Cherries in Winter: My Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Times (14 page)

I found myself spending entire days planning a trip to the supermarket. First, I’d figure out the menus for the week’s dinners. Then I’d make a list of all the ingredients I needed. Then I’d rewrite them in the order I would find them in the supermarket aisles for maximum efficiency, even though I wanted the trip to take up a lot of time. I read labels, compared prices, and figured out costs per unit along with retired people, who looked at me with pity.

One morning, I received a notice from the Department of Labor, provider of my unemployment benefits. I’d been scheduled for a mandatory work search and training appointment. My very first non-job job interview! After many weeks of not having to put on work clothes, or any clothes that didn’t have elastic in the waistband, for that matter, the first thing I thought was,
What’ll I wear?

• • •

It is always advisable to wear a hat when you are looking for a job. It ties your outfit together. And the old rule about a spotless pair of white gloves still holds
.

• • •

After having my own little fashion show—yes, I was concerned about my level of excitement over this trip—I chose what I hoped was a tasteful outfit: navy blue pin-striped slacks, a grey shirt, a grey business jacket, and my trusty black ankle boots (not too pointy in the toe). I accessorized with my small diamond (okay, cubic zirconium) studs and the silver chain with the tiny black pearl that my husband gave me before we started turning stale bread into croutons. (Cut the bread into tiny cubes and get them nice and brown in the toaster oven. Then shake them in a baggie with a drizzle of olive oil, salt, pepper, and Italian seasonings. Thrift-licious.)

The only part of the ensemble I didn’t fret over was my lipstick. Nana’s signature shade was shocking pink; for occasions like this, I prefer red. It’s courage in a tube. I’ve worn it when interviewing for work, asking for a raise, and, ultimately, negotiating severance. I like to pretend that whatever color I’m wearing is
called “I Mean Business.” With a swoosh of that, I was prepared for the unemployment office.

• • •

And now—at last—it’s your big morning!

• • •

In a sign of the current economy, the line for the training session at the Department of Labor was long. Depressingly long. When we were all checked in and herded into a large conference room, nearly every seat was taken.

Few of either the men or women wore suits. Most of my colleagues in unemployment were dressed in “business casual”—turtlenecks under suit jackets, some with khaki pants. There were a fair amount of jeans, sneakers, and hoodies. We looked like a typical office staff that’s still confused about just how casual “Casual Friday” should be.

Our training session began with a PowerPoint presentation about searching for a job, including helpful websites, what the unemployment office could do for us, and tips such as “Always dress for success.”

They were right. But for the unemployed person
who has just lost his or her identity along with the job they worked hard at and maybe loved, and who no longer has a reason to get out of bed in the morning, sometimes just getting dressed at all is a sign of success.

• • •

Ultimately, the job search training paid off. Not in actual work; even my career counselor was impressed by how few jobs were available in my industry. But the next morning, to keep myself from sinking into sweatpants-wearing apathy, I form an imaginary company: Me, Inc. For some reason, I feel more motivated when I think of myself as Me, rather than just me. It sounds more formal. It gives me structure. It makes me get dressed for work. And after all, I am working—as any unemployed person can tell you, looking for a job is a job in itself.

Following the formation of Me, Inc., I start getting up at the same time I used to when I was going to the office, which is 6:30
A.M
. I do some type of exercise, emulating the CEO of my former company, who squeezed in her workout at dawn before a busy day. I take a shower, and then I get dressed in a pretty shirt
and jeans. The president of Me—that would be me—has decided that the dress code is “office casual.”

After putting on some makeup (I’m much happier being an “After” than a “Before”), I have breakfast and go to work—either in our little home office downstairs, or at the dining room table upstairs. I search websites for work, call people, e-mail ideas for stories to editors. On Facebook, my status reports now read, “Suzan is meeting with the creative dept. of Me, Inc.,” which means I’m writing, or “Suzan is interfacing with the accounting dept. of Me, Inc.,” otherwise known as paying bills.

Aside from the psychological benefits of dressing for work (even though there is no official work to dress for), there’s also Nathan to consider. My husband spends his days looking at pipes in various hues of rust. I’m just guessing here, but when he comes home after a hard day at the office—in his case, a boiler room or overhead vent—I think he’d rather see the attractive woman he married, not someone still wearing her mismatched pajamas. My desire to look good for him is probably more about my vanity than his actual view of me, but I seem to remember Nana saying something along the lines of, “You should always look like the Other Woman, never the hausfrau.”

“Yes, she did say that,” Mom confirms. “That was right around the time she got her job at the Bridge and Tunnel Authority and wrote that article you found about going back to work.”

So, let me see if I’ve got all of this straight: I’ve gone from spending my days at an office to planning marathon supermarket trips to being both an imaginary CEO
and
my husband’s mistress. My schizophrenic career now requires a variety of different outfits, and I’m not sure my old work clothes are appropriate for any of them. Whoever I am, I think Nana was right; I may not have a job, but I should still dress like I don’t need one. Besides, maybe now I’m dressing for my own version of success.

Mix flour, salt, and pepper in a pie pan and coat each piece of beef with it. Heat shortening in a heavy pot or Dutch oven, add enough of the floured meat to cover the bottom and brown the meat well over moderate heat. Remove, if necessary, to brown remaining meat. Return all meat to the pot and add water to cover, bay leaf, and garlic. Bring to a boil, lower heat, cover and simmer slowly until the meat is almost tender, or about two hours
.

Add onions, carrots, and potatoes and cook for ten minutes. Add peas or beans. If the stew is to be served without the dumplings, continue simmering until the meat and vegetables are tender, or about 20 minutes
.

The yeast dumpling batter will take about 30 minutes to rise and should be prepared about half an hour before the vegetables are added. Add dumplings and finish stew as directed below. Serves six
.

1 pkg. active dry yeast

½ cup warm water

2 tbsp. sugar

¼ tsp. salt

1 tbsp. salad oil

1 tbsp. minced onion

1 egg, beaten

1½ cups sifted flour

Soften yeast in water. Add remaining ingredients and stir until smooth, or about one minute. Let rise in a warm place, such as a pan of warm water, until double in bulk, or about 30 minutes
.

Stir down and drop by tablespoons onto the simmering stew, letting the batter rest on the meat and vegetables. Cover tightly and steam dumplings for 20 minutes without raising cover
.

• • •

DECEMBER 2008

HUDSON COUNTY, NEW JERSEY

In a heavy-handed twist to the plotline, the recession really kicks in just in time for winter, and both the stock market and the temperature begin to plunge simultaneously. Both of these chilling developments are an excellent reason to start cooking up a hearty (and inexpensive) beef stew.

My grandparents used their big black Dutch oven to
make stew; my mother still has it, and I think it’s at least fifty years old, if not more. “It’s a well-seasoned pot,” she says with admiration. I’ll have to settle for our Crock-Pot, which may be only about five years old, but I’m looking forward to seasoning it with one of Nana’s old recipes.

• • •

Last summer Nathan installed Wi-Fi in our apartment. “Now you can go online anywhere in the house,” he said. I could if I had a new computer; mine was over seven years old, which, from a technological point of view, put it on the level of an arrowhead. It didn’t matter, though, because when I needed to go online, I had my computer at work. Until I didn’t.

Coincidentally, I’d bought that laptop when I’d been laid off during the last recession, in 2001. I still had a part-time job at another magazine then, so buying a new computer didn’t seem like such a big deal. Besides, to a writer a working computer is as essential as a nice sharp arrowhead was to a hunter.

This time, though, the idea of spending a couple of grand on anything, even the lifeblood of a freelance writer, is scary. I no longer think about money in
numerical amounts but in terms of what it means to us:
That’s a month’s rent and four weeks’ worth of groceries!
I decide to make do with the computer I have. Unfortunately, it’s heading into its final winter and starts dying on me.

Our apartment has an upstairs full of windows where the living room, dining area, and kitchen are. It gets sunny and warm, and it’s perfectly suited for writing—if your laptop can pick up Wi-Fi at more than three inches away from the modem. If not, you have to plug directly into the modem in the office, which is downstairs, doesn’t get direct sunlight, and is at least ten degrees colder than it is upstairs. You can actually feel the temperature zones dropping as you descend the spiral staircase.

Our electric bills were reasonable when we were using lights and heat only at night and on weekends. Now I’m home all day and afraid of the numbers we’ll rack up if I turn anything on for more than a few minutes. In a magazine I see a photo of a family sitting at the dinner table while wearing their down parkas. At one time that might have been shocking, but now it makes perfect sense to me.

On days when it’s bitter outside and oppressively
nippy in my little home office, I take a cue from the parka family and bundle up—two pairs of thick woolen socks, a long-sleeved T-shirt with a turtleneck over it, and a cashmere sweater over that. (The irony of wearing an expensive sweater while being afraid of what the heat would cost wasn’t lost on me. I should have gone all the way and worn pearls.)