After every long trip, I return home in confusion. I stand in my kitchen, helpless and hungry. The effort to put disparate ingredients with my rosemary-infused salts and delicately picked lavender is completely lost on me. All I want as I did on the long trip is to declare to a sympathetic soul, “Ummm…the big plate please. Eggs sunny side up and hash browns. Oh and a small orange juice. Oh wait, you have the housemade soda. How about the rosemary blueberry one?”

As I sit here on my desk, my stomach grumbles, but my principles stand. When I don’t travel, I am adept at spending very little on food. I can subsist on a single bag of fruits and potatoes. Then perhaps a bite of yesterday’s leftovers. But right now, confusion and hunger dominates my mind.

The kitchen utensils, my rack of spices from all over the world make no sense. My refrigerator, because my roommate has moved out and because I was preparing for my trip, is nearly empty. There are my frozen items, sure, but in it, a cardbox of eggs, full rows of condiments that I never use (like who eats dry mustard and horseradish, anyway!), and rotting tomatoes fill the space. I am flummoxed.

But then I envision myself getting up. I have batches of homemade chicken stock. I can defrost my chicken that I had prepared months ago. I will browse my small selection of canned foods—the kidney beans, the chopped tomatoes, the cream of potato soup. I will look at my teas, quite often the savior of my hunger, as I drink and drink hot water to satiate hunger.

I know what will happen: I will look at the granola, the pomegranate-infused dried cranberries, the nearly empty bag of trail mix. Then I will stand up, walk to Arizmendi or Rosemunde. I will stuff myself with $10 worth of lunch and then think, why am I not saving any money?