It is entirely within the realm of possibility that a person would, at 53, have a 3 year old grandchild.
However, it was much funnier when my 3 year old godson referred to my friend Marilyn (five years older than me) as Grandma, than it was when he turned around five minutes later, after I’d stopped laughing and called me Grandma as well.
I spent two days teaching him my name. We practiced. We even practiced M’s name. By the time I left, after spending two full days with him, playing cars, monsters, jumping jacks, going for car rides, to a wedding and a full blown temper tantrum, he got it. I was Joey, she was Maradin and for a brief and shining moment, really, I was ‘enry ‘iggins and he was Eliza Doolittle.
I spoke to his mom briefly today. “He loves his toys,” she said. “He held up the stuffed monster you got him and said ‘Granma gave this to me.’”
Yeah. It’s all good. Humbling. But it’s good. So for today, if only for him, I am OnlytheGranma.
I’m very excited over the new “anti-supermarket” plan I’ve got going, inspired by Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The idea is to make significant changes by sticking to the concept of buying local vs trucking, relying as much as possible on local farmers and farmer’s markets, reducing my carbon footprint, our reliance on fossil fuels and supporting small farms rather than big Agro. This weekend I stocked up on the always available from local farmers: sour dough bread, hot turkey sausage, hard goat cheese, fresh eggs (from Green Chimney’s farm where I volunteer!) and what’s in season:
That translated into several delicious meals, a lot more out of pocket and several Oh No! moments.
Breakfast was a breeze. Toasted sourdough with jam, cute little turkey sausage patties, tomato & onion omelet one day, eggs over easy on top of sauteed onion and garlic the next.
Oh No! I used olive oil for the sauteing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in a farmer’s market.
For dinner the corn came off the cob, steamed slightly then tossed with a little butter, chopped tomato, onion and a bit of left over avocado.
Oh No! Avocado? They don’t grow around here. Enjoy this one I think, it has just become a delicacy and it’s the last taste you’ll have for a while.
Where will I get rice, quinoa or spaghetti? What about my staples, popping corn and Crystal lite iced tea? I can buy whole milk at the market, but I’m lactose intolerant, do they have lactose free milk? Am I saying goodbye to orange juice, citrus in general? Nuts? Not as in am I, because clearly I am, but where the heck do pecans grow, isn’t is somewhere down south? And what about spices? Didn’t Columbus set sail for the West Indies, home of all things savory?
These are not rhetorical questions folks, but the rumblings of a little bit of panic.
Let’s take my good intentions one question further. I bring my own reusable shopping bags, but if I don’t get supermarket plastic bags, what do I wrap my garbage and kitty litter in? I already recycle everything possible and I guess I could compost the edibles, but I live in an apartment and my only plant lives in the bathroom–in mortal fear of the cat (who recently switched to biodegradable ground corn clumping litter, and while it’s not local, it is a lot better for everyone involved).
Suddenly, food has more value on many levels. I get three pounds of blueberries for just over $5 at Costco and mixed greens just about anywhere for about $5/lb. At the market that same $5 gets me a pint of blueberries and a half of a pound of spinach (the mixed greens, an inconceiveable $16/lb). My Costco thinking had always been, sure, this plastic package of tomatoes could be reused to store all my summer clothes when it’s empty and there is no way I, as a single person, can use all of those tomatoes before they go bad, but at this price, who cares?
Well, now I care. More accurately, now I’m aware. Aware of how much food I wasted and how cavalierly I was willing to do that, tossing slightly wrinkled grape tomatoes without thinking. Am I not the girl who funnels her Christmas money to Heifer International ? The girl marched twenty miles in 1970 to raise money for the farm workers? Well, yes, but there should be some middle ground between $16/lb greens and food so cheap I can afford to let it go bad. My brother-friend Mark says that middle ground is called Whole Foods, where I can buy greens from local Long Island farms for less. We’re taking a Whole Foods field trip next week.
My mother worries. She says my timing is terrible, what with being newly unemployed and then choosing a lifestyle change that on the outside seems like it will cost me more money and deprive me of things I love (avocados…mmmmm). She wonders if I would be “allowed” to eat avocados if someone else brought them into my house? It’s a mother’s job to worry and in all capacities, but that one in particular, she is a most excellent mother. I assure her I will not go hungry, live in the streets or wind up eating from the organic refuse outside of Angelica’s Kitchen. I expect she’ll happen by with a extra three pounds of blueberries at some point. There will be blueberry muffins for everyone that week.
My timing may not be convenient or well planned, but I believe you do the right things simply because they are the right things and that good intentions do not go unnoticed by the universe. I have a lot of confidence in the universe.
Almost twenty years ago I met a traveler named Elijah, barefoot & barechested, wearing just cut off shorts even though it was late fall already. He’d walked his way across the country and advised me to eat what the earth offered wherever I was living at any moment. He said it was the trick to his health & vigor. Citrus grows where it’s hot & it’ll cool you off, root vegetables in colder climates, stick to your ribs and digest slowly to keep you warm.
He might’ve been a crazy man. It’s no secret I have a crazy-man magnet embedded deep inside me. But he had a point about the food. He was ahead of his time, or more accurately, he was passing on what once passed as common sense. Continue reading →
