Can we talk?

A Lifetime of Food

         My dad's life has been about food. When he was 12, he went to work in a grocery store as a box boy. He'd carry groceries for people 2 or 3 blocks, and maybe he'd get a nickel tip. The store was downtown on Main Street. You had to be 13 to work, so Grandma told them he was 13. His father worked on the railroad and would be gone from Monday to Friday. Grandpa was tight with money and sometimes didn't give his wife enough to last all week. She'd take young Harry's tip money without asking and buy bread for the family.

         In high school, he still worked at the store, but more hours. He did a little of everything. He ended up in the butcher shop and stayed there after he finished school. When we were kids, he had gone to a food distributor, fresh meat, frozen foods, and other packaged foods. He was a manger there and did everything. Eventually, he worked part-time at another grocery to make extra money for a growing family. When the distributor went out of business--the owner was elderly and ready to quit--, he went to a small upscale grocer in the butcher shop. When they were sold out, he went to yet another upscale grocer, with a nice clientele.

         He left there at age 78, and within a few weeks, he was back at work in a small butcher shop in an exclusive little market. There's a gourmet chocolate shop, two restaurants, a spice store, a bakery, a seafood store, a cheese and wine store, a florist who does not deliver, and this little organic butcher shop. He's almost 90 and still working.

         He's not a chef, but he knows meat recipes. He can tell you how to cook a piece of meat, what kind to buy for what you're preparing. He can cook soup the way they did in the store. (You play it by ear, or whatever you happen to have on hand.) But he prefers vegetables cooked the old-fashioned, country way. We get him to try modern things though. I try to get him to have healthier versions than what he learned to love as a boy with his country cooking aunts.

         No one has ever left his house hungry. If strangers came to our house, they were fed. A hobo going down the street asked for a sandwich when I was in grade school. He got two and a glass of water. We have foreigners in the house for holidays.Dad couldn't stand for someone to be alone on a holiday. A coworker of his had grown children and his wife was a nurse who volunteered to work Christmas, so he came to our house to celebrate with us and eat breakfast after he took his wife to work. We learned from Dad, and so did the grandchildren. Feed people.

         He grows a garden, still, not as big as in the old days, when he was steadier on his feet, and his back didn't hurt so much.He loves fruit and fresh vegetables. He loves to talk about labeling, and organics, and honesty in advertising. I think if we were to celebrate his life (he's told me absolutely no retirement party) it would have to be an abundance of food. Serve everyone until they were satisfied with such a variety, that no one would be left out.