"Gift"

Dr. Phil says "Food isn't love", but he's wrong.  It can be.  Cooking for those you love is a loving gift.  I think back to Grandma and taste her applesauce even though I haven't had it for many years.  The apples came from Grandpa's apple tree in the back yard, a tree that bloomed in many colors every spring, and drooped with many colored apples every fall.  He took cuttings from heirloom trees when he took trips and grafted them on his tree when he got home.  We had applesauce so often when I was a kid I got sick of it.  What I wouldn't give to have a jar of Grandma's applesauce again!

$83 of groceries didn't look like very much food when I brought it home from my last shopping trip.  This made me think about those who spend a lot of their lives working for groceries and how many people count their pennies so they can buy holiday gifts.  Like my grandparents' applesauce, cooking doesn't have to be expensive. 

I bought a ham.  Ham is affordable and useful.  I'll make sandwiches and freeze extra slices for future sandwiches.  I'll cube the less pretty parts and use that meat and the ham bone for soup.  Into the freezer it all goes.  I'll melt the fat for lard which I'll later use as a flavor and grease in cooking other things and top my bowl of soup with cracklings.  Many future meals for $18.  Thank you pig.

Sometimes I'm aware I eat better and don't spend as much money as other people.  A young woman told me recently she'd like to be a vegetarian, but isn't, because she thinks vegetables are too expensive.  I gave her a confused look.  Buying ham is more expensive than carrots.  I seldom make lentil or pea soup, but I'll toss dried peas and lentils into other soups.  Lentils and peas are about $1 per bag.  Easy, cheap, good for us.  I pick herbs in the garden.  These are perennials, so free.  Grow them in pots if you don't have a yard.

Yeah, but cooking takes too much time!  Well, sorta, but I like chopping vegetables for soup.  It's my meditation.  You could use a food processor if it makes you happy.  I make big batches so I can freeze it in single serving bags for later because I don't feel like cooking every day.  I freeze them flat so they thaw out fast, then microwave them in a glass bowl for an easy, healthy supper.

I drink a lot of Red Rose tea, but they stopped putting little porcelain figurines in the box.  This made me ornery and gave me insight into early Americans dumping tea in the harbor when they were mad at King George.  I started looking around my yard for tea substitutes.  Well, I didn't give up all my tea, I was looking for things to lessen my tea dependence.  I picked clover blossoms and raspberry leaves.  I grew chamomile, mint, lemon balm, hibiscus, and lemon verbena.  My tea has gotten tastier and healthier, and I saved money.  I miss getting porcelain turtles though.  I'm hoping my protest will result in the reappearance of little figurines some day.

When I started volunteering at the food giveaway I hadn't thought about getting food from the gig.  It's just something I like to do.  This week, an old lady encouraged me to try persimmons.  I love them! (The old lady warned me they have to be very ripe or they'll pucker your mouth though).  I often take home defective, rejected produce and can it.  Canning takes time too, but I like canning.  It's like a science project in the kitchen and I get yummy fruit for dessert.  I gift jars of it to nice people too.

You don't have to cook all the time, but give it a shot.  Give the gift of home cooking to someone you love :)

"Chef"

I'm not a chef, but I've been telling people how to cook lately.  Okra?  Deep fry it.  Use it to thicken things.  It's just a green vegetable.  Hide it in soup or stew.  Too many peas?  They freeze well.  I freeze celery too.  Cut it up and freeze for later cooking.  Grated cauliflower?  Sauté, microwave, or add it to other things.  I bet it would be good mixed in with mashed potatoes.  I saw a creamy cauliflower soup on one of the cooking shows.

All of this cooking direction is the result of my latest volunteer efforts.  I stand in a cold parking lot and give food to people who need it.  I'm enjoying it, which seems a bit crazy since I'm freezing out there and it seems downright criminal that there are people in such a wealthy country who need food handouts, but everyone is so nice.  My fellow volunteers are nice and the recipients are nice.  They tell me how to cook things and I pass on their tips.  We all bond in the cold.

None of us have any say about what kind of food we'll be handing out, therefore, okra.  Despite its popularity in the South, very few people love it in Ohio.  We all know it's slimy and gross, even the majority who have never eaten it before.  Given a choice between okra and sugar snap peas, people took the peas.

The Canadian winds blowing off of Lake Erie are brutal.  I found my long johns and silk socks.  It helps.  I used hand warmers inside my winter gloves and sealed the leather gloves inside plastic food prep gloves.  I shiver and hop up and down while people laugh.  I never realized destitute people are so jolly, or grateful for that matter.

Oh sure, there's some crabby old women who demand butter when we don't have it that week.  Here, take some eggs.  Want some okra?  Actually, I think the brightest side of okra is the incredulous looks I got when I offered it.  The other bright spot was when an older man lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw the okra.  I gave him a lot of it since he seemed to be one of the few people who knew what to do with it.

One of my friends volunteers to serve dinners at a nearby church.  She happily stays inside where it's warm, but otherwise there are quite a few similarities: happy people, good food, camaraderie -- and the fact that there are people in the US who need free food.

It seems to me there are people who volunteer for things and many others who don't.  I think the ones who don't are missing out.  It doesn't have to be about food.  My dinner-serving friend used to volunteer as a receptionist at a children's hospital.  She's an elf for Santa's train.  I've volunteered at the parks and schools.  I tended flowers in city planters last summer.  Just pick something you like to do and find a place to do it.  The things you gain may be hard to quantify, but I'll bet it makes you feel better while making other people's lives better too.

If I haven't convinced you to volunteer somewhere, it's a good time of the year to give too.  Lots of charities need your support.  Pick one, or many, and spread some happiness.  If you want to give to Food Not Bombs, contact them at FNBeastCLE@gmail.com.  We're especially hoping someone will donate a used van, truck, or SUV for delivering food.

As for last week's deadline, yes, I got my project finished in time.  It didn't matter.  I'm in the middle of a major redirection of the project with a new short deadline.  Sigh.  Actually, before the sighs I had a temper tantrum by the latest instructions.  I've progressed to sighs.  Thankfully the only witness to my tantrum was my dog :)

"Recipe"

I went to a farmer's market and bought an eggplant.  I don't like eggplant.  I couldn't resist its purple beauty, or maybe its sensuous texture?  I don't know.  All I knew was that I had an eggplant without a plan.  I dimly thought I could make an eggplant lasagna, which is a travesty of lasagna, but the best I could think of for an eggplant.

I ignored the eggplant while making a giant pot of potato/cauliflower soup.  This was too much soup for my freezer, so I spent time defrosting and reorganizing, contemplating a previous impulse purchase of squid.  I had gone to an Italian grocery store with an Italian.  Maybe I got swept up with her enthusiasm for cooking?  I plunked the squid into the sink to defrost with the vague thought that squid was somewhat like clams, so maybe it would work in the potato soup like clam chowder.

I cut squid rings and lightly sautéed them.  Mmm.  I don't like the way squid tentacles look, so I chopped them up into indistinguishable bits, then considered my counter full of tomatoes.  I got out the eggplant and considered... yep, sauce.  More chopping... onions, garlic, pepper... oregano and basil from the garden... OMG!  I made a wonderful, accidental thing out of food I don't really like.  My dog confirmed my assessment of this sauce.  She danced in ecstatic circles.

The end result is that I have a lot of healthy food, and I spent very little money.  The only part that took any real time was chopping, but somebody else could've used a food processor and have been done in no time.  While I chopped, I thought about young'uns who don't know how to cook.  They're forever dependent on restaurants and processed foods.  That's fattening, expensive, and vitamin-deficient.  They'll never taste calamari eggplant sauce -- which I know they think they don't want, but they're missing out.

I worry about the health of young people.  They don't seem to understand food at all.  They're obviously fatter than they should be.  Okay, I'm fatter than I should be too, but they're fat and malnourished.  Or, they're anorexic or bulimic and malnourished.  They're going to suffer unnecessarily and die too young without money in the bank.

Cooking doesn't have to be hard.  Yesterday, I put a little water in a pot, added Swiss chard, put on the lid, turned on the heat... 10 minutes later, food.  To tell the truth, I grazed on the chard before it was even cooked.  Whatever.  Swiss chard is good for you and really easy.  I have a couple of squashes.  Cut in half, scoop out seeds, bake until soft.  Add butter.  These will go in the freezer too for days that I don't feel like cooking.  I nuked an ear of corn in its husk.  Done.  More butter.

Eat real food.  Stop Monsanto from genetically modifying our food.  Buy local.  Buy what's in season.  Grow something.  Learn to cook.

BTW, I figured out why I've been especially plagued by wildlife this year.  My neighbor a couple doors down used to keep a big garden, but he didn't put one in this year.  I guess it's up to me to feed all the critters.  To make matters worse, my groundhog got a girlfriend.  She's the biggest groundhog I've ever seen, brimming with health, with a shimmering coat.  She eats vegetables.  My vegetables.  I'll admit I took time to admire her and even forgot to send her death rays for a few minutes.  My original groundhog looks at her with absolute adoration.  I dread the inevitable babies, who will also be terribly cute and glistening with (my) vegetable health.