The Human Life Cycle as Shelved at Publix in Boca

It’s a peculiar thing to fly from Connecticut to Florida during what is arguably the hottest time of the year, but last week, that’s exactly what I did. Simple reason: my beloved 92 year old aunt was having surgery and I needed to be there. So off I went.

Aunt Thelma lives in Boca Raton, an area which—at the risk of offending some folks—is populated by an inordinate number of people over the age of eighty. This results in a few practical issues: driving, for example, can get interesting. A ride down Glades Road can run the gamut from feeling like Saturday afternoon at a bumper car concession when the electricity’s gone out and everyone’s just lightly banging into each other, to being like the chariot scene in Ben Hur. Only Ben and Messala are wearing glaucoma glasses.

Anyway, at one point, my cousin Carol asked me and her daughter Michelle to go out to Publix and get some food, since the hospital appeared to be a little bit asleep at the wheel where actually feeding their patients anything more solid than broth was concerned. Welcome to high quality health care.

“Get some prunes,” Carol said, “—a couple of boxes of instant oatmeal. A few fruit cups. A chicken. And some Depends.”

Naturally.

So, off we went, list in hand. We asked where the Depends were, figuring we’d get the bigger items first.

And this is the thing that amazed me: once we located what we were looking for, Michelle and I found ourselves staring, gape-mouthed, at a line of shelves that started on one end with condoms of every impressive size, shape, and variety, graduated to “ladies’ items,” and ended with adult diapers in every conceivable permutation. An entire life cycle sat there, right in front of us, sandwiched between one end cap selling jars of gefilte fish for the upcoming Jewish High Holy days, and another, featuring memorial Yartzheit candles and gigantic boxes of matches.

“Is this all there is to life?” I asked Michelle, who is ten years younger than I am, but very pragmatic and wise.

“Could be,” she said. “But at least the Pampers are in another aisle. They should have shelved them right after the condoms and the ladies’ items, as a warning.”

We collected all of our things, including the prunes and the rotisseried chicken, and pulled up to the checkout line. The lady just stared at us and our purchases.

“Need anything else?” she asked.

“What else is there?” I answered.

Stewed Prunes

Serves 4

In my family, every Jewish holiday meal seemed to be punctuated by a small bowl of stewed prunes for dessert, which says a lot about our food. Naturally, I shied away from it like every normal American child would, until I tasted it. Over the years, I’ve made the discovery that it can be spiced with nearly anything—cinnamon, cardamom, even hot chiles. My forebears, alas, didn’t know from cardamom, or hot chiles, so this is a recipe in deference to them, and to Aunt Thelma.

1/2 pound pitted prunes

1 quart water

1/4 cup sugar

1 cinnamon stick

2 strips fresh orange peel

1. Place the prunes in a medium sauce pan, cover with water, and cook slowly over low heat, until soft. Add the sugar, cinnamon stick, and orange peel.

2. Cook at a low simmer until the liquid takes on the consistency of a thin syrup, about fifteen minutes. Remove cinnamon stick and orange peel, and let the prunes cool. Serve at room temperature.