Cooking for One, Part 2
Last week, I went grocery shopping at Giant Eagle on S. Braddock Avenue in Pittsburgh with my 90-some-year-old friend, Ginger Carlson, who lives by herself in Wilkinsburg. First, though, we sat on her back porch, watched a black and white cat, splayed flat pretend to stalk a pair of red squirrels who plainly knew a great pretender when they saw one. Our conversation ambled along family matters, church, mutual friends, and which local apples are now in season. Of course, I’m delighted to have fresh Macintosh apples, so I can make apple sauce to freeze in small containers for the oncoming winter. By this time the cat, lying in the dappled sun light was sleeping, so we changed our subject to poetry. Ginger mentioned her favorite Robert Frost poem, “Good-by And Keep Cold,” that I had no memory of ever reading. It wasn’t his usual “Apple Picking,” but it was set in a fall apple orchard. The unlikely title alone pricked my curiosity, but we still had to go grocery shopping, so….
Ginger gamely directed me to her Giant Eagle shopping center where I had never been. First Ginger headed for the State Store for a large bottle of discount Chardonnay, which I stashed in my trunk for her. Aloud, I wished I was buying a bottle of medium sherry for me, but I knew preserving my compromised liver was more important than the brief pleasure of a few forbidden sips. We moved my car to the entrance of the grocery store, and Ginger stowed her cane in the shopping cart she pushed past her Citizens Bank branch to the store pharmacy where the pharmacist greeted her by name and gave her a big hug. At that point I knew I was in Gingerland!
While her prescription was being filled, we both found hygiene items and the Maybelline cosmetics we both use because they are the least expensive. Ginger goes for bright reds and black eyeliner while I shrink back into my usual autumnal colors. However, I’m not a former beauty queen and New York City model. Ginger still carries her royal bearing. By that time Ginger’s medication was ready which resulted in another conversation and another big hug, this time from the pharmacy clerk.
At this point in her life Ginger doesn’t do much scratch cooking, so my shopping with her was an education in how one at her age can still eat well and stay healthy. Ginger, like many of us who live alone, sometimes doesn’t feel like eating much or even at all, especially if we’ve had a hard day of medical events or family worries or loneliness. That’s the reality of living alone, but there’s also an upside: independence. Independence allows one the freedom to eat any time, anything, and our favorite foods. The trick, I think, is to be aware of our bodies’ nutritional needs and intake over the course of a day and of each week. During the last year or so, three of my acquaintances have had serious medical problems with salt; two with sodium levels so low they fainted, and one with thyroid problems from using non-iodized salt. We have to eat a balanced diet, or we’ll be hauled off to a hospital and/or a nursing home where little freedom exists. Besides, we’d have to live on a schedule with a roommate and a bunch of complaining, old people. That’s the real specter haunting Giant Eagle’s aisles.
Giant Eagle knows Ginger and me through our Advantage Cards and welcomes us with a huge variety of merchandise and price points. Ginger and I buy quarter pounds of liver pate, half barbeque chickens, single pork chops, single lamb-leg slices, marinated artichokes, store-brand butter, whole grain English muffins, graham crackers, plastic & paper products, Triscuts, loose fruits & vegetables, Greek olives, hot peppers, cut squash chunks, and (God help me!) Stouffer’s frozen mac & cheese. We both keep an eye on our protein intake. Ginger buys an occasional steak. I splurge on a half pint of fresh oysters, sea scallops, and individually frozen fish fillets. We’re both fans of eggs and canned salmon. I often make marinated bean salads with canned beans or black eyed peas that keep well, refrigerated for more than a week, so I don’t have to eat the same thing day after day. And, unlike Ginger I use a gallon of fat-free milk every week that I hope off-sets my fear of a broken hip.
We hit the Deli section last and head for the gourmet cheese counter where again Ginger is greeted by name. The clerk asks Ginger if she likes goat cheese, and Ginger says, “Not so much,” but I chime in with “I do!”
Then, the clerk shows us a 15 inch, half wheel of red-paper wrapped cheese that she says has finely ground potato chips mixed within. Hmmm. I’m curious, and she cuts us generous samples. And, wow! Who knew that potato chips could make such a difference in goat cheese? The addition of the potatoes and salt near the end of the cheese making must absorb enough the goat cheese’s usual sloppy texture to firm it up and smooth the flavor. We both left the counter smiling as we clutched our quarter pounds of Dorthea Goat Potato Chip Cheese.
The next morning, I got out my copy of Robert Frost’s Collected Poems and found “Good-by And Keep Cold” which was included in Frost’s fourth full-length book, New Hampshire, published in 1923. I ended up that morning reading all those poems in that book. What fascinated me was the unity of that book’s theme—paradox in all its manifestations, not only in subject and speaker, but also within each poem’s words and lines. “Good-by And Keep Cold” begins
This saying goodby on the edge of the dark
And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark
Reminds me of all that can happen to harm
An orchard…
Then, Frost goes on in heroic couplets discussing all the threats both live and weather-related that can befall the young orchard he has recently planted on the far north side hill of his farm as he leaves it to winter. He is of the opinion that an early spring, quick thaw-freeze cycle is a fruit tree’s most dangerous threat, thus he bids his orchard farewell:
I wish I could promise to lie in the night
And think of an orchard’s arboreal plight
When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)
Its heart sinks lower under the sod.
But something has to be left to God.