What would you do if you didn’t have food to eat or friends who would feed you? Where would you go? What would you eat? Where would you sit? Whom would you know?
I went there to find out. Arrived late, 10:00ish. Breakfast over. Lunch in the bins. Grab a tray and a plate. Point. Noodles and ham. Mac and cheese. Something else. Not much green. Hard boiled eggs from breakfast. Got reprimanded for taking a muffin without using the tongs. Won’t do that again.
Knew a few people from the street. Didn’t want to intrude or take pictures. One guy asked why I haven’t delivered him his print. Hadn’t seen him. I wish I had been carrying it.
Sat at a table that had a tray with two empty plates. A guy sat down next to me, facing the food service area. “Only two rules, here, it is not like a Seder. Don’t take food with your hands and don’t ask for seconds if you haven’t finished your firsts.” Jewish guy named Everett. Knew George Solomon. Wouldn’t let me take his picture. Likes movies, old moviesLives in his car, except when the temperature goes to zero. “”11 years in my car. Guess that means I ain’t that homeless.”
Hunger doesn’t know a season. People living on the edge need food all the time, every day. Don’t take it for granted that all the cupboards have been filled. Burlington has a lot of people who could use more food in their cabinets.
Nutrition comes after all the other expenses. What does a place to live cost? How do you get to the store? Car cost. Public transportation takes time and effort. Walk to the neighborhood store to shop and you pay a premium. How about fresh fruits and vegetables? Cannot buy frozen without a freezer. Fast food kills. Suppose you have a disability. Who carries the food or prepares it? Hmm. Given the choice of buying toilet paper, diapers or feminine hygiene products, which do you select with your last dollar? And, some are dealing with other human problems that interfere with clear thinking.
Very complicated, yes! Here’s an easy solution. Don’t give it much thought, unless you want to. Just fill a bag from the supplied list. Someone will deliver it to JUMP and a person who cannot make ends meet will get it. You will receive an easy mitzvah.
It has been there for years. Lots of Kitsch. Remodeled in the 50’s. Clean. Barcelona, a great tapas restaurant, is attached. They grow some of their own vegetables.
Bone in pork roast. Just a few chopper guys that haven’t been separated. Chopped rosemary and smashed garlic, salt and pepper, all around, covered by McKenzies bacon on top. Sit in fridge for 2 hours.
Baste with Jack Daniels, Vermont Maple Syrup, and Pinot Noir (what you will be drinking with the meal).
Cook until the meat is done to your liking.
Serve with Sweet Potato, green vegetable, and salad.
I saw her on a milk crate near Ben and Jerry’s. She looked young, cold, and sad. “Need some food,” I asked? “I need cat food,” she replied. I gasped, immediately thinking she would eat cat food as a tuna substitute. “Do you have enough money for food?” “Yeh, my boyfriend gets SSI and we do a little work, but its barely enough to cover rent and food. I don’t usually come out her to sit. I just need some money to feed my three cats.”
Meet Monsieur Pommes Frites Pommes de Terre Tete. I call him Frenchy. Here, armed with a martini and some champagne, he battles the lobsters which the Sharon and I will share for our celebratory anniverse dinner. He has fought the shelled creatures before, preparing them for boiling as a picador in the tercio de varas would prepare a bull, never losing a bout or overdoing his job. He leaves them worn out, but not so tired that they don’t fight back a little when the hit the water. His courage comes from a potatoes natural starchiness and chilled Chopin vodka, very dry, straight up.
But last night’s feast did not come without some prayer and hope for all who inhabitant the Gulf region affected by the oil catastrophe. I look at the pictures of the birds covered with oil, wondering where will they live. If it would make a difference, I would stand in the muck and wave a banner telling them to go back from whence they came. They cannot read of course and where would they go? I feel for the grass, plants, and insects, along with all the little sea creatures that feed us or each other. Nothing I can do for them, either. At least they have my thoughts.
How will anything living survive there? It won’t. And then what happens the next time a hurricane hits? What will the people do? Where will they go? They have already had one bout with the end of their lifestyle. Pretty Joblike, they must be.
Me. Feeling pretty powerless, I am, knowing those I thought were regulating the risk weren’t and those I thought could fix it can’t. VT could be next if VT Yankee fails. Have much the same feeling about who is in charge here, too, and whom they think will be responsible – Entergy, a LA corporation, I believe. Big oil, big energy, big banks, big insurance companies. Its them for them selves. Us? We be the cogs in their game. Maybe they will leave us some crumbs.
Enough. Had a reasonably terrific time at dinner, Sharon being the great date that she has always been. Watched my diet. Not too much butter on the lobster. Not too many tater tots. Some broccoli de rabe with garlic oil. Didn’t drink too much. Bollinger Special cuvee. Some wine from the club Sharon belongs to at a local store. Leonardo’s Vermont Ice with fresh fruit and generic chocolate cookies. We laughed until we cried about something; I cannot remember what. Listened to Monk and who knows who else. Would not have been anywhere else or wished for anything more, other than the safe future for all living things on the Gulf coastline.
