"You Can't Give 'em Away"

I know very well the windfall plenty of an overflowing garden.

For a few fleet days or weeks, everything is crisp, sun-kissed and sumptuous, far surpassing any store-bought produce on the planet.

After awhile it's just THERE. Nagging you, prodding you, spurring you to your feet when all you really want to do is snooze in the hammock.

But no...........zucchini and cucumbers are greening by the minute, growing an impenetrable hide on the outside while turning mealy and seedy inside. It doesn't take long for vegetables to pass their prime, even when they've taken all summer to be ready.

The first blushing tomato is a thrill. The first few after are still wonderful, but too soon they seem to come as ill-considered brutes in their timing. Either you're dogging the vines hourly to pounce on the earliest crimson, or you're overwrought with blighting and blackening fruit teeming outward from all your kitchen surfaces onto your back porch.

Waste not, want not. It all boils down to work, work, WORK. And boiling your are, not just from the steaming kettles of preservation on near 100 degree days. You are also boiling mad at yourself for insisting upon planting a dozen plants of this and a dozen plants of that, when half a dozen of each was really more than you ever needed.

And so in due time you become the generous, thoughtful neighbor and friend. You pack bags and baskets of the surplus, and go rapping on doors here and there. There is a mix of dread and relief in doing this; you are joyous to unload the excess but equally fearful to hear, "Thanks, but I can't possibly take these--I have more of everything than I know what to do with myself!"

Thus, you never wait to be invited in for a cup of coffee. You rap and RUN, hopeful you can escape before the bounty is deemed yours again. When you get back home and discover even MORE veggies have ripened, you wearily pack them into bags and set out a "free produce" sign at the end of your driveway.

How conflicting is the feast and famine of growing things in their season. You toil and depend mightily on the good graces of the sky. You wait patiently for exceedingly long days for that first fabulous fruit. The anticipation is akin to that first phone call from the man of your dreams, long desired, tremulous with the thrill of the chase.

Once you've snared the man (or the tomato) you wish he (or it) would leave you alone for awhile. You'd rather have supper with a girlfriend or open an easy can of spaghetti sauce.

For the past few summers, I've concertedly bought a three-pack of tomato plants, set them in pots on the porch to be nurtured to their harvest. Doing it this way has usually been a bust. There's something about hoping for large returns on hardly any investment that rarely flies for me--it's simply not my lot in life.

These days I resort to more hardy gardeners than I. I look for their roadside stands, or I wait comfortably at home. It's my turn to hear that rap on the door, and be assured--I'll answer the door cheerfully, with a surprised but gracious appreciation.

I think I'll put the coffeepot on now.

"Let them eat cake"

I believe it was Marie Antoinette who said, "Let them eat cake."

I say let them BAKE cake. And roast meats, throw together sumptuous salads, pasta entrees, and create all manner of awesome food. Let THEM be trendy with classic dishes and be daringly inventive with that which is already unfamiliar.

Who is "them"? Anyone but me.

I've been there and done that. I like to think I gave as good as I got in the arena of chic little eateries, and as with any worthwhile venture its peaks and valleys ran their course. For me, there is no turning back.

But looking back is another matter, because the way all people sustain themselves intrigues me. It's not my business (literally, anymore) but it still intrigues.

Flavor, beauty, and wholesomeness should all be part and parcel of the eating experience. I understand there are people out there who eat for nourishment only, and any hoopla in partaking of anything is a mystery to them. Eating is out of necessity only for these sorts, and THAT viewpoint is mystifying to me.

Enjoyment of eating isn't the only pleasure in life, and it certainly isn't the most important "thing,"  as is love of family, general health and welfare, justice and equity for all. 


But nature runs its course when these all-important things cannot be fully enjoyed without the certainty of physical nourishment. All are intertwined; a great lack or abuse in any one of these areas compromises life and diminishes quality within, for sure.


We know that "the body is the temple" and "we are are what we eat." Food does matter, it is crucial to our overall well-being, so why wouldn't a modicum of hoopla about it be just fine?


What I love lately about good food is not wasting it. As a matter of routine in my cafe, I nurtured quality ingredients into creative fare, always in sufficient amounts to serve the number of guests I hoped to have.


This guesstimation always proved to be a crap-shoot. Some days our customers were lucky to be offered the one chicken salad "fold-over" we had left; other days we could not scare up a single taker for food I was fit to burst with pride over. (Maybe that was the problem--PRIDE.)


It may be in the cost of doing business that some product has to be thrown out, but it's a hard thing to do. You consider the beauty of it, the cost and all the other expenses you've incurred to put food out there that isn't same-old, same-old, and in the end you kind of suspect same-old is really what people want, despite choruses to the otherwise.


I always found good homes for good leftovers, and that took some of the sting out of things. It's more than fine to share surplus, but most business advisers do tell us we need to sell at least a little more than we give away.


I love that at home this angst is gone. I don't know that it was so much a "wide audience" I needed about my cooking (so much as a way to earn while enjoying a loved pastime), but I do puzzle at the lengths I went to over food.


Maybe (as a new line of groceries is named) it is because "food should taste good."  I wanted to share that belief, one I mightily hold. But the business of food opened my eyes to many struggles regarding sustenance in the world, and I come away enlightened.


Far and away from those trying to sustain themselves with the business of selling food, there are many others more concerned with simply and essentially just having enough food in the cupboards at home. Their mindset hardly dwells on costly meals out.


I have a new understanding and admiration for the timeless piece of art ("Grace" by Enstrom, I believe) where an old man prays intently over his bowl of soup and loaf of humble bread. It is evident that the fellow sincerely appreciates his daily bread, but more than that I can picture that image going into motion with relish and gusto after his prayer is done. I can see the man dipping that hearty bread into his broth to sop up every bit of flavor, until it is "all gone." I can't speak for that man and don't know if he ever yearned or enjoyed much more, but I am convinced there are many people even now very happy, fully contented with simple food.  


Can a person trying to sell food (especially away from hugely populated metropolises) really get frustrated with that? And what about people who can eat out with no big hardship but choose not to, at least very often?


That's me for some time now: meals out are too often a disappointment at any price, and no place is as comfortable (or comforting) as home. I have found that after years of trying to keep up with food inventiveness, I truly exalt in a less (choices in food) being plenty for me thinking. Diversity in food is all well and good, but I am blessed with a cultural foods background that in its own vein is extremely rich and almost completely enough for me. Add in an occasional cheeseburger or a wonderful salad, I'm good.


It's a luxury not to be excessive with food, because more, as we know, does not mean better. In a conversation recently with my 86-year-old mother, I was held a willing captive to her discussion of  chile verde, something she has prepared spectacularly for our family for many decades. Really good chile verde doesn't require very many different ingredients, but it is exciting and delicious every time you taste it.


One always makes a generous amount of it, because the base goodness of it stretches into many meals, none of which are same-old, same-old. A first night of chile verde is usually the stewed meat with traditional beans, rice and tortillas. Nights after can emerge with tostadas, tacos, burritos, tacquitos, posole, quesadillas and the list goes on. Each does not feel like a variation on the same theme because accompaniments and garnishes do a good job of changing things up.


"Use it up" is easier and much more delightful at home. In the business of food-service, I was a hostage to the pressure of performance, which always involved excess and thereby waste. From the beginning of time excess and waste have come hand-in-hand, so I don't know why it took a smart person (me?!?) so long to figure this out.


Or to realize how much it would bother me, as well it should. I see the light now: luxury is in the eye of the beholder, and where food is concerned "less is plenty" will serve as a beacon for me.