Buy produce in season, and you'll not only save money, you'll get more nutrition out of the food. Nutrients dissipate into the air over time. That's why frozen vegetables, usually frozen less than 48 hours after they're picked, are better for you than fresh ones that sat around for weeks, or worse, came from hundreds or thousands of miles away. Out-of-season items are often grown closer to the equator where they get more sun. Then they're picked very green, since they are expected to ripen in transit and storage. They may look ripe by the time we see them in the grocery store, but the nutrients stopped accumulating at the moment they were picked. 

Do yourself a favor and shop at your farmers' market -- you can get 2-for-1 deals if you have an EBT card, and you'll get the most nutrient-dense items available. You'll also support local farmers and smaller businesses. Here in Oregon in mid-April, a great purchase is asparagus. You can grow your own, too! It's a perennial plant, so fresh spears pop up every spring all by themselves. Like magic! (I'm going to plant some one of these days, I swear I am.)

I like to steam asparagus just until it starts to soften, while it's still bright green, then rinse in cold water to stop the cooking. It's most convenient to do this the same day I buy it, then stick it in the fridge for later use. On hot days, it's ready to add to that dinner salad. Or just heat up briefly in the microwave to serve hot. I'll add a simple hollandaise sauce recipe below, an elegant way to finish asparagus, marvelous on eggs, and with a little tarragon, you also have bearnaise sauce to give your steak or any meat an elegant upgrade. 

Do me a favor, please. Try barely-cooked asparagus at least once. Don't cook it until it's mushy and the green is fading to brown. Snap off the tougher bottoms of the spears, but be gentle with the lovely stalks. It's like a mouthful of springtime.

Hollandaise sauce is traditionally made in a double boiler or over a bain marie (that's French for a pot of hot water). You whisk melted butter into the egg yolk mixture, counting on the warmth from the water to cook the yolks, thickening the sauce. Lovely, but it's easy to get too hot and have your sauce curdle. Try this simple blender method instead. Our family used to make eggs benedict for our whole church on Easter morning, so we got really good at making this sauce! Here's a scaled-down recipe for a small family:

Every couple of weeks, we all should take a look at our fridge, freezer, and pantry to identify items we need to use up. I've been guilty of throwing out fresh vegetables many times, because I never got around to cooking them. Unless you're composting these items, they become part of the big problem of food in our landfills. Let's change a habit and be a soup maker!
​

Yesterday I found cabbage, zucchini, an onion, some baby carrots, limp celery, and half a jar of spaghetti sauce in my fridge. The freezer yielded some chopped spinach and part of a bag of peas & carrots. In the pantry, there was an expired can of chili, about a cup of rice left in the package, a little chicken soup base stuck to the bottom of the jar, and a can of diced tomatoes. (I always have diced tomatoes -- I use them in everything!) 

OK, let's get started! I chopped up about 1 cup each of carrots, celery, and onions. I generally aim for 1/2" pieces of everything, but the onions came out minced. I heated a little light olive oil (not the good stuff) in a 6-quart pot and tossed in the veggies (called mirepoix in classic French cooking, and the start of most soups, stews and stocks). ​

I sauteed for a good five minutes, until the veggies started to soften and release steam. Then I threw in about four cloves of garlic and a good sized dash of Italian herb seasoning. A lot of recipes call for salt and pepper at this point, but I wanted to wait to see what flavor my leftovers produced.

While the mirepoix was sweating, I quartered and sliced the zucchini, and cut the cabbage into 2" wedges and thinly sliced them. Those will go in later. I added the two canned items - chili and tomatoes - and the spaghetti sauce to the mirepoix. With 2 cups of water, I rinsed and scraped the chicken base jar, then added that and the remaining water to the pot. You could use any stock instead of water, but I didn't have any. ​

After another five minutes or so, I added the zucchini, then the cabbage. 

I let those soften for a couple of minutes, then added the frozen spinach and peas & carrots, and the rice. 

This is when I taste and season. All it needed was a little salt & pepper. I might have added some herbs from my garden, but only the rosemary is ready, so I didn't bother to go outside. I added another 2 cups of water so there was enough liquid for the rice to absorb, then turned the burner down to low and let everything simmer until the rice was cooked, about 20 minutes. 

This made about 4 1/2 quarts of thick stew-like soup. I transferred to 1-quart tubs and let cool. It's all in the fridge now. I can add water or stock to make it more soupy, or I can add any chopped cooked protein and serve it for dinner as a stew. I'm trying to eat more vegetables, so I'll have a mugful just as it is for lunch every day this week. I might have to label and freeze one or two quarts, but that's fine, I love heat-and-eat options. 

No preservatives, no extra money spent, minimal food waste (onion skins, zucchini ends), and a hearty, flavorful, and versatile meal option to get us through the week. Win-win-win!

Recipe: Hodge Podge Soup

1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped carrots
2 Tbsp. light olive oil
1 Tbsp. minced garlic or garlic paste
2 Tbsp. dried Italian herb seasoning
1 14-oz can petite diced tomatoes
1 14-ounce can mild chili con carne with beans
1 cup marinara or spaghetti sauce
1 Tbsp. chicken soup base
2 medium zucchini, quartered and sliced
1/2 large green cabbage, cut in thin strips about 2" long
1 cup frozen chopped spinach
1 cup frozen peas & carrots
1 cup long-grain white rice

Over medium-high heat, toss the onion, celery, and carrots in the oil in a 6-quart soup pot. Sauté until mixture is steamy and vegetables start to soften, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, herbs, tomatoes, chili, spaghetti sauce, soup base, and about 2 cups of water. Bring mixture to a boil. Cook and stir another 5 minutes.  Stir in the zucchini and cabbage and allow to soften. Add the spinach, peas & carrots, rice, and another 2 cups of water or stock. Reduce heat to low and cook, uncovered, for 20 minutes more. Makes about 10 cups thick vegetable stew. Add stock or water to serve as soup, or add protein and serve as a casserole or one-bowl meal. 

​In these very weird political and social times, many of us are getting nervous about food supplies. More than half of Oregon residents are already pinching pennies and cutting back on food budgets. I'd like to address strategies for stretching your food dollars and maximizing nutrition for your family. 

Firstly, please get over your resistance to visiting emergency food pantries. They're here for anyone who is struggling to make ends meet, and they can provide some free basic essentials so you can use your money for more fresh food. Some items you can count on your local pantry for are beans, rice, pasta, canned vegetables & soups, canned fruit, peanut butter. Some pantries commit their own funds to stocking frozen meat and vegetables, and most accept donations so they end up with surprise items like condiments, snacks, and treats. Many welcome anyone without an appointment or any registration. Others prefer people to be in the SNAP food stamps program. You can usually visit twice a month. We'll be publishing a comprehensive list if Washington County resources this summer, but you can find many pantries at FoodFinder.OregonFoodBank.org. There's an interactive map, so you can click on your nearby programs to get details. This large free food network is there for all of us as greater food insecurity looms. 

Secondly, if you qualify, go ahead and apply for SNAP benefits. Set up an OregonOne.org account and follow the prompts to find out if you can get help. You just have to revisit your account every six months and report any changes in income or living arrangements. You can buy all varieties of food with your SNAP EBT card, even unhealthy processed foods and goodies, so don't waste your actual cash if you don't have to! 

Thirdly, plan ahead. You need to make lists to save money. Write down your favorite meals and snacks, then create a complete list of the groceries you expect to use in any given month. The list will help you choose only what you need from the free pantries and to prioritize your use of SNAP benefits.

Fourthly, if possible, plant a garden. Only plant what you normally eat, unless you intend to share with neighbors. I've wasted too much time growing green beans that none of us want for dinner! Our family uses a lot of tomatoes, zucchini, lettuce, cucumbers, onions, berries, and fresh herbs, so that's what we grow. We have planter boxes along the side of the driveway to maximize space. 

Finally, shop with your actual cash. From your list, determine what meals you want to cook for a week and what ingredients you still need after your free items are taken into consideration. Meat, fresh produce, and dairy products are big on my list. Frozen vegetables actually retain more nutrients that their fresh counterparts, if the fresh items have to travel any distance. If you're not buying your vegetables at a farmers' market (using double-up food bucks for twice the value!), it may be smarter to choose the frozen option. (I draw the line at carrots, though. Frozen carrots are rubbery, imho.)

Today I made my old stand-by, leftover soup. I'll add the recipe and photos in tomorrow's post. I spent about $2.50 on vegetables. Everything else came out of the back of the pantry and the bottom of the fridge. I ended up with 2 gallons of hearty soup.                                                                                         
​                                                                                                                       Photo courtesy of Alicia McCabe and WBUR News.

​It seems so simple at first – food being wasted, people going hungry. Just rescue the food and get it to a place where people who need it can access it. Easy peasy. Nope.
 
Food waste is complicated. That’s why it exists. Business dictates that if there’s cost involved in putting it to use, it’s not worth it. Never mind whether you can make it sellable again. The grocery store is a good example. On average, a grocery store throws out a full pallet of edible food every day. They can’t sell perishables past their sell-by date. They don’t have time to trim, sort, and repackage aging vegetables. A frozen turkey with a small rip in the wrapper? Not safe to sell. Bakery items are considered stale after one day in many cases, and we expect our stores to offer a whole wall of fresh-baked options. Bakery waste is so prevalent, many food banks won’t accept it.
 
How about restaurants? They’re good at making stuff out of excess small amounts, feeding their staff or offering a special soup. But anything that’s been opened or prepped can’t be donated by most charities’ rules. If it’s fresh and it’s ready to be ordered and finished, it probably can’t be held over until the next day. Never mind all the meat scraps, vegetable peels, bones, and other items that would make nutritious soup stock. It takes too much time and labor. Bruised fruit and expired yogurt for smoothies? No, they’re garbage. You can’t hold them long enough to wait for some volunteer to maybe show up and get them to a pantry, which then offers them to folks in need a few days later. When the restaurant closes at 11:00 or midnight, there aren’t enough people willing to be out that late to pick up ready-to-eat leftovers, and is it safe to visit homeless camps at that hour? Most of the restaurant industry has a narrow margin of profit, and the donation mechanism is too awkward.
 
How about industrial food production companies? Manufacturers and prepared food packagers and meat processing plants? All the ones I’ve come across donate some of their waste. But if it’s complicated, contaminated, or super perishable, it’s going to the dumpster. A walk-in freezer fails? Everything in it will be tossed out, even if it’s only off for a couple of hours. Food safety regulations demand it.
 
There was a big stink during the pandemic when a grocery store in East Portland lost power. They would have loved to donate all their refrigerated food. But nobody knew how long the power would be off. When Oregon Food Bank was contacted, there was no one available to pick up, no guarantee that items had been held at safe temperatures, and no programs ready to respond quickly and get the food to people. So it all had to go in the dumpsters. For safety. I get it. Some of the people needing donated food are the most vulnerable in our society – poor, elderly, sick, disabled, addicted, or mentally unstable. We should ensure they receive a better diet, not a leftover garbage one.
 
After major holidays, some stores donate hundreds of pies. Imagine the old folks on the street getting a whole pie just handed to them out a car window! For a while we were picking up hundreds of leftover donuts late every night and keeping them in our cars. The next day, we could drive around downtown handing them out to people on the streets. So fun! They were delighted. I know, no nutrition involved and it isn’t really helping them, but it brought out a lot of smiles. And it kept those items out of the waste stream, which is turning out to be a bigger issue that most people realize. But a volunteer messed up and gave them to their coworkers, then told the shop how happy they all were. The shop got angry and stopped donating.
 
Tomorrow I’ll write about how complicated it is for hungry people to find help. Then we’ll start talking about solutions. Please come back, especially if you’d like to be part of the solution. 

To quote Phoebe Buffay of Friends, "I'm very bendy." Well, I used to be. As a kid I could do the splits, put my feet behind my head, and rest my knees on my shoulders. Those days are long gone, but I still pride myself in my ability to bend, adapt, change, and grow. 

This year is testing everybody's resilience. Many people's body's can't adapt fast enough and millions people have died. Millions of jobs have been eliminated or put on hold, and supporting a family is a whole new ballgame with so many people suffering financial losses, food shortages, homelessness. The lucky minority has choices, support, the ability to shift direction and carry on, but most of us have been terrified. 

Waste Not Food Taxi is trying to be resilient. We stopped repackaging prepared food as a safety measure, and many of our volunteer drivers have been on hold since March 2020. Most of our donors were schools and restaurants, and when they closed, the need for our services almost dried up. At the same time, food shortages grew. Fast. We found access to additional food and have been distributing thousands of pounds to hundreds of families every week. This week, for the first time, we won't have food to distribute. 

It's not the end, though. It's not in my nature to ignore hunger. I feed people, one way or another. Always have, always will. 

We learned that the Oregon Food Bank had to suspend their Fresh Alliance program to divert resources to emergency food distribution. That's a good thing, but it left grocery stores having to throw away a lot of edible food. Other charities tried to step in, but major grocers are bound by an agreement with national food reclamation programs that require Oregon Food Bank to receive the donations. 

So, we met with Oregon Food Bank. We're going to work together to get those fresh food donations back into circulation while OFB continues to focus on transporting food throughout the state. 

Waste Not Food Taxi will use our network of volunteer drivers to pick up donations that OFB can no longer manage. We'll deliver them to OFB partner pantries and directly to recipients, primarily through partnerships with low-income housing. This will get donated food to people in need in a matter of minutes, instead of sending it from the grocer to the OFB warehouse to a pantry so a family can shop for it (on the days the pantry is open) thereby ending up with older, staler, and even rotten food. 

This is a whole new direction for us. It's huge, exciting, frightening, expensive, complicated, and undefined. Welcome to the post-pandemic world. We choose to take this opportunity to change for the better, because we can. 

Special thanks to Fred Meyer Raleigh Hills,  Holly Tree Village, Whole Foods in the Pearl, and Bud Clark Commons, for being our first partners and helping us develop this program.

 It's been an emotional day. We learned that my husband's mom is also experiencing sudden severe health problems, like my mother. Plans are shaping up to visit both our families soon and we're isolating to ensure we're virus-free in case we're able to be in a room with them. The charity distributed over 12,000 pounds of food last week, although quite a lot went to waste due to a flawed distribution system and poor communication. Nothing irks me more than food waste, except a failure to communicate. The kids are finally getting into an apartment next week, but unemployment still hasn't come through and their funds are tight. The other kids had to postpone their wedding a second time, now waiting until next summer. And then there are the protests ...

The protests are actually weighing on me the most tonight. The kids have been taking water and other supplies to protesters, even though they've been shot (non-lethal bullets). When my son arrived downtown last night, federal officers swarmed out of the justice center and surrounded his car, aiming rifles through the window into his face. They wouldn't say he was being detained, nor would they let him go. He explained that he was delivering food to a free meal program nearby, but they would not let him pass. They sprayed expired tear gas in his face, which didn't produce tears but did antagonize his respiration. The same evening, another federal officer shot a "less lethal" bullet at a protester, hit him in the head and caused a concussion, brain swelling, we don't know what all -- he underwent surgeries today. It is rumored that he's going to recover. 

Here's the thing. Portland is an activist city. We protest. We speak up. We read and study and pay attention. We have a higher per-capita membership in public broadcasting than most other states, let alone cities. We care about democracy. We care about the marginalized members of our community whose voices and rights and needs are ignored. At this time of national unrest, with the weakest federal leadership in our country's history, we are looking to the future. We believe we can build a better world, we can attain justice, we can help one another meet our basic needs and fundamental rights. We've been challenging the city government and the police to make some major changes, and they are hearing us. They haven't finished changing, but they've started. Our state leadership is working for fairness, for accountability, to hear both sides and recognize the need for change without resorting to anarchy. They're not perfect, but they're working. 

Enter Trump and his federal officers. Even though our police have been abiding by a court order to cease using crowd-control weapons against peaceful protesters, the federal teams are disregarding that order. They are fanning the flames of an already volatile situation. Federal agents causing unarmed civilians to sustain life-threatening injuries is war. It's fascism. It is so dead wrong that I can hardly contain my abhorrence. I'm writing letters to governors, senators, state and local policy makers and demanding that Oregon stand against federal interference. 

People are sick of watching the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. We're sick of waiting for promised unemployment funds and worried about catching up with rent and utility bills, while corporate shareholder profits matter more than human decency or even survival. We are on the verge of becoming the country we were created to escape, where money is king and speaking the truth is forbidden. We need to be awake, informed, and have a great deal of courage in the coming weeks and months. We cannot let our flawed legal and law-enforcement systems destroy our integrity and our will to reach for freedom and respect. 

America is on a precipice. Will we fall, or will we fly? 

I forgot to take a mask with me yesterday. That's OK, I thought. I wouldn't be around people. I just had a pickup at the hospital, a drop-off at the low-income senior housing, and a quick run into the church. I had no idea. 

I did the old folks first since the van was too full of food to fit the hospital donation. The manager there gets volunteers and they unload for me. I don't have to go in the building or near anybody. And they are so grateful for the food. I might have more later, I told them, because the hospital usually has several gallons of hearty soup. 

It's not all that weird driving around -- there's just not traffic. Maybe a tenth of the normal number of cars, which is fine by me. A quick easy drive to the hospital, 10 minutes to downtown from there, I'd be home by lunch time. 

I pulled up to the loading dock as usual and saw that the bay I usual enter through was closed. I walked up the ramp and pushed the buttons. Hmm, nothing. This door is always unlocked because it's by the compactor, in use 24/7. I walked back down the ramp (a little tough going downhill with my bad knee but no biggie) and yelled into the one bay door that was partially open. Nothing. No one in sight. The regular man-door on this side of the building was locked a couple of days ago so that's not an option. What to do?

I called the kitchen to let them know I was there. Could someone push the cart out to the loading dock? They didn't think so and got someone else to talk to me. "No, you can't get in over there. You have to go to a main entrance. Everybody gets their temperature taken. Go to the east pavilion." I know where that is, although I'm concerned about my ability to find and walk to the kitchen from there, and how will I get the food out?

I drive around to the east pavilion and park in the passenger drop-off zone, hanging my disabled plaque just in case. I hobble in to the building, where everyone has masks on except me. I have my gloves and hair net so I feel partially prepared. The nurse at the door takes my temp without actually touching my forehead - cool! - asks me why I'm there, and doesn't know how to get to the kitchen. The volunteer at the info desk also doesn't know, except I should take the gold elevator down. This much I know. I say I'm concerned about getting the donation across the campus due to my bone and arthritis issues in my knee and feet and ask if she could call the kitchen. I wasn't thinking and had left my phone in the car. No, she's not able to call them, and she turns dismissively to answer an incoming call. 

People are tense, I get it. I'll find my way. There are more people walking around than I expected, but they're trying to stay six feet apart. I can see nervousness in a lot of eyes -- more patients have died from the virus here than any other hospital in the state, and our county has by far the most cases. I wonder how many people are at home watching Outbreak and Contagion. I walk past the closed cafeteria, down the hall, and across to the gold elevators that go down to the basement. 

The basement is a whole other world. More people but not so many masks. Rushing. Patients on gurneys outside X-ray and diagnostic imaging, outside testing departments I know nothing about. The billing department is closed. At least they have their priorities straight! Nobody is talking. The silence is eerie.

There are three long parallel hallways down here. I choose the north side knowing the kitchen is sort of that way. Is it by nutrition services? Nope, most of that wing is closed. After quite a long walk I see a dish cart. I follow it and find the dish room and from there, the kitchen. Good thing I have my hairnet on so I'm allowed to make my way from dish-washing to plating to hot prep then cold prep and finally the walk-ins on the receiving side. There's Umberto, who takes me to the donation cart and pulls a few things off, adds a few things on, and pushes it toward me with a nod. 

Umm, Umberto? I can't push this six-foot tall cart with 300 pounds of food all the way across the hospital, up the elevator, through the east pavilion, across the lobby and out to my car, unload it, and then bring it back. I'm already struggling to walk any farther. I feel anxiety rising in my chest like I haven't felt in years. A knot in my stomach. Oh no, are my eyes tearing up? Crap. 

He takes pity on me and says he'll wheel it out to the loading dock. Thank God, I think, but gosh it would have been nice if we'd started there when I was AT the loading dock. I tell him it'll take at least 10 minutes for me to get there. OK. Let's do this. 

I go back the way I came. I think. All the hallways and doorways look the same, and there aren't many signs down here where visitors rarely come. I'm limping now and each step hurts, but I'll make it; I always do. Eventually I see the purple elevators. I don't remember passing them before but I want to get upstairs where there are fewer patients and more masks. It's pretty creepy down here, especially without my mask. I'm high risk. I don't belong here. This was a big mistake. People are dying in this building. Knute would kill me if I got the virus and died on him.

Up the purple elevators, realizing that I somehow passed the gold elevators, but I make my way to the haunted lobby, past the thermometer nurse, and out to my car. What a strange sensation to get outside and suddenly feel like it's safe to breathe. My previous blog post was more spot-on than I'd realized. I wan't exposed. I wasn't exposed. My new mantra, I wasn't exposed. 

I sit in the driver's seat and try to pull my left leg into the car. It won't budge. I know my knee is bad. I know I should have had surgery three years ago. I know! But come on, just bend so I can go home! It takes a minute for my strong will (read stubborn hard-head) to bend and lift the knee. Back in the van I take a few deep breaths and try to calm my heart. It's under control. I don't have to limp anymore. I don't have to breathe used air anymore. It'll be OK. But I still can't quite pull myself together. Umberto is at the dock waiting for me, loads the boxes in the van, looks at me sympathetically, and asks if I'm OK. It's obvious I'm not OK, so I just tell him I doubt I'll be back until the lock-down is lifted. He understands. 

Home. I need to go home. No stopping at the church, no dropping off the food. I feel like I just left the opening scene of a zombie movie. Or just escaped a life sentence. Or betrayed the promise I made to my husband to be careful, be safe. My knee and foot are throbbing, but I hardly notice over the knot in my chest. It wasn't a narrow escape. I'm fine. But man, it sure feels like a narrow escape. 

​I drive home reminding myself that there's a stay-home order, not just a request. I'm high risk. I'm non-essential. I'm an arrogant ass who has no business out here. I'm going home. And I'm staying there. Big dummy. 

Surreal world all of a sudden, isn't it? There's no traffic, no place I have to be, nothing on the calendar. I'm still going out, because there's excess food everywhere and so many people who need it. But I'm doing as little as possible and being very careful.

My husband worries. I have a history of respiratory disease, asthma, antibiotic resistance -- I'm the person authorities are telling to stay home. But I have gloves, masks, hand sanitizer, even hair nets. I'm staying away from people and only touching packaging, no unwrapped food. We aren't sorting donations or delivering food boxes. Donations are minimally handled, just driven from the donor to whatever large enough hunger-relief organization we can find. 

Getting out of the van this morning in downtown Portland, at a store I've never visited, I thought about the air. How many people have breathed this particular air? It's a creepy thought. I can avoid touching surfaces and stay six feet away from people, but I have to breathe. We all have to breathe. 

This is a new sensation for most of us, but not all of us. People all over the world have suffered because basic survival necessities simply aren't there. We're starting to see, for the first time, what it feels like to need to breathe but not know if the very air will kill us. To need water and not know whether it's clean. To need food and have no idea where it's been, who's touched it, whether anybody sneezed on it, whether it's fresh enough to be safe. 

I'm reminded of working on the Women's March on Portland in January, 2017. It wasn't just women feeling anger and frustration that the first woman president was cheated out of the position for which she's been preparing her whole life. It was women feeling unseen, unsafe, undervalued and powerless. It was traumatic for the middle-class, middle-aged, white suburban mom that I am, as it was for most of my circle, my world. But my world isn't THE world. The transgender, multi-racial, low-income activists who were working with me took the opportunity to let me know that none of this was new -- it was just new to me. They took the opportunity to educate us and used words like intersectional and woke. 

I am not intersectional, nor are the woman who claim to be low-income, homeless, disabled, or any combination of those fairly common sources of prejudice. Intersectionalism refers to the oppression that comes from multiple powers granted to multiple segments of society that increase the likelihood of certain people slipping through the cracks of justice. A black woman doesn't get the same treatment as a white one. Nor does a trans woman. How about the disabled African-Asian American trans woman who's face is disfigured? 

Most of us will find some excuse not to care about the person who is different from us in so many ways that we simply cannot relate to them. I know I've avoided the woman with no arms or legs who can only speak a little. I think if we could have a conversation I might make more effort, but I didn't. I don't see her anymore and I feel guilt for not caring enough. Her differences don't change her humanity. She was able to accomplish an extraordinary amount, running sound and video projection for church services (using a pencil in her mouth) but unable to use a toilet by herself.

So this burden isn't new. It's just new FOR US. How can we embrace it and use it to help us understand what it's like to live in Flint Michigan where the water could kill you? Next door to the pig farm that blows the animal detritus across the landscape and fills the air? The poverty-stricken masses who have to take whatever food is given, whether it's safe to eat or not, and watch their babies die from lack of calories?

​I'm uncomfortable with the air right now. I think I'd like to buy an air purifier. I have to remember how incredibly blessed and fortunate I am that I have that option. And I owe it to myself to be aware of the people who live with this kind of fear, lack, inconvenience and powerlessness their whole lives.

We've invested a lot in the concept of beautiful spaces in the last century. In pioneer days and rural America, function almost always came before form. People worked too hard to waste time on vision appeal that had no intrinsic value. What changed after World War II? I think Americans decided the war had made us safe on a new level, and pursuing the American Dream took on new meaning. Suburbs. White picket fences. Expansive lawns. Window boxes. 

As our country becomes more densely populated and urban centers more predominant, we place even more value on our living space, our clothing and accessories, our curb appeal. Heck, we even built a whole industry around food plating and photography. How things look matters to us. 

The flip side, of course, is that anything perceived as unsightly or bothersome must be eliminated. Some idiot ages ago decided that dandelions are unsightly, even though they have far more practical uses than grass. We bought it. We sprayed and dug and treated our yards like mad to eliminate edible, medicinal, and fragrant "weeds" to make way for ornamental manicured plants. No more unsightly weeds. Garbage? Don't want to see it -- develop municipal trash collection, create landfills, build enclosures around waste containers, and heaven forbid garbage trucks should be cruising our streets when we're out there -- get the pickups done in the wee hours so we can all pretend we don't actually have garbage. 

All of this attention on appearances wasn't entirely awful until we started applying the idea to human beings. 

There have always been and will always be poor people, people who take on jobs that are "lower" in our minds, dirty people, the lower class is a supposedly classless society of equal rights and equal opportunities. Pre-WWII, pre-suburbs, people were people, no matter their economic status. (Let's not argue racism here, that's a whole other issue.) People who couldn't afford commercially-produced homes were fine living in make-shift shelters. There was nothing shameful about traveling to find work, or pitching a tent alongside a stream, or even knocking on a farmhouse door and asking if there was something one could do in trade for a meal or shelter in the barn for a night or two in bad weather. People, in general, looked out for one another. Survival was at stake, after all, and allowing another person to starve or freeze or die of a curable illness was just not OK.

Now people without money are unsightly. They interfere with the artificial image of the world that we've built for ourselves. The suburbs used to be where successful people could go to live in a big house on a wide street where kids could ride their bikes to a nearby park in complete safety. Heaven forbid that anything unsightly should tarnish our fake pretty little worlds. Garbage in the street? Call the city. Under-maintained yard? Create a homeowners' association. Fast drivers? Increase traffic regulation. Do NOT mess with my fantasy world. 

OK, I understand the affluent among us wanting to control their environments. What I don't get is why people aren't willing to invest as much creativity and money to solve the poverty problem as they are to solve the dandelion problem. How hard is it to invest in plots of land with water, power, and waste management that people are welcome to occupy, even if for a limited time? What would it cost to provide transit service for people who can't find a safe place to sleep to a central public services facility that had enough funding to provide basic necessities? What would it cost to allow older trailers and motor homes to park on designated public land and plant concealing shrubbery around the perimeter like we do our current trailer parks? We don't seem to mind living near poverty, as long as we don't have to look at it. 

"We don't want THOSE people here" is as un-American as it gets. Not here? OK, tell me where. Create a space. Even garbage gets a designated space. You want to make America beautiful? Grow dandelions and eliminate lawns. Grow vegetables, not poisonous shrubs. Grow people and public services and the mental health industry, not prisons and detention centers and temporary shelters infested with bedbugs. Invest in portable shelters and public access to power and clean water. Most of all, KNOW where a person can go to survive and help them get there, if you really can't handle seeing their misfortune.