Stop Little Pot, Stop! - April 3, 2017
My first foray into cooking real food came at a boy’s school where in the 1978/79 year I cooked up the noon meal – with help from the lads – for a school population of about 60. As any industrial cook knows, it’s almost as easy to cook for a hundred as it is for ten – you just do more of the same. And the added bonus is that no one expects the food to be precious.
That pattern has not yet ceased to continue. I always cook like I’m feeding an army, and that was not a bad thing when we had four kids at home and I had a gigantic freezer (for leftovers.) But these days, well, something’s got to give. I simply cannot cook a meal for two. I can eat the same food meal after meal, but Laurence craves just a little variety. Maybe brown rice instead of red, kale instead of collards, pinto beans instead of black – after four nights in a row.
I have put a sign up on our apartment building’s bulletin board for a used, apartment-size freezer. No luck. I expect I’m not the only one to “cook ahead.” Though in the case of most of the ladies in our seniors’ non-profit, I expect it’s menu-planning. (I’m not being sexist – this is a generation where the women did the cooking. It’s also a building where there are many widows. I’m sure it’s not related.) But with me, it’s a function of habit and sloth – it’s just easier.
I was tickled pink when an opportunity came up to help with the kids’ breakfast program at my local school. My day is Thursday and the menu includes scrambled eggs, cheese, and English muffins. But this week when I arrived, I noticed there were also bagels included. Hmm, perhaps, the week after March break, there was an uptick in the breakfast program.
No worries, I - sporting my cat apron – got to work. I made extra scrambled eggs. A whole lot extra. And my kids breakfast partner, R, really got into the swing of things too and toasted up ALL of the bagels and the muffins. We have a co-op student helper, P, who doesn’t say much. Or at least R and I don’t think she does. We can’t hear her half the time, and even if we do hear her, we don’t remember what she’s said most of the time.
Not wanting to make the troops wait, we made up platters of the egg muffin/bagel sandwiches – one with cheese, one without. Or at least, that was how it was supposed to go. I confess to some confusion here. Ah well. And at 8:15 am, the kids arrived – but just a trickle of kids. And the trickle dried up pretty quickly, I must say. I was hoping that at closing time – around 8:45 am – we’d be hit with one of the sports teams. It didn’t happen. And there we were with this embarrassment of riches.
Normally, kids are not allowed seconds. This is so there will be enough for everyone. At about 8:46, a young lad asked for seconds. No problem. Then a number of other lads, and a couple of girls, asked for seconds. Woo hoo! By the time the bell rang at 9:00 am – indicating it was time to get to class – our mountain of leftovers had been pretty much bulldozed away.
Then one child said, “I don’t have much lunch today – can I take a sandwich with me?” Trying not to think what the public health department might have to say about cooked eggs sitting at room temperature for a few hours, I said “Sure!” And then a number of other students followed suit.
Finally there were only about a dozen left. (Yes, I overdid it. I know.) And our co-op student P. assured us that there was a particular class that always wanted the leftovers and she would look after that. Phew. I cannot stand to see food thrown out. Especially food that has been fund raised for and that has been so carefully planned out.
As an act of contrition, I made a financial donation to the charity responsible for funding this program. And I apologized to the mommy chickens and cows – hey, I’m plant-powered. In my perfect world, we’d be serving tofu scrambler and dairy-free cheese. But I have to accept that the kids breakfast program is about getting known food into commercial-fed kids.
If I thought there was too much left over with standard fare, you can imagine the return rate on vegan vittles. Sigh! An industrial-sized freezer would not be large enough …
That pattern has not yet ceased to continue. I always cook like I’m feeding an army, and that was not a bad thing when we had four kids at home and I had a gigantic freezer (for leftovers.) But these days, well, something’s got to give. I simply cannot cook a meal for two. I can eat the same food meal after meal, but Laurence craves just a little variety. Maybe brown rice instead of red, kale instead of collards, pinto beans instead of black – after four nights in a row.
I have put a sign up on our apartment building’s bulletin board for a used, apartment-size freezer. No luck. I expect I’m not the only one to “cook ahead.” Though in the case of most of the ladies in our seniors’ non-profit, I expect it’s menu-planning. (I’m not being sexist – this is a generation where the women did the cooking. It’s also a building where there are many widows. I’m sure it’s not related.) But with me, it’s a function of habit and sloth – it’s just easier.
I was tickled pink when an opportunity came up to help with the kids’ breakfast program at my local school. My day is Thursday and the menu includes scrambled eggs, cheese, and English muffins. But this week when I arrived, I noticed there were also bagels included. Hmm, perhaps, the week after March break, there was an uptick in the breakfast program.
No worries, I - sporting my cat apron – got to work. I made extra scrambled eggs. A whole lot extra. And my kids breakfast partner, R, really got into the swing of things too and toasted up ALL of the bagels and the muffins. We have a co-op student helper, P, who doesn’t say much. Or at least R and I don’t think she does. We can’t hear her half the time, and even if we do hear her, we don’t remember what she’s said most of the time.
Not wanting to make the troops wait, we made up platters of the egg muffin/bagel sandwiches – one with cheese, one without. Or at least, that was how it was supposed to go. I confess to some confusion here. Ah well. And at 8:15 am, the kids arrived – but just a trickle of kids. And the trickle dried up pretty quickly, I must say. I was hoping that at closing time – around 8:45 am – we’d be hit with one of the sports teams. It didn’t happen. And there we were with this embarrassment of riches.
Normally, kids are not allowed seconds. This is so there will be enough for everyone. At about 8:46, a young lad asked for seconds. No problem. Then a number of other lads, and a couple of girls, asked for seconds. Woo hoo! By the time the bell rang at 9:00 am – indicating it was time to get to class – our mountain of leftovers had been pretty much bulldozed away.
Then one child said, “I don’t have much lunch today – can I take a sandwich with me?” Trying not to think what the public health department might have to say about cooked eggs sitting at room temperature for a few hours, I said “Sure!” And then a number of other students followed suit.
Finally there were only about a dozen left. (Yes, I overdid it. I know.) And our co-op student P. assured us that there was a particular class that always wanted the leftovers and she would look after that. Phew. I cannot stand to see food thrown out. Especially food that has been fund raised for and that has been so carefully planned out.
As an act of contrition, I made a financial donation to the charity responsible for funding this program. And I apologized to the mommy chickens and cows – hey, I’m plant-powered. In my perfect world, we’d be serving tofu scrambler and dairy-free cheese. But I have to accept that the kids breakfast program is about getting known food into commercial-fed kids.
If I thought there was too much left over with standard fare, you can imagine the return rate on vegan vittles. Sigh! An industrial-sized freezer would not be large enough …