written after the 2016 election
On Facebook, Barbra Streisand says to eat pancakes during these times of stress. Funny, I had already entertained that idea. Given the news, the straight news, the meta news, the fake news, the whole mess, I’d guess hordes of thousands are transmuting their anxiety into flipping flap jacks.
For me, its pancakes and cheap fake syrup, even in maple syrup land, mid Mitten. Two neighbors are sapping trees relatively nearby. But even when I had money, when I worked, and didn’t mind buying pricey wild salmon and lamb chops at Costco, I didn’t splurge for real maple syrup. I’m cheap, more polite frugal, and the last few years, certifiably poor.
Even though I am poor, and, at 53, ready for my Holy Crone ceremony, I don’t cook my mom’s recipes, such as those involving Spam she taught to also poor and deaf students in Detroit. Because of my former employer’s sexist Gaslight witch hunt, I no longer talk to my mom, the world’s last home ec teacher, not even infrequently as I did prior to the attack on my name and person. These things, it turns out, drop bombs that affect all relationships.
Mom and I never had a good relationship. I’m more of a funny girl, too, I like to think (like Babs).
I’m one of those snots who dreams of finding out she was adopted, born Jewish instead of Catholic. Maybe far away. Maybe real nearby. As a badge of snotty honor, in most decades of my adult life, I’ve avoided Eugenia’s Suzy Homemaker ways. Instead, I preferred she-she foods and post modern kitsch, like buying a replica of my old Suzy Homemaker oven, as a display.
I avoid my mother’s recipes, except for the exceptions, including what my brother and I called “skinny pancakes.”
(talk to my only brother? that goof?)
“Skinny pancakes.” Crepes.
Today’s recipe board features savory skinny pancakes filled with roast pork shoulder (at under a dollar a pound) with roast apples and sour cream.
I’m on the welfare, but I eat well, thank you. Because I cook, thanks to my friend and patron of the arts who pays the electricity bill.
“You’re on the welfare! You’re on the welfare!” Eddie Murphy sang in character in his concert movie, Delirious.
Thirty years later, I’m on the welfare, and it tastes good. I’ve taught myself to cook with less, less than what I had after Murphy left Saturday Night Live, and before the show’s forty year anniversary.
A former community college English teacher who talked too much, perhaps instead of trying to swim with the fish, I should cook this recipe for an audience. Perhaps I should regroup my skills. I need a job.
In the first year of the Donald, across ethics free America, it’s time to resurrect the home economics teacher, my observations say. Less fast food. Combat poor prepared and processed choices among the economically challenged. Encourage more cooking, better results at home.
Since I fell out of circulation (was pushed under the bus by administration and teachers’ union), I feel like a visitor from another planet, in a galaxy far far away.
When the hell did chicken breasts attached to bones become the least expensive chicken product at my heartland grocer?
A grown up math problem. What’s the best deal?
A. chicken breasts on the bone, at 89 cents a pound
B. almost two dollars a pound for a whole chicken (needed by the deli for prepared food sales)
C. 1.29 cents a pound for drumsticks and thighs, sold separately
D. boneless chicken breasts (needed to fry homemade chicken fingers to appease spoiled children) at way over two dollars a pound, often 2.99 dollars per pound
E. None of the Above.
Maybe these prices I spied recently were an aberration, but this little exercise brings up a point I’ve wanted to discuss. I’m a really good cook, no matter the circumstances. If you promise to come to dinner, I promise to stop doing the dishes in the toilet.
(I hardly want to elaborate upon the mishap that led to that joke. Because you wouldn’t want to come to dinner.)
Back at the heartland grocer’s meat department, pacing the poultry section, it took me a couple minutes pondering, but I figured my way through the chicken price dilemma, eventually. I bought inner and outer body parts separately, then regrouped, froze, defrosted and cooked them at home at will.
Answer. What’s the best deal? A and C. Deconstructed Whole Roast Chicken on the Welfare. (The secret to Catholic Gramma Hilda’s Roast Chicken is said to be lots of paprika and cheap vegetable oil, salt and pepper.) Delicious. With bones left over to make stock. Wonderful. And such a deal.
Oh, I’ve got a ton of tips for those folks like me, enduring hard times. Some folks like me, those I saw in food lines at give-aways and food pantries, month after month, appear as though they could use some pointers, as the donors realized.
The nice volunteer lady who appeared each first Thursday of the month, at the Feeding America give away in Evart, Michigan, was unflappably upbeat and gently personable. And she always shared low sugar, low fat, plant-based but still tasty recipes. Never freezer section fried fudge pizza. I would suggest also skipping the Pop Tart giveaway, because too many attendees seem to bypass the spaghetti squash in their haste to queue for ready-made toaster friendly deserts.
I am aware that Kellogg’s is a Michigan-based company.
To report, by sight, many people who line up for free food in rural mid-Michigan are overweight or obese, man, woman and child, though you also guessed correctly that women and children dominate.
My intention is not to fat shame. I know that’s what some would definitely say I am doing.
Tip number one. Cooking poor (with or without Catholics).
Soup. Make and eat green vegetable broth. I prefer bones, stock making, fresh vegetables. Of course. But I figured through Necessity (great food brand name) what to do with canned green beans, those horrible washed out wormy things.
DO NOT use canned green beans in the classic middle class midwestern American dish, green bean casserole, made with canned cream of mushroom soup, topped by canned fried onion rings (which is both vomitious and recockulous).
Canned green beans make a decent soup, with a little effort. There is no excuse for making or serving a horrible gloppy canned vegetable dish, not ever, by anyone, except for reasons of nostalgia.
For culinary and gastronomical purposes, try making a soup consisting of canned soup products led by green beans. Add tomatoes, carrots, chop an onion if you’re lucky and you’ve got ‘em. Then, finally, and this is my contribution to the advancement of civilization: blend.
Why Chew?
That’s the name of my first cookbook, still available for publishing.