Poverty on Long Island

I’ve never known hunger but, looking back on it, I have been right up on its edge. Smearing ketchup on a couple slices of bread tasted good back then, was resourceful and, in a way, artful. Frying up bologna and sliding it between two slices of that bleached flour of a product was, too, and I now know that that kind of eating on the cheap definitely ruins the arteries. But it’s what you do to get by.

Not forgetting that portion of my story makes me take notice when the largest food bank in New York City sends an alarmist, if inaccurate, e-mail alert about its empty larder. (In times of trouble, embellishments by the marketing staff can be forgiven.) Remembering how I came upon my ritualized contemplations of food makes me listen up when a project such as MICAH starts making noise.