Mendolonium

I’ve never gone hungry, never wondered how I would procure my next meal, never had to deny my children dinner but I know that every day I walk among those who have.  I can’t imagine many things worse than not being able to provide for one’s family; it is a physical ache – the desire to take care of those we love.

I went to the grocery store this week and outside stood a man with a sign “Family of 4.  Living in a motel.  Please help.”  He wasn’t much older than I was and he looked shy, embarrassed.  He didn’t call out to the people bustling in and out of the store.  He just stood there.  I’ve never given money to anyone on the street.  I’ve certainly had the opportunity, but I remember what a family member who has been homeless once said “Don’t give them any money.  They’ll just use it for drugs and alcohol.”  I am sure that many people do, but still, I want to help.  I can donate to food pantries and support politicians who talk of helping the homeless but the machine that is our economy keeps on spitting people out with no where to go.  Over the past year I’ve seen the number of people begging on the streets of our city increase.  There is now typically someone stationed at every corner of the freeway interchange nearest our house.  Some of those people, I am suspect of:  what is the young man with the nice bike doing begging?  Others, like the woman who is probably 40 but looks 70 and talks to herself, I feel deeply sad for.

One day soon, Thomas is bound to realize that there is something not quite right about the man outside of the restaurant with a cup asking for change.  He’ll ask “Who is that man?” and I wonder how to answer.  We walk by homeless persons all the time.  In fact, there are a couple of guys that have a  spot on our way to/from preschool that greet us regularly, commenting on our super stroller.  We respond with a “Good morning” and Thomas has never seemed to think it out of the ordinary that the men sit on the curb with shopping carts piled high with all their worldly belongings.  Perhaps, it is because we often seem to look like “bag people” ourselves; walking about the city with groceries spilling out of the stroller baskets and  bags hung over the handle.  He will ask though and I don’t know how to tell him that there are people with no homes, no mother to bake them cookies, no bed to sleep in.  Because when you think about it; the fact that there is anyone in this country at all that doesn’t have a place to go if they want one is wrong.  Just plain wrong.

As I left the grocery store, I went up to the lonely man and gave him a loaf of bread out of my bag.  He smiled and thanked me.  I walked away with a faint smile and a question in my mind of how to do more.  Modern society may not be kind, but we as individuals and communities can be…I’m just not sure how to go about it yet.

It feels somewhat hypocritical to me to buy commit to raising as much as our food as possible, purchasing organic, sustainably produced, local, and/or used food and goods, and then go off and buy a big tube of commercially produced toothpaste, laden with artificial sweeteners, potentially tested on animals, and packaged in non-recyclable packaging.  The “natural” alternative didn’t seem much better.  It takes rather like baking soda and costs $4 for the privilege.  So I decided if I was going to go natural, I was going to go cheap and package-free and make my own.  Here’s the recipe:

Homemade Toothpaste

• 6 T baking soda
• 30 drops peppermint oil
• 20 drops tea tree oil
• enough water to form a paste

Mix all ingredients and store in an airtight jar.

My opinion:  a definite keeper.  The toothpaste tastes fine, it costs pennies a jar, and it took less time to make than a trip to Target to pick up the store-bought stuff.

I actually love grocery shopping – when I have the time to leisurely stroll through the aisles, read labels, and sample the cheese.  Unfortunately, unless I want to go out at night after the bub is bed (Um, no.  Once it is dark I prefer to stay ensconced in our “cave”.), I have to go shopping on my stay-at-home days with Thomas.  And although he is starting to share my fondness for the cheese counter, I would never use the term leisurely to describe a trip to the store with him.  I am also continually on the path to reduce our energy usage and one way to do that is to simply go to the store less often.  I expect that this will have the added bonus of further reducing our food budget – a quest I have been on since July when I started tracking all of our expenditures and our first month’s food tally came in a just shy of $1000 (and that is not including takeout or going out to eat).  I am pleased to report that our food expenditures have declined every month since.  I was particularly happy that last month’s total, including hosting Thanksgiving, was the lowest yet at $600.  So this week’s “change of the week” is to decrease my weekly grocery store trips from once a week to once every two weeks.

In order to do accomplish this, I also need to change my weekly menu to an every-other-weekly menu.  Further, I need to keep more extensive staples on hand for those nights when what I have planned doesn’t jive with what I am craving.  (Note: this is entirely my problem.  Jeff will eat whatever is put in front of him.  As the primary family chef, it is quite nice but also quite foreign to me.)  I was telling Jeff the other day that I could see a Venn diagram in my mind where one circle is “things I want to eat” and the other circle is “food in our house”.  In my diagram, the circles often do not touch.  That said, there are a few quick meals that consistently sound good to me:   pasta with some type of sauce (olive oil and herb, marinara, or cheesy cream), and veggie fajitas/tostadas/burritos.  As I mentioned yesterday I also love soup so one of my culinary goals this winter is to develop a repertoire of quick soups that can be prepared with ingredients that I have on hand.  So far I’ve got Thick and Hearty Minestrone and Black Bean Soup (I need to post the recipe for that one).  I would like to develop (or find)  recipes for a basic tomato soup, a vegetarian tortilla soup, and a vegetarian chili.   If you have a recipe for a quick soup please send it my way.  Tonight I am going to plan another week’s worth of menus and head off to the store tomorrow; hopefully for the last time until December 19th!

I have decided to Join Sharon’s “Independence Days” challenge.  What is the Independence Days Challenge?  In Sharon’s own words:

I challenge myself and all of you to work on creating food Independence Days this year – that all of us try to do one thing every day  to create Food Independence.  That means in each day or week, we would try to:

1. Plant something.  …the idea that you should plant all week and all year is a good reminder to those of us who sometimes don’t get our fall gardens or our succession plantings done regularly…Independence is the bounty of a single seed that creates an abundance of zucchini, and enough seeds to plant your own garden and your neighbor’s.

2. Harvest something. …harvest something from the garden or the wild every day you can…Independence is really appreciating and using the bounty that we have.

3. Preserve something.  Sometimes this will be a big project, but it doesn’t have to be.  It doesn’t take long to slice a couple of tomatoes and set them on a screen in the sun, or to hang up a bunch of sage for winter.  And it adds up fast.  The time you spend now is time you don’t have to spend hauling to the store and cooking later.  Independence is eating our own, and cutting the ties we have to agribusiness.

4. Prep something.  Hit a yard sale and pick up an extra blanket.  Purchase some extra legumes and oatmeal.  Sort out and inventory your pantry.  Make a list of tools you need.  Find a way to give what you don’t need to someone who does.  Fix your bike…Clean, mend, declutter, learn a new skill.  Independence is being ready for whatever comes.

5. Cook something.  Try and new recipe, or an old one with a new ingredient.  Sometimes it is hard to know what to do with all that stuff you are growing or making.  So experiment now… Independence is being able to eat and enjoy what is given to us.

6. Manage your reserves.  Check those apples and take out the ones starting to go bad and make sauce with it.  Label those cans.  Clean out the freezer.  Ration the pickles, so you’ll have enough to last to next season.  Use up those lentils before you take the next ones out of the bag.  Find some use for that can of whatever it is that’s been in the pantry forever.  Sort out what you can donate, and give it to the food pantry.  Make sure the squash are holding out.  Independence means not wasting the bounty we have.

7. Work on local food systems.  This could be as simple as buying something you don’t grow or make from a local grower, or finding a new local source.  It could be as complex as starting a coop or a farmer’s market, creating a CSA or a bulk store.  You might give seeds or plants or divisions to a neighbor, or solicit donations for your food pantry…Maybe you’ll invite people over to your garden, or your neighbors in for a homegrown meal, or sing the praises of your local CSA…Independence days come when our neighbors and the people we love are food secure too.

Each week I’ll post my updates on the blog.  I hope that this challenge will inspire me to live even more locally, seasonally, and sustainably.  It will also be a nice way for me to keep track of my progress over time, since I cannot, for the life of me, seem to keep track things in my pretty, but neglected, gardening journal.   This week’s update:

1. Plant something:

• Parsnips

2. Harvest something:

• Tomatoes, Bell Pepper, Carrots, Parsley, Strawberries, Raspberries (from our garden)
• 80 lbs of Apples! (from a local organic u-pick)

3. Preserve something:

• Applesauce (7 pints)

4. Prep something:

• Started a list of “things to purchase/acquire” that might not always be readily available (e.g., canning supplies)

5. Cook something new:

• I’ve been working on it for awhile but have finally perfected the right cooking technique for cooking dried beans.

6. Manage your reserves:

• Added canned mandrin oranges to our food storage (a new favorite of Thomas’)

7. Work on local food systems:

• Invited everyone we know for the local apple picking. A few friends were able to join us.