Will you eventually take for yourself those Mexican black beans, either canned or bagged, some with an accent? Or a pint of pinto or peas? Or powdered mashed potato buds, with ear buds telling you when to stop swirling? Use up that garlic clove, then smash the rest. If you are hungry enough?
So a conundrum. All over again …
Is it OK to cut out candy and soda, like was just done legislatively, in several mostly red states, from what you can buy with your SNAP dollar? It forms, what a waist … OK, I’m not hugely offended by that action, but there exists a dilemma that’s producing vast differences of opinion, stemming from a disparity in its diversity, from the halls of Congress to those in your home or soup kitchen: Should low-income people have to do without some or all luxuries just because they are poor and living on the dole, not Pineapple, as on someone else’s dime, or should all basic rights be given equally?
Meet in the middle, as you are not a rock star who wants to fill up every day, with quirky buffets beyond fillets. (You should hear what some of the national acts playing the old Dibbo’s used to request, making its runners scoot, watching what’s available in the oncoming blocks as they go. Believe me, it goes way beyond the Aerosmith 22-pound obligitory backstage turkey, and they do sing about social justice! ) All the (baking) ingredients that are needed for candy are still readily available under SNAP, so provided you have the time and are not working two or more jobs, consider giving your oven a workout and make your own. In the absence of a government that actually gives a fuck about you.
It shows that poor people are not a government priority, when your benefits access 800 number goes down a lot, or when your EBT card doesn’t work with a clerk, as an impatient line forms behind you.
But what you can do, either recipient or beneficiary, goes around, and comes around. It behooves all of us, on either end, not to waste food.
As what helps one, eventually helps all. Stay with me here. If you come close to zeroing out your food waste, (hey, you’re not a fancy restaurant or even a low-end diner), you use less food stamp money or food pantry goods, both of which mean there are more goods to be had by others, even if indirectly in the former case, as the less you waste on the government’s dime, there is not only more for someone else but less of a budget expenditure needed, which means those monies could, if you’re not a cynic, be diverted in a good way to the poor in other countries.
Especially tasty when it produces efficient and effective food usage. In many ways, helping others while you stretch your own budget.
So I make, when I donate, mental notes over time on what went when and why? Any takers?
And the chief “taker,” it turns out, also gives back, bringing food to the table for gathering at the building where I live. I met her, again, swapping just the other day, with the couple of cans that were in her hand just being dispensed by her, not taken. Giving back some bounty?
For this system to work, you have to quit being a foodie and be willing to be non-specific when it comes to the brand and the varieties of ingredients that go in your dishes. Too often, at least in my building, it’s only the beans that make it onto the donation shelf.
But don’t toss your (Christmas) cookies, like someone here did. Just into the trash, from hand, mind you.
But cookies and cake and chocolate can be your new candy, even under recent EBT restrictions. I doubt they are going to take away your SNAP sugar and molasses, flour and vanilla and such.
And as such, candy will come up, in various places and (kitchen counter) spaces, throughout this piece. Because then your baby wants candy … Tell her, or yourself, to bake??
But cut nutrition education services too, as announced? Take away their buffer zone and also slash new ways for those to work, in its absence.
So here I go now. HudsonWiNightlife tries to fill another gap.
Starting with Candy O? Flavorful two ways.
Add some nutmeg for flavor. Anise can be used to make licorice. You can test both first for taste, pinching it on up to your lips. Candy is full of nuts, so if your child is not allergic, throw some of them in, also. Or choose your nut, hopefully do less damage. Honey can round it out, while being nutritional.
Thus, maybe, pick all those older, massively fading veggie heads apart, from the good stuff still left, from your lettuces to your onions, to your broccoli and even cauliflower, (stems too?), and pretty soon you’ve got a full salad. And beef prices are the highest ever, so eat green, oh beefeater (capital or lower case B), who used to be able to afford it?
And the dressing on lettuce to go with it? Pull out what’s been lurking in the back of the fridge, and even stuff like the Italian will surprise you with how long it can last. Far past the pepperoni.
Coffee and tea are described as staples in government info, so use them and juice too, but not soda. Mix it up with all those scores of flavors you may have not known existed. More kinds of them than colas.
Or have your cake and eat it too, to double up and bring it back around again. If you dive in, with your candy, and make it like one of those bars. So again, a way around it, if SNAP starts to exclude Reeses and Pieces, as a way to “mix” and “blend” it in.
And use that healthy gut. To the greater advantage of all. The one that can stuff down stuff that’s substantially past the due date, and still have a stomach that will not bat an eyelash, or form tears.
Like Mr. Urban’s tuna, (mine too), having sat in an opened can for several days. OK, an extreme example. Discretion is the better part of valor? So take this with a grain of salt. Literally, as sauces and such flavorings, when used on overkill, can kill off too funky a taste.
When maybe that’s all you have to eat …
We were gathered in an impromptu way at the door, four of us, and we started talking about such things. The man leading the way heard us saying that in Hudson, there are so many food giveaway options, there is no need for anyone to go hungry.
But still some do. And this man, having lived in multiple places, said that not everywhere is like here. Not to rip again on California, but out there dude, in San Diego for example, few food pantries exist to help out those in need, and the churches that do try to fill the void are literally overtaxed. Even though this is considered a bastion of liberalism. Fish and its dish, here vs. there, are running lowkey in the dishes that detail for cheap. Here we can offer smelt.
All the more reason to spread around the wealth, and the means, and the resources, and your best girl’s rest of frugal recipe, and your gametime gonzo veggie grillin’.
So, the following is not gastronomical gaslighting: Such as the earlier described don’t-waste, gut bomb, use-it-up dishes may be quite delicious, but you definitely have to be in the right mindset and hungry for something just like that one. When you’re not craving, they simply won’t appeal to you. Everyone has a favorite that they will like at any time, (shrimp cocktail?), but this is not that. With that said, such dishes, in a gut-bomb sort of way, can be indulge-worthy, with just that particular bit of taste and ingredient or spice you added. An again, gut-bomb appeal, just ignore the aftertaste. Catch the early- or mid-taste zap!
And do good at the same time …