The hoard­ing has begun. In antic­i­pa­tion for our move at the end of next month, mean­ing a pack-out in about a month, I’ve started to make lists of all the things I can’t pos­si­bly live with­out in Africa. And con­se­quently, col­lect­ing said items. Most are of the wet-goods vari­ety, since these days, thanks to the won­ders of the inter­net, we can pur­chase almost any dry good we need. These days, mov­ing from post to post, I ask myself, “what did peo­ple do before the days of Ama​zon​.com?!”

Items on said list include, but are not lim­ited to:

• Wine
• Green Hat Gin
• honey
• San Marzano tomatoes
• green god­dess salad dressing
• Whole Foods prod­ucts (dried beans and grains)
• Trader Joe’s prod­ucts (snacks and goodies)
• all-natural clean­ing supplies
• anchovies
• Reynold’s Wrap foil (seri­ously, there is no substitute)
• 1.75L bot­tles of Bulleit Bourbon
• a spe­cific brand of can­dles from our neigh­bor­hood CVS (deli­cious smelling and long lasting!)
• …and Cholula hot sauce.

Also on the list is a small col­lec­tion of new­ly­wed gifts we’ve recently received. More like, newly-ish-wed gifts, I sup­pose. Hence the pasta press, Le Creuset stock­pot, and ice bucket you see in the photo.

But you know what, in the end, the stuff you think you can’t live with­out, you actu­ally can.

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