A Snapshot of Life at the Shelter
Last Wednesday the door buzzed at Trinity Place and I hurried to open it. I was there to drop off dinner. Outside, standing in the rain, was a farmer from the local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) with a donation: two large boxes of white carrots, green tops intact.
White carrots are not an attractive vegetable - they look like parsnips or enormous mealworms - which is probably why CSA shareholders rejected them and they ended up in our kitchen. "Sorry about that," the farmer said ruefully. He did look sorry; he also looked exhausted after a long day of picking and hauling. "Just do the best you can with 'em," he said.
Hands on hips, I stared at the carrots, thinking of other late-summer nights when I have come to the shelter to find an overabundance of some odd vegetable rotting in the box because it's way too much of a good thing.
I am a reduce, reuse, recycle kind of girl, but in giving us a zillion pounds of white carrots, this donor left us with a problem. Hold your arms in a circle with fingertips touching - now fill that imaginary bowl to the brim, twice, and you'll get a sense of the problem.
Just then a new admit came into the kitchen with our new social work intern, Wendy. Introductions were made, and then we all stared at the carrots. We didn't even have a vegetable peeler. Wendy and I washed one and took a bite: tough and tasteless.
Next, a longer-term resident whom I'll call T walked in. When T looked at the carrots he was more positive; he saw curry stew and thick creamy soup. The carrots got him reminiscing about the days he made bread from yeast starter. "I wish we had more time to cook here," he said. "By the time we get our beds out and showers taken and relax a little there's no time to cook." Hot Pockets are the go-to food when you're ravenous. Arriving "home" at 9 p.m. doesn't leave much time or energy for extras, like cooking.
As we spoke, I twisted the greens off the carrots. Nestled in the box we found five fat, round zucchinis. "Mmm, good sautéed in butter," said the ever-positive T. I decided to take some carrots home and try to make something to bring back.
I found a few recipes for white carrot soup online but no photos because, as one blogger explained, white carrot soup does not make for an appetizing picture. As I peeled carrots in my kitchen I dreamed of the day when we'd have the time and resources to open the shelter earlier; to install a fully equipped kitchen; to hold cooking and nutrition classes with the residents; and to learn to bake yeast bread from T. I vowed to at least schedule a bread-baking day in the near future.
It was great to be back at TPS after a summer mostly away. The best way to learn how to help out is enter into the flow of shelter life, even if just for one hour.
We hope you'll join us this Saturday for our Volunteer Training, all info below.
White Carrot Soup - and more colorful offerings - will (hopefully!) be provided.
- Lydie Raschka
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