Fava Beans, but no Liver or Chianti

            It was raining when I arrived at the food bank on Thursday, September 29th. There were about five people gathered outside the open door. I locked my bike to a slanted tree and walked up to the group. The wrestler looked at me and I asked him if there was a line-up. He told me just to go in and get a number, so I assumed that they’d started early because of the rain. That was nice, because it saved me an hour long wet wait. I was able to get quite a lot done in those three hours before I had to come back.

            When I came back they’d set up the table that’s been there for the last few weeks, offering a hot meal and salad for people waiting to go in to get their take home food. They even have Styrofoam containers so people can take the meal home along with their food bank groceries. It usually seems to be something like vegetarian chilli in a big pot. This time I overheard that they had samosas as well. Personally, I haven’t partaken, as I don’t really trust food that’s been cooked for large groups of people. Plus people walk right up close to the pots with lit cigarettes in their hands or mouths and there is danger of second hand smoke getting into the food and then it can be ingested as third hand smoke. I think they should be enforcing a nine-meter no smoking rule to the food service area.

            This time they had a white canvas roof over the table to keep the rain off. I stood under it to read my book, “70 Canadian Poets” until a couple of people came around to get something to eat while smoking their cigarettes. So I had little choice but to move out into the rain and shove my book inside my jacket.

            The numbers 11 to 15 were called and I went inside.

            There are about twenty chairs against the wall in the waiting area and yet there were only five people or less occupying them while I was waiting for number 12 to be called. Meanwhile, everybody else was standing out in the rain. There were three empty seats to my right and several more to my left. I kept on looking to the door and wondering why the door person was not letting people in. Finally he called out to me to move down. I shook my head. He called, “Move down!” a little louder. I said to him, indicating the seats to my right, “People can come in and take these seats!” He shouted louder, “Move down!” I asked, “What is the point of me moving down?” He repeated his demand and then the woman sitting at reception spoke to him with tired impatience and told him, “It’s okay!” Finally he let more people in and they sat where they wanted to sit.

            The nervous helper called my number.

            From a choice of taco kits, teas and crackers, I took the box of Starbucks single serve containers of their Pike’s Place roast coffee.

            Below that there were several 180-gram containers, each containing a different kind of cookie from the Terra Cotta Cookie Company. I took the one with about seven dark chocolate and sea salt granola rounds.

            From the bottom of that shelf, she gave me two Fibre 1 cinnamon bun flavoured cookies; two blueberry nutrigrain bars and two chocolate granola bars.

            I took nothing from the pasta and rice shelf because I still have rice and pasta at home.

            The only canned vegetables they had were peas or green string beans, so I took the peas.

            There were a variety of canned beans, but no garbanzos. I took the fava beans, I think because they reminded me of Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs saying, “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”

            There was canned luncheon meat for the first time in my memory, but though I’ve eaten it on occasion, I’ve always suspected, based on the look and the smell, that it’s made of the same basic ingredients as dog food, so I took a can of tuna. Tuna of course used to be considered only suitable for dog food as well though, so I guess it doesn’t really matter one way or the other in the long run.

            I took another box of Shreddies for cereal and then moved across to the cold food section. She gave me a half litre of 2% milk, then four small fruit bottom yogourts: peach, fieldberry, strawberry and blueberry.

            She gave me a bag of frozen egg patties, but then realized that she was supposed to offer me a choice between those and the frozen ground chicken, so I put the patties back and took the meat.

            There was again a choice of several different kinds of prepared salads from Longos. I took the black grain firecracker salad.

            The bread lady apologized because there was not a lot of bread this time around. I took a bag with a half loaf of unsliced yellow bread and a few different kinds of donuts and danishes. She said that was all I could have but I could take a baguette, so I did.

            The vegetable lady had potatoes, carrots, eggplant, cho-cho, radishes and chard and a choice between spinach and kale. Frankly, I’d been getting tired of kale, as I find it tough and not as tasty as most other greens. There was a big bin of Macintosh apples and one of pears. She said I could take as much as I wanted, so I took about a dozen apples and six pears. The apples, though not pristine, were not in horrible shape. They tasted like they were local and this year’s crop.

            It kept on raining, so I got some writing and reading done for a change.

            Jonquil came in crying from outside. She kept trying to go into my bedroom even though I kept stopping her. Then she climbed to top of the back of the couch, but lost her grip and fell behind it. She whimpered there and fell silent. I checked later and she was still conscious, but I think it won’t be long till she’s gone for good.