Making ends meet: How we did it yesterday

Settling into my cushy armchair, I couldn't help but think about food. It's a favorite subject. And then I think of shopping, and the price of food.

Despite all the complaints I hear about the high cost of foods and / or eating out, I still believe the cheapest way to sustain yourself and your family is by cooking at home. You have to think about it. You have to be proactive. You have to make a list, and check the items on sale at your favorite markets. But if you shop weekly, you'll build a pantry arsenal that within a few months can meet ll your culinary needs.

First, though, think about the foods you like(d). Think about your favorite meals from back when you were a child, or back when you had you first apartment.

In my family, that "family favorite" was learned when I was a child and that continues today, as I emerge into great-grandparent hood.

My list:

Shepherd's Pie
Spaghetti
Golumpki'
Baked Chicken with carrots and potatoes
Baked Ham
Roast Pork
French Meat Stuffing/Pie
Mom's Macaroni & Cheese with a side of fish cakes
Trout (my dad caught hundreds each year)
Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese

Shepherd's Pie: a creamy mix of ground meat, topped with cream and whole kernel corn, topped with potatoes. When we made it in the big baking dish, we not only had a meal for all, we had leftovers, which could be reheated in a skiet a well as a microwave.

Spaghetti: What's to know. Pasta is cheap. Sometimes we'd use canned sauce but every month or two we'd whip up my dad's soup pot (which I still use) and make several galons of meat sauce. The first use was fo Spaghetti dinner. Then we made tray of lasagna which gave us one meal, plenty of leftovers and a few frozen servings.

Golumpki was an all day affair and the whole family chipped in. Six or seven basketball sized cabbages. Beef and ground pork. Rive. Some of that leftover tomato sauce. We'd begin by making the met filling, cooking all that savory meat and adding the rice and spices. Then we's steam the cabbage, one head at a time, peeling away the softened leaves. That's where the kids come in. As we cooled the leaves under water, the kids would each each brab one, spoon the filing in at the top, then carefully follow our directions in rolling them up and stacking them three layers deep in our biggest roasting pan. Hours later, we would have 90-100 golumpkis in several cover pans, each waiting its turn in the over. The kids got to lick their finger and pick up and eat what had spilled onto the table. At least half of those stuffed cabbages were packed in 2s or 4s and frozen for later use.

Baked Chicken was cooked every Sunday. Mom would place it in the oven, go to church, come home and have a cooked meal just waiting. Ditto the Roast Pork and the Ham.

French Meat Pie, another all day affair, has now been taught to two more generations. It was my grandmother's (circa 1880s) recipe. The recipe dates back to at least 1888, maybe much longer. I still have the full recipe in French from my Canadian ancestors,

Mom always made Mac & Cheese from scratch,using just 3-4 ingredients. Grotons fish cakes, frozen, were a cheap add-on.

Dad was known for catching so much Trout he'd often give it away. "You catch it you clean it" was his motto. Trout was cleaned in the field and cooked riverside on a grill, or in a skillet on the stove or in the oven. A fishing day was a mix of swimming, playing, and catching fish or chasing salamanders. All it cost was the gas to get out there in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.

Campbell's Tomato Soup and a grilled cheese sandwich was always present, warming up a rainy day or hours spent playing in the snow. You could substitute Habitant Pea Soup, Clam Chowder or Chicken Noodle soup. Or any of dad's home made soups that cooked for hours on our gas and gas stove.

Eating at home, with family or friends, was a great way to socialize and tap down the cost of meals. The preparation was as much fun as anything, and part of the recreation and teaching of children. Some my best memories are coming into my mother's kitchen to find my daughter perched on the counter, covered in flour or cake mix or sometimes mangled carrots, sitting by mom while mastering these early fine arts.

My food budget, some would say, is on the low side. Yes, but that's also budget and priorities.

Don't get me wrong; I love to eat out. I love to sample new locally owned restaurants, even if I only go a couple of times a year. At my ages, my friends and I spend our birthdays sharing lunch at one of those restaurants -- in lieu of gifts. I don't need more things but the company is the greatest gifts,

One year three of my friends and I spent every Saturday night in a large kitchen, splitting up the recreation of Menus from New England's most famous Inns. Fifty Inns. Fifty Menus. From prep to clean up, we each worked with the ingredients we were most familiar with.

But to get back to my point: planning to cook at home -- whether for personal enjoyment or monetary necessity -- has always been a part of my life, a part that hopefully will transfer down for generations to come. It's not just about the food.

Transitions

I find myself again at a point of transition. The cycle of change continues -- as it should -- but for the first time I am uncertain of just where I fit in. It's a process, I realize, that will be some time in the determining. I only know that where I have been is no longer "right."

Last fall I entered the realm of great-grandparent, a thrilling event fraught with change. And that's been good. I joined the world of the formally retired this spring, by virtue of getting Social Security, and that's been good. I've also joined a cycle of craftmanship by virtue of my needlework, which I market at conventions and shows on a limited basis.

Yet I feel an emptiness within me that has not yet found a place to settle. I hate the city I am living in, hate it with a passion that grows stronger every day. But most of my family is here now. I have always placed the highest value on family.

I miss my old hometown with equal passion, though much of what I loved is fading, gone, or re-visioned. I am excited by that, though, and love the idea that it is changing, growing, after years of urban decay.

I haven't wanted to write in many many months, settling instead into the role of editor, working with other people's words. My own words are just beginning to come back, and I think they may come back with a vengeance. That's good. Do I want write from here? Probably not. I find little to inspire me here, and inspiration, not rote, is necessary to me.

I have a lot of friends here, in the broader sense of the word. I have very very few people I connect to on any deeper level. They've all moved away, moved on to something else. I sense that coming for me as well.

This is my year of transition. I'm not sure where I will land, but I know that I am not happy where I am. Sorting out the difference is -- difficult.

Perhaps in writing this I'll begin to sort it out and find that elusive place to settle. It sounds so wishy-washy to say this, but "we'll see."

Obsolete and loving it!

I often find myself out of step, on the verge of if not actually obsolete. I don't want to be forever "available," fighting each day to maintain that list of "must call" and "must post."

If you call and I am not home, call back. I don't spend hours on my telephone and don't own a cell phone. I am not sitting around waiting for the phone to ring and I manage to live just fine. And with a lot less stress...

I still use a VCR. I have a DVD player, but really, how many times do you need to buy the same movies? (And I have a back-up VCR in my closet!) My TV is a 13" model that is 16 years old. I think. It works fine.

I still cook at home. This city is overflowing with fast food, and houses very few original eateries (almost none with any kind of ambiance ... and no one seems to know what a tablecloth and silverware are). I can eat much healthier at home. Which I do 98% of the time.

I have five bookcases in my three bedroom apartment. Working on a sixth. And a wide windowsill of books. And a table with a shelf of books. And that's just the books I am keeping (all hardcover). If I had every book I've ever read I would need a ten-room house ....

I have a cassette player. With several hundred custom made cassettes filled with my favorite music. I need it and use it every day. Of course I have CDs, but they are far far fewer than that customized music.

I use a computer, and get all my news there. I can pick and choose -- CNN, CBS, PBS, BBC -- without commercials, and I can turn it off. Mostly I watch TV on it since I won't spend the money on Cable until they allow me to pay only for the channels I want to watch (and that won't happen any time soon). If I have to pay for 80 channels and only watch 4, I really don't see the point! Back to my computer, where those 4 are free. Oh, and I write on that PC -- a lot.

I got a Twitter account four years ago and haven't touched it since.

My sewing machine is at least 45 years old. Survived our house fire and works just fine. I make clothes and design costumes on it. And I still prefer hand-finishing, which takes longer but is so satisfying.

I have a coffeemaker (4 cup) that I never use. I am thinking about buying a percolater. There is something soothing about its rituals.

By business card reads "By Appointment or Chance."

I am comfortable with silence. And my days are peaceful.

Hummers

Persistent. Observant.

As renovation work begins
my feeders are being moved
from place to place around my yard ...
in the front garden,
to the backyard by the clotheslines,
to the back fence,
then hanging again from a strong branch
away from the roofline.

Within minutes of each move,
resilient hummingbirds swoop in,
head-buzzing humans to lay claim
the sweetness of sugar water.

Listen for the rustle of fluttering wings
before you step out the door.

Waiting ... with love!

A few months ago, my younger granddaughter, 22, (at right) sat across from me in the living room and told me that she was "expecting." It was the quintessential "wow" moment. Days later her words were still sinking in.

Words of change that roll through one's life in cycles, in circles. I remembered quickly I learned was pregnant so many, it seems, years ago. I was gifted with an amazing daughter. I was also trusted with the gift of nurturing her and helping her become the woman she is. From the hand-holding to the letting go, the circle continued.

When my daughter had her three children, I stepped into the grandmother role with far more ease than I expected. I stepped back and allowed her to develop her own mothering. I lost my own mother in all of this transition, becoming the matriarch (that sounds so formal) of our family. In goddess lore, I am the crone, the wise woman, the healer, the deliverer of solace and profound peace.

When my beautiful Rochelle sat down to talk with me, I was honored to view the newest mother in the cycle (maiden, mother, crone). I visioned my daughter now stepping back, taking that grandmotherly role, with all its magic. While the new 'mom" tackles all the minutia of child-rearing and homemaking, the new "grandmom" gets to play, to teach, to love in ways that parents might not always have time for. As a grandmom, my daughter moves further along the cycle.

With great-grandmotherhood pending, I move further into the crone, ready to love more -- love grows exponentially with each child born -- I will also step back a bit and let the new parents love and learn, let the new grandmom learn that amazing realm of second-generation nurturing, and carve my own niche within the cycles and circles that are expanding yet again. It's exciting, because while I move a tad slower, I have knowledge and skills accumulated over time. I am the keeper of family history, the mender of family heirlooms, the teller of stories, the maker of little costumes, the ear that listens to the secrets and worries and joys of all who are coming up after me.

It will be a joy to have a new, tiny little hand in mine, fingers curling around my thumb, listening to all those gurgling sounds (probably baby gas but adorable nonetheless.

My Rochelle is going to make a wonderful mom; she holds the joy of life in her hands. She is smart, funny, beautiful, and talented and can be anything she wants to (including a mom) - and best of all, she, working with this man she loves, can give those gifts to her child and other children that may follow.

I am gifted by her and through her, and am pleased that I am a young enough great-grandmother that I can enjoy all of this for some time to come.

Can't wait to see this new little baby (due: October-ish).

Love you, Rochelle.