Scary Stuff

Food wise

Dear Readers,

As some of you know, I ran a food pantry and community meals program for six years. I was hired to cook vegetable-laden lunches and eventually led the pantry, where I helped get as many fresh fruits and vegetables home with folks as I could.

Cinnamon roll, grilled at Duncan’s Dairy Bar.

We fed a lot of people. I learned so much about the food system, about the choices people have within the emergency food system — which is what it is called even though the emergency is an everyday thing in a land where so many are so underpaid.

Once a month, people came to us for three days worth of food for their household. Our pantry was set up as a choice model, and people came through the little free store with a shopping cart to pick out their food. The amounts of each category were preset, according to federal nutritional guidelines.

The pantry was housed inside a large human services agency, and one of my co-workers helped people sign up for SNAP benefits.

I keep thinking of the years I worked in this food machine, learning person by person how little I knew about life beyond my circumstances.

Calendula in my yard.

The prospect of so many Americans going over the SNAP cliff is terrifying. How would Shirley Jackson turn this truth into a story?

I have a copy of The Lottery as a full book, illustrated by her grandson. Those images have become the story I see in my head. Right now, The Government is the townspeople, drawing lots to see who will be stoned. The analogy is not great, but I am making it because I think Shirley Jackson had a unique ability to identify the self-preservation that lurks in our souls.

The art of self-preservation that politicians practice is another kind of ugly, and I mean that in an old-school, pre 2025 Washington horror show.

But let’s think about better things, like the feelings behind the free lunch we served five days a week in the cafeteria. Anywhere from 30 - 200 people ate with us each day.

The higher numbers came at the end of the month, as people ran out of money. Many folks were on fixed incomes. When they were flush again, many diners stayed away.

Anyone could come and eat for free, and lots of my friends accepted the invitation. It was a fantastic experiment, but it didn’t last. The atmosphere could be fraught, as interpersonal problems came to a boil. For a few weeks, we even had police presence to keep fights from breaking out. COVID spelled the end of in-person dining, and now, the meals are served to go.

I left this job in the fall of 2019. I feel lucky that I left pre-pandemic.

A sign on the road in Troy.

I wish that the dream of the free meal was still happening, merging us all shoulder-to-shoulder: shy men who lived in SROs, young moms with their children, medicab drivers, people who had all of their belongings in bags they left in the hall.

I want there to be a long room with long tables and a cafeteria line of warm food. I want to be with all kinds of neighbors over food. To step inside the ideals of a loaf of bread, warm and hugging. To melt in the butter of being alive.

Call your government. We deserve a kinder country.

Oh! I almost forgot. I have free ticket to offer to my talk, The Evolution of American Baking at Zingerman’s Bakehouse in Ann Arbor on November 12. If you’re interested, say so in the comments.

Your bread pal, Amy