Food For Thought

When signing up for my shifts I wasn’t really looking at where they where I was only looking to see what fits in my schedule. I ended up volunteering outside of New York-Presbyterian three times throughout the course of the semester. It’s located at 575 W181st Street and WSCAH sends their mobile food pantry their every other Tuesday. 

While volunteering there, I got to know one person in particular. Her name was Anna and I was introduced to her the first time I volunteered for WSCAH. Caycee introduced the two of us that first day and she was there the other three times as well. Anna was kind to me from the first time we met but she would put her foot down when I wasn’t working as fast as she wanted me to. She would greet me with a smile and once I told her that I really liked tuna she wouldn’t let me leave my shift until I left with a can from the truck. By the end of those three shifts, there was a friendship growing between us. We would laugh with each other and talk about our day when there were lulls in the line. She’s a very kind and beautiful woman from that area of New York who just wants to give back to the area that she lives in. That is the very reason I wanted to take this class. To give back to the city that has taken me in.

Having lived in the Bronx now for over two years, I feel like I have tried a lot of the local cuisine and have enjoyed a lot of what the area has to offer me. But one morning in early October, I saw an add on Instagram for the New York Pizza Festival which was being held on Crescent Ave, not even three blocks from where I live. I decided at that moment I was going to go. My family is from Buffalo, New York and they make very good pizza up there but I was really curious as to what kind of pizza this festival was going to have and if it would match up to the slices I have consumed before. I convinced my friends to come with me and bought a ticket off Groupon that included six slices of pizza from any vendor, a sample of pasta, and two drinks. I was ready.

A couple of days later, my two friends and I find ourselves surrounded by fellow curious pizza lovers on the streets of the Bronx going from stand to stand trying out different pizzas. We had slices from Sicily, Brooklyn, Naples and other places known for their pizza. We had slices with truffle mashed potatoes and slices with slow-cooked spare ribs. One stand was offering a free pepperoni log to anyone who would follow them on Instagram! My friends and I stayed there all afternoon walking around, eating really good food, and interacting with some very amazing people. Sitting down and writing about it now, I realize that I was about to enjoy a festival dedicated to one of my favorite foods with some of my closest friends. And I can see now that food is always bringing together people that are not just close with each other, but people from all different backgrounds and cultures.

It took until my senior year, and fourth Friendsgiving, to figure out what my signature dish is for a potluck. Mac and cheese! Freshman year I brought some boring dessert (because I could not think of anything), sophomore year I brought a huge bag of wine (oh yeah, nice one grace), and for junior and senior year, I brought my homemade mac and cheese.

I decided to contribute this for my junior year Friendsgiving because my house was hosting it, so I could easily cook it in our own kitchen, and my mom had recently made it at home and I loved it. Of course I forgot to save the recipe when I was at home with my mom, so I had to text her for the recipe, then I got cooking. It basically involves a lot of cheese, a lot of milk, a lot of butter, and bread crumbs on top.

Now comes senior year and we are signing up for dishes. My roommate was filling out the spread sheet and without even hesitating “Grace, you’re making mac and cheese, right?” Oh, I am? I guess that means people liked it last year and now it’s my thing. Easy! I know how to make that. Oh wait, I didn’t save the recipe… time to text my mom. What would we do without moms?

So, if you want a nice and easy recipe for mac and cheese, here’s the link! (I’m saying that now but while cooking it, I was getting super mad and frustrated and made a huge mess, but hey! It’s for the end result)

You’re probably thinking “what on earth does she have to say about salmon?” Well you are right, it is a weird title for my post, but here it goes.

Today at my final shift at WSCAH, one of the proteins offered was salmon. Usually in the basket of canned proteins, or meats, there is tuna, chicken, and sardines. Today there was also salmon — and it was a hot commodity!

I was so confused. Why did so many people want this can of salmon? Was it because the pantry never offers it? Or do people just really love salmon? Well, about 90% of the customers asked for salmon. I made my first mistake with the salmon today with the first customer. I guess it was better to make it in the beginning and fix it but boy did I mess up. So the rule is for canned items, its a 2 for 1 deal. So if a person chooses tuna, they get two of the little cans. I did not put two and two together that since the salmon came in a big can (probably around the same amount as two tuna cans), this means the customer only gets one can of salmon. When I was handing the second can to a lady, one of the other volunteers reached out and grabbed by arm and was like “No no no! Only one can of salmon!” and put the can back. Then when the customer walked away, Monique, the other volunteer, whispered in my ear “Be careful. People get really sneaky when it comes to salmon and will try to steal extra ones.” After that, I made sure not to make any mistakes when it came to the salmon.

Serving salmon today spurred a memory of mine. Most of the customers at this site spoke Spanish, and would pronounce salmon in Spanish, and it sounded like “sal-min.” This immediately made me think of a time in kindergarten or some time in elementary school when my classmates and I were drawing in class using Crayola crayons and one of the kids asked me to pass the salmon colored crayon. He pronounced the L when saying it, like “sal-min” and as the obnoxious, know-it-all child I was, I immediately corrected him. “No, silly! You don’t prnounce the L, its silent! ‘saamen'”.

So, that is what I have to say about salmon.

Volunteering at WSCAH has been the most enriching experience throughout the time that I’ve been at Fordham. In high school, I was able to volunteer at a few different locations including hospitals and soup kitchens, but working at WSCAH had a completely different vibe. It was genuinely really fun to engage with the community and feel like I was part of something bigger than myself. I especially enjoyed working at the mobile market because of the whole process of getting the truck set up, organizing the line of people and working with other volunteers to ensure that everything runs smoothly. However, I’ve heard from my classmates that the mobile market sometimes did not run as smoothly, which is something that I think is important to fix quickly because the customers put in the effort to be there on time, so WSCAH should be ready for them. This is one of the reasons why I will be making an effort to continue volunteering at WSCAH after this semester. Obviously, volunteering anywhere is a great thing to do, but it’s important to look for organizations that genuinely need your help and won’t have you standing around doing nothing helpful. Now that I have seen how little help WSCAH has, I can’t just ignore the fact that my continued volunteering would be a huge contribution to the organization and its customers.

In my family, Thanksgiving is a week-long extravaganza where we basically try to hit as many of our cousin’s homes as possible. It’s not enough to just have one dinner because it wouldn’t be possible to fit my family and all of my cousins in one house. You may be asking; why do you need to see ALL of your cousins at Thanksgiving? To this question, I literally have no answer. I, personally, find it completely unnecessary to have separate dinners with all of my family. I think that everyone feels this urge to spend time together during the holidays because we are all so busy throughout the year, so we feel guilty for not taking the time to visit one another. I’m one of the youngest cousins in my family, and I’ve noticed that things have changed so much as I’ve grown up. We no longer have weekend sleepovers or spontaneous trips to each other’s houses. My older cousins are getting engaged or starting new jobs. Most of them have already graduated from college. All of us becoming adults means that we have to start moving on with our lives and living independently. With that being said, I still think that squeezing all of our family time into one month is truly exhausting and it would be way better if we could just make regular visits like normal people. We honestly have no excuse to be so distant since we all live in the New York metropolitan area, so maybe I’ll bring this up at the dinner table(s) next year!

I don’t think time flies as much as it multiplies itself by a thousand and combines its thousand selves into one being and takes all that speed and puts it into one action, and that action happens in the blink of an eye.

What I’m trying to say is, I cannot believe today was my last shift as WSCAH and this week is the last week of classes. It’s petrifying, not only because as a senior, that means there’s only one more semester between me and the “real world,” but it also means my concept of time is completely screwed. It feels like only yesterday I was soaking wet, accidentally coming in the back way of WSCAH in an attempt to find the meeting place. I’ve really grown to enjoy spending my mornings volunteering at the Mobile Market, and as someone who loves to sleep in, that means a lot. I’ve enjoyed getting to know everyone at the mobile market; I’ve enjoyed getting to know the people that I help serve; I’ve enjoyed actually becoming somewhat good at speaking Spanish; and I’ve also enjoyed the feeling of being a good person. It’s not often that activities make you feel good about yourself, but as I headed back home after a shift, there was a certain lightness in my heart that I hadn’t realized I’d been missing until I felt it again. It felt good to be doing something, to be making a difference in someone’s life, instead of just merely getting angry at the world we live in. It felt good; really, truly, properly, and simply, good.

Hopefully next semester my schedule will be free enough that I’ll be able to continue to volunteer at WSCAH. This whole “being good person” thing is pretty swell, so I guess I’d like to continue that for just a little bit longer.

I’ve gotten a lot of advice in my life – some solicited, some not. Some of its been proven very useful, like the easiest way to figure out a twenty percent tip on a bill, and some of its been proven not very useful, like when my AP Euro teacher in high school said the best thing you could do in your life was to become a hobo (that is a true story). Advice comes from a very personal place, and often tells you more about the person offering the advice than anything else. For example, I advised my brother to not dorm with his friends, as that usually ruins friendships. You could (correctly) assume that I’d roomed with friends in my own life, and tragic consequences had been suffered as a result. However, advice cannot be applied as a universal rule. My brother ignored me, roomed with his friends from high school, and they’re still rooming together now. That’s just life, I guess.

There is one piece of advice, however, that resounds with me, and has never led me wrong. “Never go grocery shopping on an empty stomach.” I’ll give you a minute to process that; it’s good, right? Never go grocery shopping on an empty stomach. It’s so good, it’s almost common sense. Every time I go grocery shopping I think about that advice, because every time I go grocery shopping, I ignore that advice. I’d rather get the errand done as soon as possible, rather than waiting until after I’ve eaten after class. Nope, not me: I get out of class and I beeline to Trader Joe’s, stomach rumbling. I walk around the store, looking at all the delicious foods, wanting to buy it all and eat it all RIGHT NOW. Looking at all the snacks I couldn’t possibly eat in a week, all the new meal ideas I want to try for dinner that evening all at once. As I become self-aware for a moment, I think to myself, wow, this is exactly that that person was trying to warn me about. That truly is some good advice.

Maybe one day I’ll listen to it.

To a Muslim-Albanian mother, there is nothing more disrespectful than your child telling you that they enjoyed someone else’s baklava more than theirs. Lucky for me, I think my mom makes the best desserts out of any of my cousins, so this issue does not come up too often. Along with baklava, Albanians tend to whip up many other desserts, like “tulumba” and “sheqerpare” during Ramadan. This is one of the only events in Albanian culture where the savory delicacies take the backseat and sugary desserts are given their time to shine.

As mentioned earlier, there is a sense of rivalry felt between the mothers of the different households in the family. Most women are too prideful to ask others for their dessert recipes because that would mean they don’t know how to cook/bake well enough for themselves. I think that this can be attributed to the common characteristic that Albanians share; competitiveness. To people from other cultures, this idea of not sharing recipes can seem odd, but it’s an unspoken rule between Albanians that one must put 150% of their effort into something before asking for help. This idea of competition translates into many other factors of Albanian life. We’re taught to never ask for anything from anyone outside of our family out of fear that we’ll be seen as less than them. I definitely don’t love this aspect of my culture, but, hey, at least we have good food!

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays for many reasons, but most importantly, because of the FOOD! I love Thanksgiving food and this break was much needed. This is what my break was like …

Luckily I got to go home to sunny Miami and we got to enjoy our Thanksgiving meal outside in our backyard! I don’t have any relatives in Florida so this holiday typically consists of just my immediate family — this year my older brother couldn’t make it so it was just my parents, my brother, and the 3 dogs. We tried something different this year — we ordered our meal pre-made from Whole Foods. I know what you’re thinking, I was hesitant too but it actually turned out pretty good. My mother was tired of the mess of all the cooking so we preordered a turkey, green beans, sweet and regular mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, and pie. Side note, I think Thanksgiving food is so good because you typically only have it once of year so it’s the anticipation. Anyway, I give the preordered food a good rating: it was still delicious! Although I am glad my Dad also made some of his stuffing because I was not a huge fan of the Whole Foods stuffing (this is my favorite part of the meal). So if you don’t like/know how to cook, or just want the convenience, I recommend ordering this!

Another reason Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays is the idea around it. It means I get a break from school, get to fly to Miami, see my family and my dogs, enjoy the warm weather, and relax.

After the feast on Thursday, I had a great time hanging out with my family, dogs, and friends. I used every opportunity to soak in the sun and get some color while my dog, Charlie, was bugging me the entire time to play fetch. I enjoyed a beautiful sunset with my friend Andrea (she took the picture) and Charlie, who loves the water. Charlie would fetch for hours if no one stopped him!

The five days we had off were much needed before these last two stressful weeks of the semester.