Those of you with a bit of Biblical knowledge may recognize the allusion to the Parable of the Talents, which exhorts us to USE our talents, rather than burying them in the ground. Talent, incidentally, was a unit of currency in Biblical times, but the parable has been extended to mean that we should use our talents, in the sense of what our gifts are. Something of the double meaning emerges in Milton's poignant sonnet 19, where he meditates on his blindness:
WHEN I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker. . ..
Really, I wish my talent were for something a bit more--shall we say, elevated--but it seems that my talent is for frugality. Well, that brings up one of my favorite ideas from Emerson, which I've cited here earlier:
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.
So, to use my talent today, I acquired 10 cans of bargain-priced tuna, which are now residing in Lucy Marmalade's closet. She will be on a vastly reduced meal plan next year. We figured that each time she prepares her own meal, she will save around $8.00, which can go to a meal out or whatever the heck she wants.
The tuna is in a bag. Also in bags in the closet: 20 cans of beans, quantities of oatmeal, canned tomatoes.
Note that this saves her money and time. It also saves me money, and doesn't really cost me time, since I am out and about in any case.
Here then, dear readers, is the beginning of a food future stockpile. Next year, I'll send her recipes!
Have you been stockpiling the food futures discussed by Funny's guest=poster?
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