On Saturday morning I went to the food bank for the first time in over a month. The main reason that I hadn’t been going was because I had an essay to work on for my 20th Century US Literature class, but I also wasn’t that broken up about not standing in the freezing cold weather for two hours. I’d brought some Robert Frost to read this time but it was still too cold to take of my gloves, but not the kind of acid freeze that eats through all protection.
There was a very talkative woman a
few places ahead of me in line, telling another woman stories from her life,
non-stop. One was about sitting down to a meal at home with a man that was
wearing a hat. Another woman walked in and said, “Don’t you know it’s not
polite to wear a hat at the table?” Then she pulled the man’s hat off but his
toupee came with it and she saw that he was bald. The woman exclaimed, “That’s
what you really look like? Ewww!”
Another story involved a friend
that had somehow gotten a horse into her backyard in downtown Toronto. They
went riding on the street and ran into a mounted cop that commanded, “Get down
off that horse!” The guy responded, “You get down off your horse!” The
policeman warned him, “You’re gonna get a ticket!” The guy asked, “For what? I
don’t see any signs that say, ‘No horses’!”
The woman briefly stopped talking
to her friend when she saw across the street a middle-aged couple all decked
out in green for St Patrick’s Day. She shouted, “Hey leprechaun!” The man did
look a bit leprechaunish in his 19th Century style attire while the
woman wore a solid green coat over a green and white floral dress. Trailing
behind them was a man whose only green decoration was a green wig made of wide
strips of cloth under a hat.
Speaking of riding, across the
street I saw two little girls of about five on strider bikes riding west on the
north sidewalk of Queen Street. The thing was though that I didn’t see any
grown up supervising them. Several adults came up from behind and each time I
thought that might be the parent but they would walk past them. The kids
stopped at the corner of Sorauren and Queen and finally a woman pushing a baby
carriage caught up with them, told them they could cross and they shot on ahead
of her again. When I’d first seen the kids she must have been a full block
behind. It looks like she had them well trained to wait at the crossing, but
I’m not sure if I would have been comfortable with my daughter being that far
away from me when she was that age.
I looked behind me and saw Mo step
into line. I hadn’t seen him since the fall and he hasn’t come to the food bank
on Saturday for several months. At first he didn’t recognize me and then he
explained that he’d lost sight in one eye entirely and it was very bad in the
other. He told me that he doesn’t go out at night anymore and he recently
injured his leg while getting onto the streetcar because his foot missed the
step. He’s scheduled for surgery and he’s hopeful that his vision will be
restored but he has been warned that there is a possibility of it not
correcting the problem. He lamented that it’s been a rough year for him because
in addition to his impairment he also lost both parents this year. His father
died in January and his mother passed away a week ago.
Mo said he stopped coming to the
food bank on Wednesdays because there was too much fighting. I asked if he
meant fist fighting but he clarified that he’d meant a lot of arguing about
places in line.
At around 10:30 the door person
came around with a box of wristbands that had numbers attached to them. We were
each asked to pick one without looking. I got number 16 and Mo got 14. The
woman behind him got 4. They had changed the system so that it was no longer
first come first serve but now it was a lottery. That seemed really unfair to
the people that come early to be first in line. If they are going to bother to
come out and hand out numbers to people, why not just give the first person in
line number 1, the second number 2 and so on?
The first ten numbers were called
shortly after the bands had been handed out. The line had been fairly smoke
free up until that point but suddenly a group that had been waiting inside were
having a last smoke together before the next round of numbers were called. I
stepped away until they were done with their cigarettes. When I came back, Mo
showed me a picture on his phone of his Mustang, which he informed me was the
same kind of car that Steve McQueen drove in Bullitt. Mo expressed confidence
that he would be able to drive it again after his surgery.
I heard the doorperson call number
17 but hadn’t heard her call any number after 10. I stepped forward and Mo and
I went downstairs. I could see he was having some difficulty seeing where he
was stepping on the way down.
When I handed in my wristband at
the desk I told the reception guy that I thought this was a stupid and unfair
system. But then he took the time to explain to me that they don’t want people
lining up on Queen Street or crowding up the foyer to the building three hours
before the food bank opens. He assured me that everyone is going to get the
same amount of food so there is no reason for clients to come that early. His
argument made sense to me, and that would mean I could come later from now on,
which is a good thing.
They no longer give clients a
number at the desk to into a can two meters away, which was always a dumb set
up. Now we just have to show our food bank cards to the volunteer that guides
us along the shelves.
I picked a sleeve of something
that looked like Ritz crackers and a small jar of port wine jelly from the
first two shelves. From the bottom my helper gave me a cinnamon bun flavoured
Fibre 1 bar, a chewy chocolate granola bar and a cocoa and coconut Larabar.
On the next set of shelves there
were some jars of peanut butter that caught my eye because the labels read
“caramel peanut butter” and “chocolate chip peanut butter”. Oddly there was not
company name attached but when I looked it up later I saw that pretty much
every company that makes peanut butter is spinning off into flavoured
varieties. I was about to take a jar but then I saw to the left some cans of
sardines, so I took one of those. He said I could take a second can and just as
I was moving on he passed me the peanut butter that I’d been eyeing as well.
From the top of the next set of
shelves I grabbed a can of chickpeas. One shelf down I selected a tin of
curried cauliflower and lentil soup. Below that was a small bottle of feta
dressing. From the bottom I picked a container of coconut water and a bottle of
grapefruit cocktail.
From the pasta section I snagged a
can of tomato sauce and then walked over behind Angie to take a box of
multigrain Cheerios from the cereal shelf.
Angie, said, “Hey
babe, I haven’t seen you in a while!” I explained that I’d had some schoolwork
to do. She gave me a bag of four eggs, which I put into my jacket pocket. There
were the usual offerings of milk and yogourt and another dairy product that I
don’t remember. I didn’t take any of those because I’ve just come off a fruit
fast and I won’t be eating any dairy until Easter Sunday. Instead I took the
only carton of nut milk, which was a blend of almonds, cashews and hazelnuts. I
was surprised though that the label read, “Not a source of protein”. I’d always
thought nuts are a source of protein. I looked it up and found that almonds,
cashews and hazelnuts are rich in protein but it takes less almonds to turn
them into milk than it does soybeans and using too many would make it oily and
thick.
Angie also gave me
a box of frozen seasoned chicken mini samosas in tandoori lime sauce. She
called the samosas and they look something like samosas, but the box just calls
them “bites”.
The usual tubes of
frozen ground chicken and packs of frozen hot dogs were there, but I chose not
to take either. The ground chicken is okay in a pinch but it’s very low quality
meat. I’ve got a little bit of extra money for a while and so when I start
eating meat I’ll splurge on the good stuff and save the cheap chicken for when
I’m broke again.
Sylvia had a fair
variety of vegetables this time. She was about to give me the largest cabbage,
but then stopped and said, “I don’t like that one!” I declared that small is
better and explained that it has something to do with the low water content
creating a higher sugar content. When I think about it though, I’ve only read
that this is true for fruit, but I assume it might also be true for vegetables.
When vegetables are deprived of water they are naturally smaller but they
contain the same amount of sugar as a larger variety, which makes them taste
sweeter because the sugar is less diluted.
Sylvia also put
three onions, two green peppers, five cucumbers, four carrots and a bag
containing ten potatoes in my bag. I didn’t take any bread this time because I
won’t be eating bread for another week and a half.
So, I was unhappy
at first with the new wristband system, but once it was explained to me it made
sense. It will be interesting to see how this changes things but I think this
new system has been in effect for a week or yet people came early to line up
anyway, out of habit.
As for the food, they could almost always stand to have better quality
meat, but the food bank had a fairly healthy selection of vegetables and the
shelves were well stocked this time as well.
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