My blog posts have always been very random. All over the place. Like, "what on Earth are you talking about, Lorenzo??" Yeah, I'm going to keep with that theme.
I've got a note that says my next topic should be "being on food stamps and C02 emissions". Maybe, I'll just combine the two and make a post on both. I'll try to connect them in a way.
Let's just start with being on food stamps. In fact, I think I'll save the randomness and write about the C02 emissions in a later blog post. Or, better still, I'll record a Curious Lorenzo podcast episode on it.
Okay, so here we go. Being on food stamps. It's something I don't love to talk about, but part of my life still. I'll start with my earliest memory of food stamps. I remember going to the grocery store with my family and a parent, maybe my mom, using food stamps to pay for the food. I can't confirm this, but it was more than likely at the grocery store that is now Natural Grocers on the corner of Cordova and St. Francis in Santa Fe. (I'm not sure why location in my memories are so important, but they are.)
I remember the cashier checking us out, and my mom (or maybe another family member, the memory is not perfect) pulling out a booklet of papers, and the family member handing that paper to the cashier.
We left with our groceries and I didn't think twice about the interaction. Just observed it.
That's my first experience with food stamps.
I guess I can talk a bit about what food was like at my house as a kid before I talk about my next experience with food stamps.
Food was always available. I don't remember being hungry or without food. As a kid, I remember a few food items that stand out. We had bacon. Cereal. I remember digging through the box to find the toy in the box. I remember milk.
I remember my mom making beans in the pressure cooker. That thing was scary, spewing steam and hissing at me. I wasn't sure if the pressure cooker would explode hot beans all over the room.
I remember my mom's fresh tortillas. Making tortillas was quite the event. My mom had to prep the kitchen, and she'd wrap a towel around her head. I imagine to keep her hair out of her face and out of the masa. She'd then mix all the ingredients and get her wooden rolling pin and roll the tortillas out. Getting the rolled tortillas was half the work. Then she'd heat up her flat tortilla skillet and then get each tortilla cooked, flipping them with her bare fingers. I thought that was incredible. It seemed that the skillet would be way too hot for her to flip them with her bare fingers, but she did it.
So yeah, those were the food items I remember as a very young kid. Going to my Grandpa's house, who lived next door to me (in our very strangely arranged Santa Fe neighborhood), he would cook red chile with some kind of meat, and he'd dip a piece of the cheapest white bread into the chile and eat that for a snack or a meal. He would give me some of the chile, or let me get my own piece of white bread to dip with. I remember loving this.
I remember my grandpa had liver in his small fridge. I never tried that.
Later on in my childhood, we had less beans and tortillas, and more ramen noodles, pot pies, and macaroni and cheese. I remember living off of these staples. I don't remember having much vegetables or fruit in my house. Or, if we did, I didn't eat them. I ate a lot of ramen. Like most days, I'd have ramen.
Our family didn't have dinner together. We'd eat when we ate. Most of my meals in the school year came form school. I had reduced lunch. This means that my lunch and breakfast costs were less than the regular cost. If I remember correctly, my lunch was about 35¢, breakfast was probably about the same. I think we just bought a monthly lunch pass and I would hand my card to the lunch lady, and she'd punch my card, and I'd grab my lunch.
Breakfast's where whatever the school provided. I think the most delicious breakfast they had was the "pancake on a stick". It was just like a corndog, except the breading on the outside was pancake batter, and instead of a hotdog in the middle, it was breakfast sausage. They'd give you a cup of syrup to dip your breakfast in and of course serve it with a half pint of milk.
Lunches were square pizza, cheeseburgers, taco salad ... the others I don't remember.
But, I'm talking about food stamps, right? I'll get back to that. I guess I just wanted to talk about what my relationship was like with food when I was a kid.
I think the thing that I don't like the most about my childhood and my relationship with food as a kid was the social piece. Humans share meals together. We love going to restaurants. We love to talk together and discuss the day over a meal. I didn't do that. I remember maybe having dinner at a table with my family once in my entire childhood. (Other than in restaurants.)
The other was what food did to my body. I hated my body as a kid. And I loved the salty hot taste of ramen noodles.
I remember once I had prepared myself some ramen noodles and someone came over--unexpected company. I remember hiding my food. I didn't want them to know I was eating. Or maybe I was embarrassed. I don't know why I did that. It's not like I wouldn't share. I'd share my noodles with them. I just felt very insecure about eating around them. And this behavior stuck around and is still there in a way as an adult. I will not eat around other people unless they are also eating--even if they say it's okay if I eat while they're there or if I know they've already had a meal.
Okay, now I can move on to food stamps again. My next experience with food stamps was as an adult and I was the recipient of the food stamps.
As an adult, there was a time where I could not afford to pay all of my bills and I could not afford food. My next step was to seek government assistance. I remember going to the Human Services Department building off of Menaul and I-25 in Albuquerque. I had to apply in person. Or maybe I had to meet with a case manager in person to discuss my application. One of my tasks, though, was to come back to the HSD building to attend a career training workshop on a Saturday. The purpose of this workshop was to teach me how to complete a job application, and I had to check in with my case manager to show them I was looking for work. This was incredibly humiliating. Especially because I was already employed, and I was a recent graduate of UNM with a degree in economics.
I remember being worried that I would know one of the employees that were handling my case. What if I was a client of a person I knew. My heart sank. I felt pretty worthless.
I jumped through the hoops, though, and I got my food stamps card. (Technology moved along from my experience as a kid.) The card was similar to an ATM card, and I picked a PIN and could use it to buy my groceries. There were some rules I had to know about, though. I could not buy any prepared food, no rotisserie chicken from the deli. And no booze, of course. Fine. At least I could bring food home.
I had to keep track of my balance, though. I was allotted a certain dollar amount for the month, and if I bought groceries that exceeded my balance, the entire transaction would be declined. I had to then either separate the order into two transactions, or ask the cashier to put back the items I couldn't afford.
And this was embarrassing. I tried my hardest to be exact with my amounts so I didn't have to go through the embarrassing part of asking cashiers to take items off.
Things got especially difficult if you involved WIC benefits. WIC is a benefit that will cover essential food items: milk, cheese, yogurt, cereal, beans. But, WIC will only cover certain food items, and you had to get really good at knowing which items it would cover. I got really good at this.
But, what this meant, is that there were some transactions that had three cards swiped--your WIC card, food stamps card, and then your debit card if there were any non-food or prepared food in your list of purchases.
As this is all happening, there are a few things that are going through my mind;
1. I hate my life. This sucks.
2. It really sucks that I have to put the cashier thought all this extra work.
3. I hope they people behind me aren't getting upset that this is taking so long. I hope they don't see the card I'm using.
4. I hope the cashier doesn't announce my food stamps balance to everyone in earshot. I would die of embarrassment if she does.
But, yeah. I'm not there anymore, thankfully. I do not qualify for food stamps. My kids eat every meal they need. We make sure to have dinner together, as a family. We talk about the day. And I try my hardest to ensure that every meal has a protein and vegetable in it.
