easy chairs or clamoring in kitchens Thursday, Lopez was among the hundreds who scoured grocery store aisles, hoping to build last-minute holiday meals before the holiday slipped away.
They came in all ages, shapes and sizes, and most seemed to be men. They bought everything from bacon to cole slaw and spent a fair amount of time choosing beer. They appeared to share one trait: They were harried.
At Albertson’s on Government Way, Coeur d’Alene resident Greg Brands pushed his 2-year-old son in a cart and frantically searched for wild rice to go with a Thanksgiving duck.
His 4-year-old daughter and his 5-year-old twin boys traipsed single-file behind like baby geese tailing the gander.
“I just called home, and the guests are on their way,” Brands said, his eyes a bit too wide. “I’ve already been through here once. I keep forgetting things.”
Four aisles away, Andy Schumann stood with furrowed brow and an armful of whole-grain buns, staring at a rack of L’Eggs panty hose.
He grabbed a pair, studied them, exhaled in frustration, then put them back.
“Uhm … they’re not for me,” he said sheepishly. “My wife wanted me to pick her up some muffins and some tights. But I don’t know what she wants. I’m a guy.”
Boise resident Jackie Schnupp, up north visiting friends, filled a Tidyman’s cart with wine and pie and condiments but spent much of her morning on a non-holiday quest. She was looking for a hanger to suspend a fish-shaped dinner plate from a dining room wall.
“I figured, since we’re here anyway …, ” she said. “I love shopping on days like this. There’s no one around. It’s easy to get into the holiday spirit.”
Lopez, for one, had plenty.
His mother has been sick, hospitalized with a hereditary internal organ problem. His father is exhausted from working graveyard shifts.
So the Coeur d’Alene hardwood-floor builder decided to sneak around Thanksgiving Day shopping and preparing a surprise holiday meal.
A nerve-racking task for any non-cook, Lopez shrugged off the stress and prepared for feast or failure.
“My parents have been real good to me, so I wanted to do something for them,” he said, then laughed. “Of course, they’ll probably have to bail me out of this just like they’ve done with everything else.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo