Reasons for My Compulsive Stockpiling of Food

1. I live in South Dakota. It snows sometimes in June. Once you settle here, you take on Norwegian genes by osmosis, regardless of your actual ancestry. These genes cause you to squirrel away food for the long winter, so you’re not forced to make the difficult mid-February lutefisk-or-death decision.

2. A psychic once told me that in a past life in 200 BCE China, I was a young man who gave away all I had to the poor, until I literally starved to death. Learn from your mistakes, I say, or you’re destined to repeat them.

3. I make & freeze massive quantities of pesto because basil is said to cause the spontaneous generation of scorpions under pots in which it grows, then in the brain when one unwittingly smells the plants. It’s also said to ensure a merry heart, or to be a cure for melancholy. If even one of these is true, it would be SO cool.

4. I’m not a dainty waif. I’m voluptuous, ample, Rubenesque. It takes a whole lotta calories to maintain these bumps & bulges.

5. I grew up in a household headed by my mom and grandma, two powerful single women, where hospitality, and especially food, was the ultimate expression of love & generosity. My mom will still drag in and force-feed anyone who walks within 100 yards of her house.

6. Where but in my kitchen could I, completely unlicensed, experiment with color, chemistry, light, heat, texture, and taste, then test on human subjects without having them sign insurance waivers, then save my experiments for years on a dark shelf or in the back of my freezer, then pull them out and play with them some more?

7. If I’m picking, sorting, washing, cooking, freezing, or canning, it means I’m NOT doing something else. Like getting ready for class tomorrow. Or grading papers. Or paying bills. Or folding laundry. Or dusting. Or grading papers. Or grading papers. Or grading papers.

8. Pearl Bailey said, “My kitchen is a mythical place. A kind of temple for me.” Ditto. Consider the votive candles in a Catholic church, lit by folks who ask for blessing or favor. I have jars of tomatoes, pickles, salsa, pesto, and jam instead, and each jar, backlit by light through a kitchen window, is my luminous little petition for sustenance.