To Give Up Cooking?

You'll notice  I didn't say, "To stop cooking."

"Give up" means that there's a sacrifice.  And there is, if I am not cooking.

It is nice and in fact wonderful that one can buy an edible meal, delivered to one's home.  I am totally in favor of the enterprise.

And some of the food is not that bad.  It reminds me of the worst of hospital food in the old days. Watery vegetables, mystery meats.  But it has been prepared with some thought, and you can see that a week's menus have been thought out pretty thoroughly.  If you have not had something in a few days, it's pretty certain that it's coming up soon.  Beets come about every ten days in some form or another.  I guess if you do not care for beets, that is once too often, but I love beets, even Harvard Beets a la Fannie Farmer, beloved of dormitory cooks in my college days.  Green beans, peas, corn, and carrots appear very frequently as I guess they are the most acceptable vegetables out there. So far, there have been no artichokes, or asparagus. There are no soups so therefore no butternut squash bisque...It is a dull, but acceptable diet if you have no better.

I'd rather have the crumbs from my sisters' tables than eat the Meals on Wheels.  There. It's the truth. We are gals that can COOK.  Some stopped at the Good Housekeeping Cookbook. Some at the Martha Stewart. But the food is all GOOD GOOD GOOD. If they had to throw it into the back of a car and cart it around the countryside, would it still be delicious? YES. It might get cold, but it could be warmed up and still be better than the MOW. Sorry, but it's true.

Down in Brownsville, the ladies of the Presbyterian Church used to make a MOW kind of lunch and take it around to subscribers for a quarter per lunch.  Twenty five cents, people.  All volunteer, That was in 1990. I hope they still do it. There are people in serious permanent need, and people in temporary straits, who are so grateful for such service.

At college, the dorm food we used to get was pretty bad. At Southwestern U. in Georgetown, TX, where I suffered terribly through my freshman year, the dorm food was almost inedible.  I had never had to undergo cafeteria service before, and I'll never forget the ghastly smells, damp trays, watery everything, that made our meals so bad.  No convict in the USA should ever have to eat the Sunday night suppers we were offered, Sunday  being clean-out night in the refrigerators.  And we had to eat it or starve; the University was far from the small downtown, and there were no eateries anywhere in the vicinity, even if I 'd had the gumption to search one out. I remember the pale harrassed pimply kids on the "line", offering out hard-boiled eggs at breakfast time...Hard boiled eggs for breakfast! The very thought made me gag. And I wasn't a fancy eater; I was just used to the best of the best of Temple Tradition cookery PLUS (the advantage of living on the border) the best Mexican cookery there is. I didn't know what horrible stuff was served out at places like my dorm.

The next year, I went up to Baylor, at Waco, and lived at Memorial.  They had a much more civilized system of meals there.  Breakfast was still rather unappetizing, but dinner was mannerly.  We had to sit at tables of eight.  Whoever got the last seat on the end was "Mama," and presided over the table. That means she could pick the person to say Grace, and appoint all service and order necessary.  We had students to serve the food, and I must say it was not too bad. I suffered over Grace; if I'd had a brain I'd have memorized a short Grace and used it over and over, but I never thought of it...and was always wracked with shyness and a tied tongue when I was fixed with that gimlet eye of Mama.

Anyway, the food was somewhat better. Quite a bit better, though nowhere comparable to my mother's. We got desserts, sometimes yummy ones. I remember a confection called "Radio Bars", which were a chocolate base kind of like a brownie, topped with a stiff marshmallow goo which strung out unbreakingly as you raised your bite to your mouth.  Radio Bars were delicious. Much appreciated. And there was a crumb, apple and walnut concoction which unfailingly caused someone at the table to wittily remark that somebody must have paid their tuition in walnuts, because it appeared quite often.

Across the street from my dorm was a tiny crowded cafe called, I think, the College Inn.  Those people made the best burgers. And everything they made was good. Their prices were cheap, and I ate many a meal there regardless of the hard-earned money my parents had laid out for my board at the dorm. I wish I had one of their burgers right NOW.  And at breakfast they served huge incomparable sweet rolls with cheese melted over the top. I had never eaten anything like them, and I just loved them.

So--am I committed to cooking for myself every meal every day from now on?  I guess not--still taking MOW...but if I could, I'd choose to get my meals from the College Inn,...with now and then, a Radio Bar for dessert. YAZZYBEL