The Food Truck parked at the door going into The Wattenberg Center |
During these times of staying home and not being able to see or visit friends and acquaintances has been hard on me as I love socializing! One of the things I used to like doing was my monthly visit to the Food Truck. To begin my story we need a little background. Once a month on the second Tuesday, the Food Bank of the Rockies comes to Walden. It is a semi-load of food for people who need groceries for their families, senior citizens, volunteers who help distribute the food and, in Walden, about anyone else since they need to leave with an empty truck. I have been going for the past two years and it is quite entertaining for me. I don't get out much any more and it is fun to be able to visit with people I may or may not know while we wait for the food to be set out and ready for us to gather up. I hear all the latest gossip and see old friends and former students that I hardly recognize any more. I kind of wish we could wear name tags because it is sometimes embarrassing
to ask who they are when I know I should recognize them. I have exchanged recipes for some of the more exotic foods or ones we hardly see in our community, such as beets, some kind of vegan sausage patties, dried yellow split peas (I think they are what is called dahl in India), fresh hoseradish (we didn't get this but a lady told me how to prepare it when I would dig it up since we had some on our ditch banks). Also since many of us are only feeding 1 person we get more food than we can use. In my case, I only have a very small freezer, so we give each other tips on how to preserve or use the foods. Right now I have a gallon of Raspberry vinegarette I need to do something with! HA! The reason we have so much time together is that many times the truck is late getting up here due to bad weather or truck breakdowns and we have to wait until it can be unloaded by the drivers and set up in the big room for us to file in and gather up our food.
Cars lined up in front of me waiting to pick up groceries |
Cars lined up behind me waiting for food. The people ouside are filling in our paperwork from 6 feet away |
Some of the foods I got today. That's frozen eggs in the blue carton |
This was a weird one this month. It's vegan sausage, I think. It looks like cookies and it is frozen. |
The staging area with volunteers and loaded boxes |
I was really concerned about whether there would be a food truck this month since we have been hearing about the food shortages and the long lines at the Food bank of the Rockies in Denver. With so many people out of work I can see that it is a huge problem all over. Well, not to worry the truck arrived as scheduled today and our volunteers had it all worked out for social distancing and it went like clockwork! We barely had to leave our cars. we drove by the tables set up outside, stopped, opened our trunks, got back in the car and volunteers, who had filled the boxes earlier, put them in our cars and off we went back home. The foods were a little different but the food was plentiful and the basics were in the boxes. No sweet surprises but yes, there was some fresh produce. This could have been a problem since it was extremely cold this morning, around 15 degrees. It was 1 degree when I got up. I was a little worried the lettuce and spinich might be frozen but it wasn't. There were grapefruits, oranges and apples and potatos, as well. My freezer is stuffed full and there is plenty for me for another month! Hallelujah! Thank You to all of those who stood out in the cold to help us out!
Maybe tomorrow or the next day I will have a picture of my final project in my certification class! It is really kicking my butt!
PS: The bunny placemat that snuck into my picture of food truck food was something I made last Easter but didn't get it finished in time so it is being used this year.