Basically, I got points for actually eating a wide range of foods or being willing to try some of them once. Over time I've accepted that this is true about me. Living in a huge city with many ethnic restaurants, I probably have given a lot of different dishes a try, even if I default to Pad Thai. I've also adapted recipes and learned to cook with ingredients I don't remember from my childhood. I'm not vegan or vegetarian, but I eat far less meat, and a far smaller range of meat, than my parents. It is rare for me to have a hot dog or lunch meat or ham. But if hungry and offered these by a friend, I will eat them.
I believe that bouts of limitation have also resulted in my possibly more expansive food choices.
I had this conversation with one of the most vital senior citizens I've ever met, someone I admire and find myself quite compatible with.
SHE SAID : "I'm starting to panic. My cupboards are going bare."
I SAID : I once knew a man who convinced me that I needed to stock up on canned goods. He said there was only a three day supply of food on the grocery store shelves and that if it got real bad in this city, well, I'd better own a gun to defend my water heater! After that, every time I went to the store, I bought a couple extra cans of beans or something. Then one day I wondered what I was going to do with all those cans.
SHE SAID : Me too! But look!
I opened her big wood cupboard, and what I saw was lots and lots of sauces and dips and condiments along with cans of chili from Trader Joe's. Some of this stuff is exotic. And expensive.
I SAID : Well, you know you cook something different every day. You can utilize whatever it is you have in the cupboard. No one knows how to use spices like you.
She nodded but pointed to her huge spice rack. It was half full.
SHE SAID : And my friends leave me fruit picked from their trees on the porch.
She has loquats, grapefruit, oranges, lots of lemons. Also avocado.
I SAID : Imagine the people who never have anything in their fridge or their cabinets, people who go out to eat most days, meet their friends - they must be going hungry and crazy. What are they going to do with a sack of dried split peas?
She cut an invention of hers, an upside down pear cake.
SHE SAID : I'm out of whole wheat flour.
I SAID : Well, there's going to be a meat shortage. Good thing you don't eat much meat. You won't miss it.
SHE SAID : My son in law just goes to the store for me every two weeks.
I SAID : No one on this earth better knows what you're willing to eat when he goes to the store.
She will not leave the house to go to a grocery store, even wearing a mask and gloves. When he brings the groceries in paper bags, she lets them sit 3 hours, then takes each item and washes it. I've been picking up these bags and folding them for her. Sometimes we leave them out in the sun.
SHE SAID : I'm not used to this. I'm starting to get worried.
The truth is that this lady does not have a financial problem in her retirement. She isn't rich, but she has enough, a good roof over her head paid for, many friends who call to check in, a daughter and son in law and grandchildren who love her. She will not starve. What she's reacting to is not hunger or malnutrition. It's that the products she likes are not as available on the shelves at the grocer.
I've long admired this women, also, because unlike some elderly, she is not stuck on eating the same food frequently. She's not the Duchess of Windsor with her boiled chicken diet.
This really is the time to try new ingredients, new recipes, with whatever you have in your cupboards. Those who are vegan or vegetarian usually know how to get enough protein in their diets, though I still believe that some people, including me, cannot bodily get enough from a plant-based diet. Nor do I wish to travel with suitcases of supplements. Those split peas really are good for soups and to add to mashed potato to make fritters. From all reports we American will not run out of apples or potatoes too soon.
C 2020 Christine Trzyna
