My Two Seconds Of Fame

Yeah, that's me there in the shades, because, you know, I'm, like, FAMOUS!  Patricia Biesen, who writes Chicago Eats Allergy Free for Chicago Now, mentioned FabGrandma in a blog post on November 27, called "Play with Food: One Fab Grandma, FAAN's New Look and more"

Then, on December 12, she was a guest on a Bill Leff's radio talk show on WGN in Chicago, and mentioned my blog by name on the air!!!  Yes, my hat still fits. Barely.

Remember Whensday: The Christmas Food Box

My post today has no photograph to jog my memory. Way back years ago when I was a divorced mother of three young children, trying very hard on a very tight budget to make ends meet, I was the recipient of a food box from a community organization at Christmas. I was happy to get it, but one of the things I have always remembered from that experience was how many cans of hominy were in it.

I did appreciate getting the food, but I remember thinking "I wonder how many people really eat that stuff?" and wondering why, if you don't eat something yourself, would you put it in the donation box for others.  Do people think that just because we are unable to provide for ourselves for a minute that our taste buds or nutritional needs are going to change? Back then, it was just a matter of tastes. If I were the recipient of a food box now, though, it would be a matter of whether or not I would be able to eat the foods that I received.

I am not alone in this line of thinking. Dee Valdez, who was diagnosed with Celiac Disease 17 years ago, remembers talking to a mother with a sick 7 year old who had Celiac. The mother said she had to choose between feeding her whole family or just feeding her sick daughter the very expensive gluten free food she could find. That distraught mother said, referring to her Celiac daughter, "She's just going to have to live with diarrhea."

"There is a great need to develop a systematic approach to establishing Gluten Free Food Banks across the nation." says Valdez.  She is making that happen in Loveland, Colorado, where there was a dedication and ribbon cutting for the new gluten free section of the existing House of Neighborly Service Food Bank (HNS) on Tuesday, December 15, 2009. This location will serve as the test site for the new program Valdez is designing to be implemented in communities across the country. What a wonderful thing for the 1 in 133 of us who can not eat gluten!

I was also happy to read that Pamela's Products, a dedicated gluten-free company, is a supporter of this effort, and is donating their Baking & Pancake Mix and their cookies to HNS. I discovered Pamela's Baking and Pancake Mix early on in my gluten free life--it is now one of the staples of life in the Fab household.

While the costs of gluten free products has come down, and there is a much wider selection of them, they are still more expensive than regular normal foods. For example, you can pick up a loaf of regular white wheat bread for under $2.00 at any grocery store. The last gluten free bread I bought cost me about $7.50 for a 12 ounce loaf. Fabgrandpa and I can afford it, but with so many people losing their jobs, many people who must eat a gluten free diet are finding their budgets stretched to the limits, and facing the choice of whether to eat foods that are toxic to them. Ever since I started eating gluten free, whenever I donate items to a food drive, I always donate gluten free--pasta, bread mix, baking mix, cookies, cereal.  Because, what is the point of giving something I wouldn't eat myself?

For other Remember Whensday posts, click here.

A Simple Pleasure!

We left the trailer behind this weekend to go visit the family in our hometown. It was a 200 mile drive, mostly through the countryside in Alabama. Back in the days when I still ate a gluten filled diet, when we traveled I would make a picnic lunch so we could eat in the truck. Egg sandwiches, with potato chips, and maybe some fruit. But since we stopped eating gluten, we haven't had that simple pleasure. But guess what? since I have all that Udi's bread in the freezer, I surprised FabGrandpa with egg sandwiches:

Now that might not look like such a treat to anyone else, but to us, it was wonderful! It just seems like such an intimate thing, for me to make a sandwich for my sweetheart on a trip out of town.

More Thoughts On Christmas...

I wrote yesterday that we don't buy gifts for each other, but I wanted to expand on that thought.  I am his third wife, he, my fourth husband. We didn't meet until I was 39 and he was 42. We had both been down some pretty rocky roads, and had more than our share of sorrow and pain. That we have made it 18 years together is a wonderful gift in and of itself. That he can make me happy, and I him, another.

The gifts I want and need the most are not tangible.  One hour with my mother without criticism. A visit with my brother without sarcasm. Acceptance for who I am, forgiveness for what I am not and can never be. A gathering of family at any time without pettiness and jealousy, without bigotry, without prejudice. So to all who pray and wish for world peace, try starting with your own small world. Give a truce with that Wii; a hug and a held tongue with that chocolate Santa; a smile and a genuine heart with that Christmas ham. Make a step towards making Christmas mean something more than "it costs less at XXX-XXXX."

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like...

Christmas. Ah, that time of year when we all go out and buy things we can't afford for people we don't see the rest of the year.  And when we are bombarded by crass commercials on TV and radio.  Now before you all start thinking that I am anti-Christmas, let me tell you that I certainly am not. I am for the true meaning and reason for this season. What I am "anti" is about how commercial it has gotten, to the point where stores are putting up Christmas decorations before Labor Day.  How did we ever get to that place? 

I guess I am just so fed up with it this year because a popular store's ad campaign actually says "Christmas costs less at XXX-XXXX." Does anyone besides me find that offensive? Does anyone else think that is so far off from the idea of Christmas as to make you want to vomit? 

I don't decorate my house, because I don't feel the need to do so.  I used to do it when my children were younger, and even after they grew up I did it while I still had a house. Now that I live in my RV, I just don't, because I have no desire to do so. And that doesn't make me a scrooge, it just makes me a person who doesn't want to.  

FabGrandpa and I don't buy gifts for each other, either, because we don't feel like we need to. We have everything we want, and if we do want something, we go buy it. But that is NOT limited to just Christmas. We don't buy birthday or valentines, or Easter gifts for each other, either. We never have. And that doesn't mean we don't love each other. It just means we don't buy gifts. 

And while I am on the subject of gifts, let just say that when you buy a gift for someone that is what you can afford, then find out later that the gift was ridiculed when you were not around, how would that make you feel about giving that particular person another gift? And if you made something, and found out the person you made it for didn't appreciate the gift because it was "home-made", how would that make you feel? Either way, the gift was from the heart, and was rejected. 

What ever happened to "it's the thought that counts?" As in, "I thought of you and wanted to give you something, but this is all I could afford to do, so you should feel honored that I didn't buy that chicken for my dinner next week and got you this small gift instead."  So, instead of thinking "that's a crappy, cheap gift" you should be thinking, "gee, she was willing to do without dinner to do this for me."  

Luckily for me, we are past that poverty stage of life, but I have never forgotten how it feels to be that poor. One of the reasons I DON'T spend a lot of money at Christmas time is so that the people I love who ARE still in their lean years won't feel so bad when they can not reciprocate. What I truly want for Christmas is for my family to love each other and enjoy each other's company, without the pressure of feeling like they have to do without dinner for the next week. It's not about the gifts and glitter, it's about the hugs and kisses.

If people around the world treated everyone with love and kindness year-round, with a "Christmas" kind of attitude, I wouldn't mind having Christmas all  year.  And if the gifts I gave were accepted in the spirit in which they were given, I would give them year round. But it seems to me like we only get "Christmas" for one day out of each year, and that makes me sad. I want people to love each other and be happy and loving every day.

Remember Whensday

Something I saw this week made me think about this furniture. I bought it in (I think) 1978, as a Valentine gift for myself.  The set came with a sofa, two chairs, a coffee table, two end tables, and two lamps. All made out of heavy pine boards, and all had matching brown plaid cushions. It was not very pretty, and not really very comfortable, but it was cheap and sturdy. I think I paid about $300 for the whole shebang!

I figured that with three kids, who were about 6, 4, and 3 years old, that it would be indestructible.  I was right. That furniture went through a lot of spend the night parties, a lot of "Friday night everyone sleep in the living room so we can wake up and watch cartoons in the morning" and lots of teenager pizza parties. 

This photo was taken in 1984, the day I moved into the last house I owned. We had that furniture until 1993, when I finally bought a new set.  We took the pieces apart, and had a bonfire in the back yard.

For more Remember Whensday posts, click here

How To Tell You Are In The Country:

When the menu includes neckbones, rutabagas, and fried okra.

Scenic Sunday

Fog on Payne Lake in the Talledega National Forest, Alabama, United States. 

For more Scenic Sunday posts, click here.