Coming Full Circle

In this part of Ohio (smack dead center) when I was growing up (I started 1st grade in 1962), it was not unusual to hear a classmate announce "I'm part Indian" or "I'm part Cherokee" or something similar. (Maybe it still is, but I am talking about then, not now.) Everyone (well, at least four or five kids)  claimed Native American ancestry, often Cherokee, whenever indigenous peoples were talked about, which in school meant when we talked about "ancient" Ohio history—the Adena and Hopewell tribes, called "Mound Builders" by the dominant white colonial society—or around Thanksgiving.

Heck, my family even had an "We're part Indian" story that persisted into the 21st century. My

Grandma Skatzes: not Native American 

Grandmother Skatzes told stories, perhaps more than one, that we had a Native American ancestor in her family tree. It was a grandmother, three or four generations back, who would tie her children to the fence so that she could work in the garden. (My grandmother, a gentle-hearted soul, would tear up when she told this, saying "That was a cruel and terrible thing to do! Those little children would holler all day long!") There was never a name attached to this allegedly Native American ancestor, just the story of tying the children up so she could do her chores.

Another version which popped up once or twice was that we had a male ancestor, supposedly of the Apache tribe, somewhere back in the past. Seriously? Besides the fact that the historical lands of the Apache were in the southwestern part of this country, a part of the country we did not move to or come from, a narrative involving a relationship with a male Native American runs contrary to what the standard settler/Native interrelationships looked like: male settler, Native woman.

Trust me, it didn't happen.

Still, the stories persisted. As I grew older and learned more history of the colonization in this part of the country, I began to disbelieve the whole family myth of a Native American ancestor. Most of our maternal genealogical records, even without digging too deep, followed such traditional white trajectories that I could not begin to shoehorn a Native American ancestor into them. Rape or sexual assault somewhere in the past? Absolutely a possibility. But a marriage or domestic partnership? No way. It was white, white, white all the way.

With the advent of DNA testing for "heritage" purposes, one of my cousins on my maternal side took a test. She was excited waiting for the results, anticipating seeing threads of that Native American ancestor pop up in the results. I told her to be prepared: there won't be any Native American DNA identified. Yes, there will be, April! Just wait and see!

True to my prediction, there was no Native American DNA. Zero, nada, nothing. Unlike Elizabeth Warren, we couldn't even pretend to have any Native American lineage.

That story resurfaced when I went to Kentucky last month with my dad and brother and sister-in-law. While we were eating dinner at a Bob Evans, Mark brought up that we have Native American blood in the Strickler family line (our mom's maternal lineage).

"No, we don't. There might be some in the family, but it's not there."

Dad looked at me quizzically. "The Skatzes side?" (That would be Mom's paternal lineage.)

"Not there either," I said, explaining that our cousin (who has the same Skatzes/Strickler DNA that my brother and I do) had a DNA test and the results were negative for Native American DNA.

"Frankly, if there is any Native American blood, it'll be on your side, Dad."

I went on to point our that his family history, of which I know the bare bones narrative, was more likely to have Native American/settler interrelationships of the kind that would lead to marriage or a domestic partnership. Our ancestors were in Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky very early in the dominant white colonial history of this country, and probably far enough in advance of "civilization" that tribes in the area would have been the only other humans around.

That's when I came to a complete stop in my mind.

Oh hell.

We, my family, did that. We were part of that wave of white settlers invaders, part of the white colonization mindset that it all belonged to us and those others—those indigenous people seen as lesser than, if seen as human at all—deserved to be pushed out of the way or slaughtered or both in the name of God, the King, the United States, the whatever.

We were those people and for all of my participation in circles on historical trauma and cultural and biological genocide and (gulp) restorative justice, it never hit me that I was a direct heir and beneficiary of that. All my law school clerk experience in the Native American law field, my championing of tribal law and the many Native sovereign nations: that was good work, but I was flying blind, in the fog, and upside down. I couldn't even coast by saying my family came to those parts of the United States (Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio) post-Civil War through Ellis Island after all the tribes had been exterminated or removed.

Oh, no, no, no, we were here from the very beginning and took part of that long, horrific history.

Oh hell. Talk about privilege. Talk about white dominant colonial culture bias.

Talk about feeling like a totally clueless goof.

If my child-in-law Alise, who is Anishinaabe, is reading this post, this is about the point where she is nodding her head and saying "uh huh, April, uh huh. Now you get it."

Better late than never.

But dang, that "late" was way late in coming.

In The Garden

As I predicted a few weeks ago, the lettuce has indeed come to a halt: too bitter, too burnt, too bolted. I have not yet dug up the planters, but the lettuce is over until I replant it in the fall. I did, reluctantly, buy some romaine at the store, but after days and days of eating fresh, picked-just-five-minutes-ago lettuce from the back patio, it is less than satisfying.

But that disappointment was offset by these:

Yes, the long winter wait is over and I am starting to pick fresh tomatoes again. They were a couple of weeks behind last year's first ones, but, oh, oh, oh. 

And I just picked and processed a lot of basil. A. Lot. I don't cook a lot with fresh basil, but I do make it into pesto, most of which goes into the freezer or to friends. The basil had gotten tall and thick, so Sunday morning I went out and started clipping. 20 minutes later, I had a sink full of basil:

That bumper crop led to several hours of cutting, chopping, grinding, and whatever else it took to bring it to pesto.

I do not use a pesto recipe. Ever. Some years ago, some food reporter for the New York Times went on a quest to find the area's best pesto, hearing rumors of it being at some diner, perhaps in the Hudson River Valley. The reporter indeed found the very best pesto (having sampled pesto far and wide) and talked with the pesto maker, the proprietor of said diner or restaurant. I don't remember the details other than this salient one: she did not use a recipe at all, but just threw in ingredients until it looked, smelled, and tasted right to her.

Dang! I read that and never looked back. 

My pesto is chopped basil, pressed garlic, parmesan cheese, olive oil, and chopped pecans. I do much of that work by hand using basic kitchen tools, including what a long ago car mechanic friend called a BFH. I use a home-sized BFH (shown below) to smack the garlic to break the husks. 

Warren and I have a very, very small food processor. We bought it many years ago, for (if memory serves me) $9.99. It maybe has a cup and a half capacity. Okay, maybe two cups, but I don't think so. We have used it (no exaggeration) hundreds of times: for salsa, for relish, for pesto, for grinding pecans or almonds for biscotti. It has a crack from top to bottom that does not leak, so we keep using it.  Let's just say we got our money's worth out of it.

When you have limited capacity in your food processor, it takes awhile to work your way through a sink's worth of basil. But slowly, throughout the morning and into the middle of the afternoon, the pesto accumulated and accumulated and accumulated.

By 3:00 p.m., the basil was all gone and I was left with this: 

It took another hour to clean the kitchen (and, in fact, the above photo was taken after I got the kitchen cleaned). 

One container immediately went next door to our good neighbors, Maura and Adam, who recently welcomed a new baby (and a little sister for their daughter) into the world. Distant as my sons' births are, I still remember the pleasure when someone showed up with food that I didn't have to prepare when I was a new parent. Another went to a young friend and her husband. The rest went into my freezer. 

There will be more basil and probably one more pesto day. (Yes, Tonya, I know you want some!) After that, I will let the basil go to flower, because I get such pleasure in watching the bees in it. 

Bees in the basil. I can't wait. 

Dumpster Diving With The Best Of Them

"Did the butter get thrown out too?"

Dad looked pained. "Look in the freezer. It should be in there."

It wasn't.

This is not a tale of butter that mysteriously disappeared. This is instead a story of combining households and generations and lifestyles.

My brother Mark and his wife Jackie are selling their home and moving into my dad's house, the one we moved into in 1970 and in which he continues to live today, first with his shrinking family, then with my mother, and. finally, after she moved into memory care last November, by himself. Mark and Jackie recently hit a financial wall, not of their own doing, that, as they each characterized it, was the straw that broke the camel's back, the camel in this case being their ability to make their mortgage payment and pay their bills and pay for Jackie's medical insurance, as the just announced cut to her hours eliminated her employer-paid health insurance. It was the insurance that was the last straw; given Jackie's health issues, "going without insurance" is not an option. So they made the difficult but solid decision to sell their house while they are on the upside of their mortgage and move into the old home place. (Back in 2018, I interviewed Mark and Jackie about their grocery budget given the money issues and the health issues.) With Dad a month away from turning 86, still in good health but, as he puts it, old, I think we are all, starting with Dad, relieved that he will no longer be living alone.

The house is large; Mark and Jackie will take over the upstairs, all three will share the kitchen and the bathroom. As a major part of that move, both households are downsizing. Jackie, Mark, and a crew of loyal neighbors are deep-cleaning Dad's house for the first time in...ten years? Twenty? Since 1970?

Don't get me wrong. Dad and Mom did not keep a dirty house. But Mom's ability to do housework disappeared years ago due to physical limitations, and Dad's ability to keep up with everything diminished as he aged and as Mom took more and more of his time. You wouldn't walk into the house ever and notice anything much more than dusty shelves and accumulated clutter on the counters and surfaces, but as Mark and Jackie prepare the house for their move, their hard efforts are showing just how much dust and dirt and grime had accumulated over almost 50 years.

So back to the butter. One of the tasks Jackie undertook yesterday was cleaning Dad's refrigerator for the first time in...a long time. Again, nothing was filthy and there was no spoiled food, but..yeah, it was overdue. Jackie scrubbed shelves, she wiped down bottles and containers, and when she found items that were past their pull date, she pulled them.

Note: Jackie's mother, Judy, was an RN. Jackie can and does wash her hands with more attention than most of us ever even think of doing. Judy taught Jackie well about food safety, about keeping surfaces (counters, sinks, refrigerators) clean, about safe food preparation. Those early life lessons have served Jackie and her husband and children well over the years. Those lessons also include paying scrupulous attention to pull dates and "use by" dates.

Second Note: Dad was not raised by an RN. Neither was I. Dad, in fact, lived his early years without electricity, without running water, without refrigeration. You get the point. I, of course, grew up with electricity, running water, and refrigeration, but believe that food is more durable than what we give it credit for, especially non-perishable items and items kept frozen. I also believe strongly that "use by" dates are, for the most part, something foisted on us by food manufacturers (note my word choice: manufacturers—we eat manufactured food in this country! ) who want us to continually be buying their food items "fresh" (like a can has a "freshness" quality to it). So while Dad and I talked this morning about the butter, he talked about how his family prepared and kept food when he was growing up and how that butter in the freezer would keep 20 years.

So where was the butter? When I quizzed my brother when he and Jackie showed up later, he said "probably in one of those trash bags near the top of the trash container." (We were already outside, near the big trash tote.)

I didn't miss a beat. I popped open the lid, opened the bag closest to the top (the contents of which were still cool), and rummaged around. First up was a never-opened bag of pecan halves. Score! Next were the two pounds of butter, still cold. Score!

Jackie, who was out of the porch cleaning something, called over, laughing. "I can buy you butter, April! And I'm not eating at your house!" I called back, "You can't eat butter anyway, you're lactose intolerant!"

I took my finds inside to show Dad, who grinned. He was happy. Mark, knowing the vast gulf on food that separate me and Jackie, laughed.

When Jackie came back in the house, we both stood in front of the built-in cabinets in which Mom had kept baking items and spices. I looked at her: "You opened this yet?" Jackie shook her head.

We opened the doors. It was a hodgepodge of things: some boxed mixes (Mom was truly a bride of the early 1950s; convenience food was what everyone used and she never really gave up that habit), an empty plastic container, and a somewhat full canister. (I opened that one: powdered sugar.) There was an unopened box of corn starch, an old opened box of baking soda, and an opened container of petrified baking powder. There was a whole drawer of spices, some of which, as I looked closer, probably predated my parents moving into the house 49 years ago.

Oh my.

"Let me just take these all," I said, grabbing some grocery sacks. I dumped the items we knew were past redemption: the petrified baking powder, the old soda. But the rest?

"I'll sort them out when I get home."

We bagged it all. I put the butter and the pecan halves into the bags as well, hugged Dad, and left.

The snazzy Tupperware container is on the left, the Jiffy mix is on the right

When I got home to Warren, I was excited. "Guess what I found! The butter! Guess what else I found! Come look!"

Warren dutifully looked. I then spread my treasures on the table and went through what I had brought home. I kept the powdered sugar, both in the canister (a cool circa 1970 Tupperware model) and an unopened bag of the same. The regular sugar made the cut. I kept the mixes—brownies, lemon bars, pumpkin spice cookies—because I sometimes bake for other occasions where a box mix is not the end of the world. I even kept the Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix, which, until I was well into my teens, constituted the only "cornbread" I really ever ate, with the rare exception of Kentucky cornbread. (I was an adult before I realized the sweet stuff was considered "corncake" and the Kentucky stuff, unsweetened, was truly the cornbread. I still sweeten mine, but not as much as I did in younger days.)

t took me about 15 minutes to sort the spices, opening each one and smelling and tasting them. Nine of them I emptied and recycled the containers. 12 of them I kept.

The pecans? I'm about to start making pesto, and I use pecans in my pesto to thicken it. We just yesterday bought pecan halves at Aldi, where they run .529 cents an ounce, the cheapest in town. That six ounce bag I rescued? $3.17 worth of pecans at that price.

Sweet.

The butter went, of course, in the freezer. I texted Jackie a photo of it.

Fortunately, I am married to a man who gets me and shares my attitude towards food and towards food durability. He even smiled about the Jiffy mix: it's not anything we would ever buy, but what the heck, might as eat it up.

A little dumpster diving goes a long way.

The butter in its new home, our freezer

Small Moment

Every now and then, you read a book that just sweeps you in and holds you. This is one of those books.

I had seen a review of this work and ordered it through the library on the strength of that reviewer's praise. I had never heard of Robert MacFarlane, although he apparently is a highly acclaimed nature writer.

Underland is about what is beneath us: caves, burial mounds, catacombs, fossils, bones, underground rivers, mining.

But that is just the "topic." It is a stunning work in its scope and in its language. From the moment I opened the book, Macfarlane's words ran smoothly across the page and lodged deep in me.

Of course I reaped quotes from the book. How could I not? Here is a small bit of one: "Into the underland we have long placed that which we fear and wish to lose, and that which we love and wish to save."

And he gave me a quote from W. H. Murray, a Scottish mountaineer and writer I had never heard of before, that I carry around in my figurative pocket and pull out constantly: "Find beauty, be still."

I will never view or think about what lies beneath our feet the same way again.

June Money Review

As I predicted in my May Money Review,  our grocery expenditures for the month of June did indeed hit rock bottom.

Total money spent on groceries in June? $97.94. That was all food; there were no household expenditures such as dish soap or toilet paper.  That brings our monthly average year to date to $156.85.

Four factors contribute to that stunningly low figure. First, we were in transit or in conferences (or at Mayo) for 12 days of June, and I was out of town an additional day with my brother, sister-in-law, and Dad. So, really, we're looking at food for 18 days, not 30 days. That skews the figure some, but I'm not sweating it.

Second, I have been more aware of eating what we have in our freezer and cupboards instead of buying randomly when I am in a grocery store. Some frugal sites (I belong to a few) call this a "pantry challenge." I call it, borrowing from minimalist Anthony Ongaro, who I also follow, "breaking the twitch" (to mindlessly shop).

Third, although the tomatoes are still a few weeks away from ripening, I have been picking lettuce out of our garden most of the month, which means not buying greens at the store. As the heat and sun come on stronger and stronger (June was wonderfully cool and rainy, right up until the last few days), I know our lettuce days are numbered. I'm hoping for at least another week before the sun blisters it or it bolts.

An aside before I get to the fourth and final reason: homegrown leaf lettuce is so delicious and fresh and different from what I have been buying and eating for years that it will be hard to go back. Barbara Kingsolver makes an excellent point in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (which I am hoping to reread in the upcoming month) that if we not only eat locally but also seasonally, we will be blown away by the difference in quality and taste of the food. This is why I do without fresh tomatoes most months out of the year: after eating them out of my garden during tomato season, it is difficult to buy them out of season and often out of taste.  I called my son Sam Friday night to wish him a happy 29th (my baby is 29?) and we talked about the lettuce. Sam and his partner Georgia have a container garden on their small balcony. Sam was incredulous. "Really? Really? It's that much better?" (Sam has worked produce stands in Portland in his past, so he's no novice to local food.) He is intrigued and I suggested they try it.

The fourth reason our food bill is so low is that I have been extra conscientious (more so than usual, which is no small deal) this year to reduce food waste. I also continue to experiment with food quantities given my medical issues. When you are watching what you eat, literally and figuratively, less food hits the garbage can or the next door neighbors' compost pile.

Here are two examples of trying to cut down on food waste. First, when I buy produce such as carrots (a staple of our weekday lunches), I remove then from the plastic bag they come in, rinse them, then wrap them in a thin cotton towel (kind of an all-purpose flour sack towel) and set them in the produce drawer of our refrigerator. They keep for weeks. Store bought lettuce keeps for more than a week while I use it up. (My own lettuce has a much shorter shelf life; I pick fresh every day because it goes limp quickly, even rinsed and wrapped in the towel.) Broccoli, cauliflower. celery: they all keep fresh for days and days and days if I store them that way. I have not thrown away spoiled (limp, slimy, whatever) produce in months. Months.

A second way of reducing food waste (and getting yet one more meal out of a less likely source) happens when I make stock. Yesterday morning I made chicken stock from the three fairly picked over carcasses we had in the freezer (along with the frozen celery tops, broccoli bottoms, and an onion added for flavor). After I strained the stock, I then went through the debris with a pair of food tongs, pulling out enough chicken bits that I filled half of a small container. (I did not comb through it piece by piece, just picked out the chunks while I moved aside bones and stuff.) Is it enough chicken to stand alone for a meal? No. Is it enough chicken to sauté and serve with beans and lettuce and cheese and fixings for burritos next week? You bet.

The flip side of the low grocery bill is the eye-watering eating out total for June. All that travel? All those days away? $333.78, including tips (and I tip 20% or more). That is not counting meals bought for others: Warren's son David while we were in Denver (David now lives in SE Colorado and came up to spend time with his dad), a couple of lunches I treated my dad to, the meals the day I was out of town with family (paying for my family's lunches and dinners was my contribution to the day). It also does not count my share of meals for which I will be reimbursed while on Court business in Denver. Perhaps about $8.00 of that figure is Warren and I just eating locally: a tea (mine) with a friend, a trip to the ice cream store in Prospect. Another $25.50 of it is from the baseball game we took in when we were in Denver: there is no such thing as cheap major league ballpark food. No. Such. Thing. So on the one hand we ate out very, very frugally for just us locally, even adding another $18.00 for the amount I dropped on my share of those lunches with Dad. On the other hand...well, there is no other hand. It is what it is.

We are NOT traveling in July. At least I don't think we are. We will head out to the Pacific Northwest late in the summer to spend time with family, but that is still in the distance. Our eating out costs should spiral down and stay down. It's not that we deprive ourselves, it is more that we often have such packed, I mean full, days, that shoehorning a meal out, even takeout, just adds to the schedule in ways that are not offset by eating a meal prepared by someone else. (Does that make sense? There's simply not enough enjoyment in eating out most of the time to justify the cost and the time; we enjoy it, but not that much.)

Halfway through the year! Holy moly! On to July!