Senior center plans Patriotic Lunch for Monday, Nov. 4

A piece in “Dressing for Dinner in the Naked City: And Other Tales from the Wall Street Journal’s Middle Column” (1994) grabs attention: “Waiter, There’s a Rat in My Soup, And It’s Delicious.”

The owner of the restaurant featuring 30 different rat dishes promised that they served only “free-range rats,” rats that fed on fruits and vegetables.

I checked out the current menu at this restaurant that once featured those 30 rat dishes. Now there are none. Instead, the diner can choose ocean prawn, Peking duck or Boston lobster. There’s coconut pudding for dessert.

Not to worry. The Nov. 4 Monday Munch at the Charlotte Senior Center is titled Vote: Patriotic Lunch, and its menu offers food favorites: Boston baked beans with franks, red white and blue caprese salad, homemade corn bread and apple pie with ice cream.

In Worcestershire, England, in 2013, thieves cut a hole in a delivery truck and made off with 6,400 cans of Heinz baked beans with sausages. The thieves were never caught, and we can only wonder what they did with all those beans.

Needless to say, people in Massachusetts take their beans very seriously. On June 23, 1993, the Massachusetts General Court determined the navy bean had been the original bean in the venerable Boston baked bean recipe and named the baked navy bean the official Massachusetts State Bean.

Homemade corn bread is in direct lineage from the ground corn meal that was a staple food for Native Americans across the country. European settlers adopted this food and later spread it to Europe.

Pie, of course, has its own story, and here’s the ending to Roy Blount Jr.’s ode to pie from “One Fell Soup or I’m Just a Bug on the Windshield of Life”:

“Apple and pumpkin and mince and

black bottom,

I’ll come to your place every day

if you’ve got ‘em.”

Monday Munch at the Charlotte Senior Center has indeed got ‘em — apple pie topped with ice cream.

Mark Twain seems to have had quite a negative experience with apple pie. Here’s his description: “Construct a bullet-proof dough … toughen and kiln-dry it a couple of days … fill with stewed dried apple; aggravate with cloves, lemon peel and slabs of citron; add two portions of New Orleans sugar. Then solder on the lid and set in a safe place till it petrifies. Serve cold at breakfast and invite your enemy.”

For a totally different experience, invite a friend to join you at the Charlotte Senior Center for a great meal topped with a delicious piece of apple pie.

Noted Episcopal priest and cook Robert Farrar Capon observed, “I like a cook who smiles out loud when he tastes his own work. Let God worry about your modesty. I want to see your enthusiasm.” I can testify from personal experience that the kitchen at the Charlotte Senior Center is a very enthusiastic place. And the cooks’ out-loud smiling spreads out to the people who eat there.

Early November is a busy eating time at the Charlotte Senior Center.

Men’s breakfast
Friday, Nov. 8, 7:30 a.m.
Men’s breakfast happens twice a month, when men gather for breakfast and conversation. Check the senior center website for information on the guest speaker.

Doors open at 7 a.m. Breakfast at 7:30 a.m. Suggested donation: $6. Registration required by Tuesday for the Friday breakfast. If you are planning to attend the men’s breakfast, email Lane Morrison by Tuesday, Nov. 6.

Also on Friday, there’s a special complimentary Veteran’s Lunch prepared by the Residence at Shelburne Bay for veterans and a guest. Space is limited and registration is required. Call the senior center at 802-425-6345.

Mac & cheese, pulled pork sliders, arugula salad with champagne vinaigrette dressing and dessert.

Monday Munch, Nov. 11
The menu features chicken butternut squash soup served over couscous plus a salad and dessert.

A note about couscous: In December 2020, UNESCO officially recognized Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia for “the knowledge, know-how, and practices pertaining to the production and consumption of couscous.” The joint submission by the four countries was hailed as an example of international cooperation.

Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos admits he used to open a can of Pillsbury biscuits, put them on a cooking sheet, spread on butter, pop them in the oven and eat the whole can for breakfast.

According to former Trump campaign officials Corey Lewandowski and David Bowie in “Let Trump be Trump,” his go-to McDonald’s order was two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish and a chocolate malted shake.

Somehow, in our troubled times, it seems significant that people can at least agree about good food, and even laugh at the antics of people who like bad food. Go eat at the Charlotte Senior Center with the promise that neither your beans nor your biscuits will come out of a can.

Enjoy the Beach Boys singing “Vegetables,” complete with someone chewing celery in the background.

Finally, I invite you to read what happens when a longtime public schoolteacher takes on Trump. Just published: Volume 3 in my three-book series. This one is “Trump, Trump, Trump: Swan Song.”