30 Years in a Housetruck

Page Twenty Six: Kitchen Patrol

One of the more important communal activities at The Schoolhouse revolved around food. Meals were nearly all shared, with most house mates kicking in on the preparation of same. This was a big change from our living situation at The Punishment Farm.

For the first 22 years or so of my life, I was, to put it politely, a "picky eater". I would only eat a few things, and only if they were prepared to my liking. Hamburgers, steak, pork chops, and spaghetti were about it for dinner items, and I can never remember eating a vegetable other than potatoes and corn when I was growing up. Breakfast was always cold cereal, and lunch was never much more than a bread-and-jelly (grape) sandwich. This must have caused my family a lot of problems. My mother often told me that she pitied any woman who ever married me.

Even after moving out on my own, I lived on burgers and Chips Ahoy cookies. For the first year or so, I didn't even own a stove, and never cooked. The refrigerator held only milk, (which I consumed in gallons) and Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill wine.

At some point, my aunt Jean gave me a 1950's full-sized gas stove, which I hauled home from San Diego, stuffed in the trunk of Crazy Robert's wife's Dodge Dart. After that, I made burgers at home.

I can't remember when I started branching out in the food groups, but I discovered that I could enjoy a whole world of other foods. Chinese, Mexican, Italian, seafood, pizza, rice, beans, the Full Monte. This was a revelation in my life, an opening up to something that I had resisted as a child, and never explored as an adolescent.

Some time in 1973 or 74, the price of beef went sky high, and as a protest against the prices, I toyed with vegetarianism. After the meat prices went back down, I never went back.

Life at The Schoolhouse was another such revelation. After moving to Oregon, Woodley and I were exposed to shopping for food at funky natural foods stores, places like The Kiva, Pat Leonard's Community Store, and Grower's Market Co-op. We also had our pick of many natural foods restaurants. What really made a difference was living among folks who had experience with natural foods cooking. Rosalie was a stupendous natural foods cook, and others, particularly Jay were into organic foods, raw juices and macrobiotic diets. We learned a ton about an alternative foods diet in a very short period of time.

Everyone at the house was collecting food stamps, and we kept a big gallon jar on the kitchen table to hold them. When each of our food stamp coupon books would arrive in the mail, we'd rip out the notes and stuff them into the jar. If anyone was going to town to buy food, they'd dip into the jar, take what they thought they needed, and return the change (in the form of lower denomination coupons) to the jar after the shopping trip. The shelves and refrigerator were always brimming with great natural foods.

This arrangement ~could~ cause problems, though. Officially, each of us was supposed to segregate our victuals, and keep them separate from the food of other people in the house. Several times, I opened the fridge to find little notes taped to all the food inside with various housemate's names on them, and pretend nag notes: "Who ate some of my cheese? Keep your hands off." What this turned out to be was the prelude to a visit by the Food Stamp Inspector, who would inspect the food storage and preparation areas of randomly selected household to check for proper observance of "the rules". Failing to properly separate your foods could lead to your being dumped from the food stamp program.

Once, either Woodley or I was "randomly" chosen for one of these inspections. The inspector was to be our regular caseworker, who notified us in writing of the time of his visit.

Sure enough, late in the day on the date of the inspection, a fleet-issue State of Oregon vehicle ground up the steep driveway, complete with the <E> "exempt" license plates. Our case worker got out, greeted us, looked at his watch, said "Oh, 5 P.M., quitting time". He then pulled a joint out of his pocket, asked if we had any beer, and joined us for dinner! No one in the house ever again got scheduled for an inspection after that!

The official motto of The Schoolhouse kitchen:
"It's not how often you fast that matters, it's how fast you can eat it."