The Crazyladies of Pearl Street by Trevanian Page B

didn't waste ice. We always saved the boxes our shoes came in because shoeboxes could be mined for two pieces of cardboard (top and bottom) that were just the right size for cutting out 'insoles' that would extend the life of worn-out shoes an extra couple of weeks, unless you were unlucky or careless enough to step into a rain puddle, which would turn the cardboard into a pulpy wad. Clothing and shoes were always bought a size or two too big because it would be a crying shame if we out-grew anything before we wore it out.
    In working out our weekly menu my mother displayed a knowledge of good nutrition that was rare in that era, and she had a gift for creating variety, or at least a sense of variety, out of very little. Our big meal was in the evening, except for Sundays, when it was at midday. She carefully planned each week's meals around three basic 'baked dishes': tuna fish casserole, corned beef loaf, and vegetable 'surprise', each of which was made to last for two meals. She bought the canned meat for these dishes and the bones for soup stock as soon as the check came in, and only then did she feel safe about feeding us that week. This meant, of course, that we only rarely ate butchers' meat... two or three times a year, at most. To save on gas, she would prepare two dishes and put them into the oven together, and to avoid monotony she would serve half of each baked dish on alternate nights. For Saturdays she made Boston baked beans with a small piece of salt pork if we could afford it, without if not, and there was always enough left over for baked bean sandwiches to take to school on Monday and Wednesday, once again trying to avoid having the same thing twice in a row. Occasionally our budget let her replace one of the baked dishes with a special Sunday dinner of what she called chicken 'frigazee'. She would go down to the open-air market at Washington Street and buy a tough 'boiling chicken' (euphemism for a layer that had entered menopause) which she cut up and stewed with potatoes, onions and carrots until it was tender, then she thickened the broth with flour, topped the dish with baking powder biscuit dough, and put it into the oven. The biscuit crust soaked up enough chicken gravy to stretch the frigazee through to Monday's supper as well. But when things 'went wrong' (something had to be replaced or repaired, or clothing was needed, or medicine) then one or even both of the baked dishes had to be scrapped and potato soup was called on to fill the gap, usually for two days, occasionally for four. Fortunately, I particularly liked potato soup, and still do to this day. Mother varied our vegetables as much as she could, buying whatever was in season and cheap. We always arrived at the Washington Street Market half an hour before closing time so she could bargain with stall-owners who didn't want to have to take unsold vegetables back with them. The remaining produce had been picked over, of course, but Mother would cut out the bad bits and prepare the vegetables so you couldn't tell. She even varied the three casseroles, sometimes making them with rice and sometimes with macaroni, sometimes with cream of mushroom soup as 'binder', more often without.
    Luckily, the ingredients for our safety-net potato soup were often to be had free at the Federal Surplus Commodities Corporation warehouse. The welfare people had issued us a green 'two children' card, and once every two weeks for eight years and in all weathers, I walked the twenty-two blocks north to the FSCC warehouse and twenty-two blocks back pulling my sister's rattling, loosely jointed wagon containing our ration of whatever was on offer from crops the New Deal government had bought from farmers. Thousands of tons of food were destroyed to keep it from flooding the market and undermining the farmers' already low prices, but a portion was given out to the poor on the assumption that this would not harm the farmers' markets because the poor couldn't have