San Francisco, California
Two trees at the back of our garden compete for the same patch of sun. John has to cut another branch off of the palm (a once-upon-a-time, self-planted volunteer) every few months to keep from knocking down the fence between them. The neighbor’s acacia (we think that's what it is) expands less dramatically until this time of year when, laden with blossoms and bees, it makes its presence known. Standing in the path I am overwhelmed by the buzzing and the perfume of the tree. Good for the bees! Maybe we’ll taste a little of our own backyard when our source for local honey drops off another jar.
Last night John cooked up a remarkable piece of local petrale sole in wine sauce and capers. The fish comes from a service he’s found that delivers local seafood once a week and leaves it in a cooler on our steps. We don’t know what’s coming until the day prior to delivery, when an email reveals a picture of the fisherman who’s caught it, and offers recipes for how it might be cooked. The grocery stores have been unable to deliver petrale sole - or any fish - for several weeks. We are lucky, of course, to be able to afford this creative new boutique service, but I am also grateful that John goes to the lengths he does to keep us well supplied.
His routine is not simple. Every day and sometimes every hour, John checks two different chain grocery delivery services to see if there’s an open slot. If he finds one available within a week, he builds the order from the list we keep. When the delivery comes, of course, it contains only a fraction of what we requested. Last week, for example, there was a single item in the bag that came from Safeway - a squeeze bottle of lime juice and none of the fruit, meat and vegetables we really needed. So he reconstructed the list as best he could, and started the process all over again.
It used to be we shopped for what we wanted to cook. Now we cook with whatever we can get, reminding me of my visit to Moscow in 1990, when the Soviet Union was on its last legs. Everywhere, long, patient lines of people spilled out of stores whose window displays were empty. “What are they all waiting for?” I asked Lena, our interpreter. She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter,” she answered. “If people see a line they get into it. And they hope there will be something left - whatever it is - by the time they get to the front.”
Of course, it’s not that bad. I’m not going to whine. We are NOT suffering the insecurity of all those waiting in long lines right here, right now in America for whatever is available at the food bank. In fact, John’s found another more reliable and interesting weekly service that delivers items which cannot sell in grocery stores because of imperfections (too-small, too large, damaged, or too much) or broken distribution chains (closed farmers market purveyors, specialty restaurant providers, and airline food packagers) that can no longer get their goods to market.
This week, John’s hard work and our good fortune came together to give us the equivalent of our neighbor’s bursting buds and humming bees: abundance. In frustration, he’d ordered duplicative lists from all our sources, and by luck of the draw, three full orders arrived at our doorstep just about the same time as the fish. Which means, of course, that our refrigerator is stuffed to the gills and the freezer is overflowing: local asparagus, artichokes, strawberries, cheese, and lettuce bigger and better than I’ve seen in weeks. I wish we could have the kids to dinner! We ate like kings last night (alone) and will continue to do so for many days to come. Ridiculous abundance. And when it’s gone, we'll restart the list and my darling husband will patiently get back in line.
PS: Please remember to donate to the local food shelf/bank if you're as lucky as we are.