Things Look Up

Fine cuisine was outside the mix for me as a grad student.

I lived on a small stipend, loan money, and the odd shift picked up at a hospital’s Emergency Room or OR. After rent and other expenses, food was often frankfurters, some bizarre stuff called scrapple, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You know, a healthy, well-balanced diet.
But things looked up at the start of my third year at grad school. I moved out of the University section of the city to a smaller, more residential area. There, I moved into an old mansion that was inelegantly chopped up—ideal housing for a poor grad student.
It was a party house, which automatically made it a hit with my sizeable grey cat, Clancy. He liked roaming parties, getting pretty women to pay attention to him ( he liked smelling their perfume), and getting into fights with the guys. I was not a frat boy, but my cat would have fit in with that crowd.
One of the other residents alerted me to the market day at the county farmer’s market. On Thursdays, farmers from outside the city sold produce and meat there. I could now eat better and spend less. My routine was to go to the market and stock up on fresh vegetables, meat, and bread. On the way home, I’d stop at the liquor store for a jug of cheap wine. Once home, I spent the evening cooking and prepping my meals for the week. It was primarily stews, soups, salads, and small roasts. This is a huge improvement over my previous diet. Clancy also approved of the change in diet -I added all the scrap meat to his regular fare.
Not far from where I lived was the Wissahickon Valley Park. It was a protected waterway that ran into the larger nearby river. It was interesting because the city had purchased and deindustrialized the area to protect the watershed for drinking water. You could see the remains of old factories along the banks, but the area was thoroughly re-wilded. When I needed to get out of the city, miles of woods and streams that you could roam were only a few blocks from where I lived.
I developed a weekend routine of long hikes along the Wissahickon followed by an early evening dinner of fresh baked bread and stew. The cat would enjoy the beef scraps. Since we had no television after dinner, entertainment was limited to radio, playing guitar, or reading.

Daily writing prompt

What’s your favorite thing to cook?

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