I'm tired of Oregano!

“Gimme four.”

“Two for me.”

Ten women sat around the big table in Cichello’s addition. It’s sometime back in the early 1980s. An unwary eavesdropper might suspect a poker game was underway but wait…

“We’re still fifteen short, people.”

“Okay, I’ll take seven more. Helen, can you take a few?”

No poker game. Our food co-op was having its monthly meeting. Kathy Blumer had organized a food co-op and was leading us down the list of meat, dairy, bakery, nuts and frozen items to be ordered.

We’re talking raw challenge here. The co-op offered food at wonderful savings. The goal was to get everyone to take enough to fulfill the gargantuan amounts you had to buy. I mean… how long would it take a lackadaisical cook to use up twenty pounds of flour or two pounds of oregano?

The pressure was intense. If the group was several pounds short of some exotic substance, you knew it was your duty to order some, even if you had no idea what to use it for. This was a team effort and you were a team player. You owed it to the group to increase your order enough so the designated amount could be reached. The meetings were wild, conducted with guffaws, groans and jokes. Our four sons were still at home then and were often upstairs in the addition watching t.v. I think now that they were really there to overhear what went on at the meetings. “I don’t believe you guys!” they’d say after everyone left.

There was a meeting when I decided to order frozen meatballs. All the women were raving about how good they were. When I got my order, I dropped them in spaghetti sauce to warm them up for dinner. Everyone sat down. We said grace and our son, John, dove in.

“These meatballs are raw!” John sputtered.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” I answered. “They’re precooked.”

“They’re raw,” John insisted. He was right.

At the next co-op meeting, I made the mistake of recounting this episode.

“Of course, they’re raw. You have to cook them,”

“Well, they sure looked cooked to me,” I defended myself.

Pat Griffin was one of the co-op members and, of course, shared the story with her husband Gary, the swimming coach at Weedsport. Next thing I know, our youngest son Paul, a swimmer, is nicknamed “Meatball” by said coach. Every time I saw Gary, the subject of meatballs came up. This finally ended when I took some of the misbegotten meatballs…raw…. sealed them in a baggie after mashing them and mailed them, anonymously, to Gary. He never said anything about this gift….just dropped the subject and started calling Paul “Soy Boy.”

You see, they had this great buy on soy sauce. I was into Chinese cooking at the time and was going through those expensive little bottles of soy sauce at a great clip. Unfortunately, the co-op sold soy only in five-gallon lots. Despite arm twisting and all sorts of psychological pressure, (Come on, ladies, we’re a team!”), we ended up without enough soy takers. “Okay, I’ll take two gallons,” I grumped, unwilling to let this bargain escape me. After all, I could store it in the barn and replenish as needed.

Unfortunately, when the soy sauce arrived, it announced in healthy tones, ”No preservatives. Refrigerate.” Right…I’m going to put two gallons of soy sauce in my refrigerator for years and years.

Oh well, you can’t win them all.

Actually, the co-op worked very well. The bargains were great, the meetings hilarious. Reminiscing about it, Kathy Blumer said, “We spent a fortune to save money.”

I dropped out after a few years. The word had gotten out to Sam’s family in Syracuse about the great bargains. I began to get phone calls:
“Could you order 2 ½ pounds of mozzarella for me?”

“I’d like some spices. I can stop by and pick them up.”

“Do they have any chocolate chips?”

Enough already.
Each child got a bag full of oregano when they were ready to start apartment living.

----Eileen Cichello

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