A Tale of Two Grocery Stores

A few weeks ago, I was waiting for my sister to finish an appointment in a town I rarely visit. While I waited, I stopped in at the only grocery store in town, an IGA. It was small, with narrow aisles and basic produce – no exotic fruit or trendy vegetables:  broccoli but no broccolini; strawberries, the red ones, not the fancy hybrid white ones. The fruits and vegetables were piled on tables and some shelves, not arranged like an art exhibit. Two shoppers, men, were chatting by the potatoes and onions. 

I was looking for ingredients to practice making biscuits. My recipe suggested two kinds of flour, soft flours that would yield tender biscuits. Many groceries don’t carry them, but this store had both. There was one brand of baking powder, not three or four. Plus there was lard on the shelf, and smoked turkey pieces for seasoning collards. When I paid for my groceries, one bag full, the cashier asked if I would like someone to take them out to my car. As I left, the two men in the produce section were still visiting. 

A week or so later, I went to another small grocery, this one part of a national chain. There were wide aisles but also little “islands” here and there, one with fancy cheeses, another with bubbly wine, another with nuts and snack mixes. There were probably six or seven kinds of canned tomatoes. And produce like bok choy, escarole, tropical fruits of all kinds, and ginger root and lemon grass – all beautifully displayed. The people shopping there were casually dressed but not in jeans and boots as at the IGA. A woman in an expensive-looking fleece was chatting with a man in the check-out line. Maybe they knew each other or not, but when he got his groceries, they ended the conversation and he went his way. I carried my own groceries out the car. 

The second store was lovely, and the shopping there was a pleasant experience. It was a modern store, with trendy food and lovely arrangements. Going to the IGA, though, was like stepping back in time. It was a place to see and catch up with your neighbors, chat with the person at the cash register, linger in the produce section. The basics were there, but the choices were not overwhelming. It had all the ingredients for old-fashioned southern country cooking. 

There aren’t many stores like that anymore. Consumers, myself included, want lots of variety and wide aisles and potted orchids. But something is lost in the fancy stores, a sense of community and good plain food and the simplicity of an easier time. I’ll keep going to the grocery stores with all the options, but I might try to find an IGA now and then, too.

 

Grateful!

I was looking for a card to send and found, in my mother’s dresser, a whole box of thank you cards, 100 of them, with matching green envelopes trimmed in gold. I am sure my sister bought them for her. She always wrote to thank people for gifts, visits, food – anything and everything. And the recipients treasured those notes, keeping them on bulletin boards and stuck up on the visor in a pickup truck. 

I have tried to follow her example, to write to say thank you for any kindness, large or small. I wrote ten notes on those little cards. I don’t know if I will finish the box this year, but my resolution is to express the gratitude I feel for all the goodness that comes my way: for collards and broccoli and tomatoes, for the gift of a kitchen gadget or something sweet and homemade, for a helping hand in a time of need. I am blessed!

 

Baking with the Saints

My mother had a wooden recipe box, a large rectangular thing. It has dividers, and, once upon a time, maybe she filed her recipes in those groups. But now everything is just in there, haphazard. Some recipes are on fancy index cards. Some are clipped from old newspapers. Some are typed, and some are on the backs of old envelopes, just ingredients but no title or even directions. The most precious ones are hand-written. 

I went through some of the recipes last week and found one for a recipe that I remembered my cousin making. For some reason – who knows? – it is called “Chinese chews.” It is a kind of blondie bar. It is written in her handwriting. I will make that recipe before Christmas is over. And then there was a cookie recipe from another cousin for slice-and-bake brown sugar cookies. My mother made those often, and I found two recipe cards for the same recipe, one in my cousin’s handwriting. The cookies were delicious. And then I made my mother’s Christmas tree cookies, with her cookie press. My sister has always loved those cookies, and I was glad to make them for her. 

It was lovely, baking all those cookies, creaming pounds of butter and sugar, mixing in the flour and vanilla. The house was warm from the oven and smelled so fragrant. And it made me feel happy to be baking, and also a little sad to be doing it on my own. I missed them so much, especially Mama. But, somehow, I wasn’t really alone. I was connected to those past generations. I could work from their recipes, see their hands, taste the sweetness of their cooking. They were in the kitchen with me, those saints.

 

Changing the Closet

When I lived in New England, it was a ritual of the season – spring and fall -- to change the closet. Most folks knew what you were talking about when you set aside a few hours for that task. In early October, it meant taking out the spring and summer clothes, packing them away, and getting the fall and winter things out of storage. My storage closet was in the basement, so it was up and down the stairs, basement to second floor, many trips with one batch of clothes and shoes betting moved up and the other batch getting moved down. 

In the South, changing the closet is not really a thing. There are generally two seasons: hot and not so hot! I still have a long wool winter coat, but I hardly ever wear it. Usually a warm jacket is enough. But this year, I am changing my closet. The clothes in the back of the closet haven’t been worn very much, if at all. They are fine; it is just that I have a lot of things and wear mostly the same ones over and over. I will take out the shirts and dresses in the back and pack them away. When the calendar turns to spring and summer, even if the weather stays much the same, I will send them along to someone who needs and can use them.

 

First of Fall

The corn field is all brown stubble; the corn has been gathered.  The pink and yellow cotton blossoms are turning into bolls.  Acorns are pinging on the tin roof over the porch, and the magnolia pods are bursting with red seeds.  The poke berries are purple, reminding me of the days when we used to mash them and make our own ink.  Spider webs are everywhere, as their spinners seek that last bit of nourishment.  Bees are foraging on goldenrod, swamp sunflowers, and chives gone to flower.  Butterflies have emerged from their cocoons and are getting ready to fly away or leave their eggs to over-winter. The hummingbirds have already left.  Some of the chickens are molting.  The horse and dog and goats have not put on their winter coats but they will soon.  

At Yale, we sang the alma mater with this line:  “The seasons come, the seasons go. The earth is green or white with snow.”  I feel the season going, the season of summer with its golden corn and wildflowers and green fields.  There is a touch a fall in the air when I walk out into the morning.  The seasons come, the seasons go. 

Sunday Morning

The spires of the pine trees rise like steeples.  A choir of insects hums the prelude.  The birds offer a morning anthem. .  The breezy breath of the wind stirs the trees to praise. The dome of the sky is a shelter of blue and white; the sun shines brighter than any candles.  And God is present.

 

Later, I will go to church, and there will be a steeple and music and praise and candles.  And God will be there, too.

 

I am reminded of a song taught to us in a long-ago Sunday School class:  

 

Over the ground is a mat of green;

Over the green, the dew;

Over the dew are the arching trees;

Over the trees, the blue.

Dotting the blue are the scudding clouds.

Over the clouds, the sun;

Over the sun is the love of God,

Brooding us everyone.

Morning Sounds

 The dog’s big yawn

The cat demanding breakfast

 

Two crows and a quail having a conversation

 

Quiet breeze in the pine trees

 

Raindrops plopping on the tin roof of the shed

 

Cars and trucks, traffic on the road, carrying folks to work

 

Big yellow busses, full of children I can’t hear but can imagine -- some rowdy and ready for the day, others still bed-rumpled and sleepy

 

The lawn mower

 

My neighbor’s hen announcing an egg

 

Dogs barking far away

 

The horse greeting me, or more likely, his bucket of feed

 

And under it all, the gentle hum of a thousand unseen insects, greeting the day

Things that make me smile!

Buddy going for a ride!!

My friend has worked on my 1949 Ford pickup truck for weeks, fixing this and replacing that, diagnosing and researching and repairing. And it is running beautifully!!! So today I took the dog for a drive, his first trip in the truck. His ears perked up when I started it – he is used to the Prius which is so quiet, not like the truck. We drove just a bit, not far, and he was fine. 

My dog by my side, my truck humming along, a lovely late summer day: happiness all around!

 

My New Grocery Store

From their Face Book page - this and lots more!

There is a small Mexican grocery store in the little town nearest us. I’ve seen their pictures on Face Book, but I had never been until today. It is a wonderful place! There are bins of fresh fruits and vegetables: mangos, tomatoes, oranges, avocado, garlic, onions, and wonderfully strange things (to me) like rambutan and nopales. In the cold section, there are tender greens, cilantro, radishes, all kinds of lovely cheeses. The frozen foods include cooked shrimp, ready-to-eat burritos and tortillas with refried beans, plus sausages. And there are baskets of all kinds of dried chilies. The canned food shelves include chipotles, pickled jalapenos, and canned nopalitos. Pinatas hang from the ceiling and there is a whole section of shoes and boots with a rich leathery aroma, as well as colorful pottery and molcajetes for making guacamole. An older man was in the back cleaning the cactus paddles, and the woman at the counter was warm and helpful. She spoke English, but I so wished I could speak Spanish so I could properly thank her for stocking such wonderful food. 

There is also a Dollar General Market in that town and it has a little bit of fresh food, as well as a large freezer section of processed foods. I’ve gone there for things in the past. But this little market is my new grocery store, I think. It will feel good to support a truly local business, it will be convenient, and the food will be fresh and good. Plus I think I will learn how to cook nopales!

 

Common???

Common Whitetail Dragonfly

We have lots of dragonflies in our yard. One of the most spectacular is this black and white one. I did not know its name and so I looked it up. It is a “common whitetail dragonfly.” But I have to say: there is nothing “common” about this insect. It is so beautiful, so unusual. I am glad to know its name, and also glad to understand that there are so many common things around us that are just little miracles – like this dragonfly.