I just found this, written when I was early in (undiagnosed, because they said I was "too young") peri-menopause, life was a cascading cluster of craziness, and I often felt very out of control. I typed it up and am sharing it now, almost 40 years after the original event and 20 after the second event recounted in this missive.
Enjoy!
When I was a very young mother (18), my grandmother, who I am certain was convinced that I was inadequate as a mother would appear at my door with food products in unusually large quantities.
She was a member of a local food program that served the elderly, gifting its members with bulk quantities of common standard American grocery items: a #10 can of peanut butter, for example. At the end of the program day, large quantities of food remained unclaimed, as local seniors struggled to get their heads around uses for such large amounts of food. At this point, Gram would step forward and say “My granddaughter can use that.”
Maybe she thought I had some skills after all.
The following morning she would appear on my doorstep with things like 5 pound boxes of elbow macaroni, or giant uncut logs of American cheese food, or - my favorite - the #10 can of grape juice concentrate. Often included in these deliveries would be a large box of powdered milk, clearly labeled “USDA FOOD PROGRAM” on the side. The boxes stood nearly 18” high.
I was skeptical about some of these food gifts. A #10 can of peanut butter for example…that is a lot of sandwiches. I made cookies, I made more sandwiches, it was the can that had no end. This was long before I knew the value of peanut butter in, say, an African stew or Asian sauce. But I did my best to use what was given to me. A penny saved is a penny earned. Waste not, want not. And so forth.
I found uses for the pasta and cheese - endless mac and cheese, but it freezes in a pinch. I even managed to make enough grape jelly (from concentrate!) to outlast the peanut butter.
But the milk. The milk posed a problem for me. I am fundamentally opposed to “just add water” food. I let the grape juice slide, this was the era of juice from concentrate. I am also opposed to foods that refuse to do what the label says they will do - that is to say, dissolve in water.
I tried everything.
Shaking, whisking, cold water, hot water, warm water. I tried starting with a low water-to-milk ratio to make a paste that I could then thin into something resembling milk. In the end I had, every single time, I had thin milky water topped with curd-like clumps of undissolved bits that were mostly fine in a recipe, but wholly unacceptable when poured over my toddler’s morning cereal.
Once, in a final attempt to make the milk obey it’s own directive, I placed the requisite amounts of powder and water into my blender. This was long ago, when my blender was a department store model. Nothing powerful, just a 1980’s household blender. I put the cap on, turned the knob to the highest number, and hit “blend”.
Within seconds my counter was awash in a slippery mess, a raging tidal wave of foam, perched delicately atop a thin layer of milky water.
It was everywhere. I grabbed containers of every size and shape, and with my hands I scooped the offending slurry into what would hold it. A 5-quart stock pot seemed a good choice.
Unwilling to accept defeat, I carefully cleaned the counter and pondered with to do with the products of my endeavor. Taking a funnel I poured most of the liquid product into the one-quart glass bottle my grandmother had generously provided for such purpose. I held back that foam with my hand.
The foam. So much foam. Slimy, dense…there was no choice. Down the drain it went.
Time passes, years go slowly (or quickly) by, and hopefully we live and learn.
Or maybe we do not.
Around 2008, with no kids at home to speak of, I had returned to powdered milk as a stand-by. Not the cheap kind in the 18” tall USDA box, oh no. Bob’s Red Mill Organic Nonfat Milk Powder is what you would find in my cupboard. Neither of us drank fluid milk. so it made no sense to have it on hand. A container in the cupboard of powder, however, can be a lovely stand-in.
Some things never change, and powdered milk is one of those things. Using a recycled glass bottle obtained from a local dairy, I combined 1/2 cup of powder and 3.5 cups of water, per package instructions, and shock them up. I shook and I shook and I shook, to no avail. There, perched atop the thin, watery, whitish liquid sat those unhappy curds in my “whey”.
Usually I can let things like this go. It isn’t, after all, “real” milk, right? It is a facsimile. I was not going to drink it. I may put some over salt pork, onion and clams in a stock pot. I may pour some over chicken and mushrooms in a crock pot. I may make my favorite rhubarb tapioca. The lumps should, I told myself, should not matter.
Except on this day, for some reason, they did. When everything feels chaotic and dramatic, the soft flow of smooth, un-lumpy milk is soothing. No lumps means something has gone right, for a change.
Have I mentioned that I am a slow learner?
Frustrated by the lumps, I poured the mixture into the smaller of my two Vita-mix (1380 watts!) containers. I told myself that a quick whiz on low would solve the problem. “Just variable speed 1 or 2.” I told to myself.
The next thing you know I am at variable speed 9, holding the lid firmly on with one hand, insisting in my head that this time, just this one time, there will be NO LUMPS in my stupid powdered milk. “So what” I thought “if there’s a little foam?”
Removing the container from the base of the Vita-mix, hand still clamped on the lid, I noted that the foam had completely filled the container, bottom to top, and was oozing a bit from the lid.
Undeterred, right there on my counter top I brazenly removed the lid.
And I watched, feeling a bit stunned by the sheer quantity of cascading foam and thin milk pouring across my counter, precisely as it had 20 years earlier.
I grabbed towels. I grabbed the other Vita-mix jug and the one quart glass milk jug and a funnel and quickly distributed the mess as evenly as possible between them.
As I cleaned up my mess I thought a lot about irony and the timing of this minor kitchen disaster. This was, indeed, a chaotic season of my life. Hot flashes, brain fog, kids gone…and we were back to cascades of foamy powdered milk.
I wondered as I scooped the slimy mess remaining on the counter into any available container if I were, indeed, capable of learning.
The fluid milk quickly sank to the bottom of each vessel, just as it had in 1987, leaving behind towers of useless foam. Or maybe not useless. Maybe THIS time I would find a use for the foam.
I glanced around the kitchen and spied my coffee maker, half empty pot in place, still warm from breakfast.
I grabbed mugs, very one I could find, and did the only thing I could think of.
I made lattes. No matter that I was the only person home to drink them, I made them anyway.
A row of coffee cups, each with a perfectly delightful, cinnamon-dusted tower of foam on top.
I lifted the first one to my lips and drank.
Yes, I can learn. It may take a while, a really long while, and it may be a damned ugly process, but in the end, when life hands you foam?
Make lattes.
