A Berry Nice Surprise

The ambulance slowly backed down the driveway on it's way to deliver my mother to Virtua Hospital in Marlton NJ.  This Easter Sunday surprise was not the one the 50 guests arriving in two hours were expecting.  While my brother followed behind the paramedics, I hurried inside to finish preparing, slicing, cooking and dishing up the Easter brunch and party my mother had spent nearly a month planning.  There were hams to be sliced, eggs to display, lasagna, quiche of every kind, beans, buns - you name it.  Neatly tucked into the 200 eggs hidden around the property were the usual Easter surprises from who knows where made with who knows what.  Holidays tend to suspend all manner of dietary rules or concerns and this was no exception.  I myself had placed plenty of chocolate, sugar and deliciousness made en masse by factory machines in some no name place that could be thousands of miles away in my own child's basket.  There was a time when my own Easter basket was filled with bunnies and eggs from either Bayards Chocolate House just two towns away - or chicks and jelly beans from Medford's very own Reily's candy shop (who make the very best, fresh chocolate covered blueberries around in early summer).  Easter basket fare was automatically homemade and local back then.  My grandmother made her own coconut chocolate covered eggs.  I remember helping dip the creamy coconut in a hot vat of dark confection.  So why why why do I fill my own child's basket with junk?  It's a force of habit so instinctual it's going to take a lot more time and effort to deliberately break.  I'm starting to understand that the reason my clients failed so miserably at the detox plan I described in my first blog is that our habits have become so entrenched in the convenient, pre-made, even mindless ways of eating that when we get busy we go into robot mode.  We regress to what is easy.  Many food traditions and routines have been lost along the way over this last generation that we have to seek out classes to learn what we should or could have learned from our mothers or grandmothers.  Boxed shelf food was a novelty to our grandmothers who enthusiastically embraced it as progress, convenience - even an exciting new wonder of the world.  Our mothers enjoyed an increasing volume and variety of processed, packaged foods that made their lives easier and opened up more time for either leisure or the ability to enter the work force.  Even today we no longer have to even slice our apples or dice our butternut squash if we don't want to.  For a few extra pennies I can get it ready to go in a neat little package - no mess involved.  Does that mean my child won't even know how to cube a watermelon or chop an onion?  Will she even know that apples have skin or peaches have stones?  All this progress is rendering us helpless when it comes to feeding ourselves and our families from earth to plate with every meal - including treats.  Sure I've made homemade ice cream now and then - as an activity, a fun diversion - never as a necessity if we wanted a frozen confection.  The more I consider the source of my food - especially as it relates to daily life - the more I realize we've been duped.  There's an entire generation out there that doesn't realize food doesn't come out of a box.  That potato chips come from potatoes that grow in the ground. 

Returning home once Nan was given a clean bill of health and out of the hospital, I surveyed the back yard making mental notes of what needs to be done this week and comparing with my air traffic control kitchen wall.  I walk the small patch of land to see what's popping up from last year.  I notice the oregano making a nice comeback and then something catches my eye.  A long stretch of green along last year's flowerbeds.  What is that?  On closer inspection I immediately recognize the round, scalloped edged leaves.  The single strawberry plant I nurtured last summer mostly as a novelty to show my daughter where strawberries come from has run it's tendrils to a full 16 feet of strawberry goodness.  Wow!  We may actually get a few bowlful of strawberries this year rather than a measly handful - and with nothing but a helping hand from Mother Nature.  Empowered and inspired by this berry beautiful gift, I continue the clearing and weeding of the rest of the beds around the house and mark out the length for the new patch of vegetable garden I've been putting off.  I know there will be at least one child in her generation that knows where food comes from, how to grow it, cook it, can it and respect it.