The fridge

This month, on Thursdays, I have been making and delivering a batch of chile (chilli, chili) to a community fridge a mile-and-a-half north of us. A digital friend of many years is doing the same in Baltimore, and her exceptionally organized efforts inspired me.

I make enough for 10 meals. Usually, it's a beef chile, with two different beans and lots of vegetables and aromatics, but yesterday's version was chicken with white beans. The beans start soaking on Wednesday, and I build the stew the next day in the morning.

It wasn't beautiful but it was really delicious (I set aside a small bowl for myself, for lunch - the Frenchman can't do beans, sadly, so it's a treat for me).

Cooking for invisible people is not easy. What can't they eat, what do they need? Where are they from, what speaks to home? Chile - this version is a very mildly spicy bean and meat stew - seemed to cover a lot of bases, in terms of calorie content, nutritional value and possible comfort appeal. Adding the animal protein obviously excludes anyone who doesn't eat meat.

It also has to be something easy to heat, eat and serve. But it still assumes a microwave or hot plate or pot. There are none of those on the street, where people have been freezing to death. I have been pondering sandwiches.

At the fridge yesterday, half the containers left my hands straight into other hands. I was there an hour earlier than usual, and the fridge was empty, aside from a large container of cooked rice. Three containers I actually placed inside, and when I came back after going around the corner to buy some fruit and small yogurts to add, they were gone. 

All three customers were in their sixties or seventies, and the last was with two little children who looked no different from all the other little kids out of school in a high-rent neighborhood. "I am feeding seven," she said, and told me where she was from in Europe.

A few months ago I might have described the customers in more detail but we don't live in a time or place where that bodes well for anyone.

Once, the fridge was packed to the rafters, including the freezer section, with meals in covered plastic bowls, all labeled, still warm. A mother and small child were looking at them and she asked him if he preferred chicken or pork. Pork, he said.

Last week, 30 individually wrapped cookies I placed in the pantry section vanished in seven minutes flat (again, I had gone around the corner to get fruit - I don't bring it with me because it's heavy and the chile is also heavy). I have many questions, most are unanswered.

But I can't forget the two men yesterday, who said quietly when I arrived, It is empty. After my first deliveries this month I was worried that the chile would not be eaten and I went back the next day to move the containers it into the freezer for food safety. I needn't have worried. The worry, of course, is far bigger.