Wordless Wednesday (late summer flowers)

Namaste

One of Those Families

When I was little, growing up in southern California in the 1970's, everyone knew at least one of those families. The man across the street, an engineer at Rockwell, referred to them, somewhat derisively, as "hippies". Looking back, I don't think they really were. We all lived in a nice neighborhood, where husbands went to work as engineers at one of the refineries or aircraft manufacturers. Everyone had well-kept lawns and it was safe to walk to school or to go trick-or-treating without adults. Mothers baked for the PTA and dads got together to set off fireworks for the kids at the annual Fourth of July block party. 

Not exactly where people moved to tune in, turn on, or drop out.

Still, in our neighborhood, there were a few families who, in retrospect, seemed a bit advanced (and thus odd) for the time. They ate organic food, and some were even vegetarians (!) They wore a lot of cotton in the days of Carol Brady polyester double knit pant suits. Their kids weren't allowed to play King of the Mountain, or Cowboys & Indians. They played with gender neutral, non-violent, non-competitive toys, whatever those were. They never looked like much fun, to be honest. The rest of us looked on for a moment or two, then went back to playing with our Dream Houses populated with a hoard of too-tan Malibu Barbies and G.I. Joes with the Kung Fu Grip.

 Super-neato Barbie Dream House from the 70's, with 
the elevator and the hot tub

At school, those kids ate odd-looking food at lunchtime and you felt kind of sorry for them, because they never got Twinkies in their lunch boxes. You probably didn't get them often, but they never got them.

The weirdest thing, to us kids, anyway, was that those families never had TV sets. At a time when a large color set was still a very big deal, they didn't even have small black and whites. No one that we knew had cable back then, but we still managed to ingest our share of wonderfully mind-rotting TV. To not do so seemed foreign and unnatural.

Philo T. Farnsworth & family of Fort Wayne, 
basking in the warming glow of their TV
(okay, not really. But if you don't know who Philo T. Farnsworth was, 
go look him up. 
Seriously. Start here^ 
One of those 'important to know' sorts of things.)
National Archives and Records Administration, 

in the public domain (^)

Sunday night automatically meant Wonderful World of Disney.

Scooby Doo and Electra Woman & Dyna Girl were on Saturday mornings. Cartoons were on after school, at least until the Watergate Hearings came along and messed them up. The Merv Griffin Show & Johnny Carson's Tonight Show were on if you were lucky enough to be up late on account of being sick. During the week there was the Dialing for Dollars afternoon movie. The Saturday Afternoon Movie. The Sunday Afternoon Movie. Fright Night with Sinister Seymour ("Now here is your host, the Master of the Macabre, the Epitome of Evil, the most sinister man to crawl across the face of the earth....Seeeeymour!").

When I was a kid, we didn't watch anywhere near the amount of TV people watch today, but not having a TV was simply not an option. Everybody had a TV. Except for those families. What did they do at night? What did they do when they were sick, or were up late, or it was raining outside? I didn't know, and no kid I knew wanted to know, either.

At the beginning of May, we took another step toward becoming one of those families, or at least the 2010 version of them. We already eat the organic food. We're not vegetarians, but we try to eat much lower down on the food chain. I'm now the queen of (preferably organic) all cotton (or at least natural fiber) clothing. We've allowed our children to have the occasional Barbie dolls here and there, but the Barbies in our home have to earn their keep, have a real job, and can't just be fashion models. Right now, I think most are veterinarians. We've  tempered Barbie with other, even tamer dolls and other types of toys, too, including lots of building toys and other ::shudder:: non-competitive, gender neutral toys.

So, on May 1st, we dropped satellite service. It wasn't really a matter of money, although the extra $84.00 every month ($1008.00 a year) is a nice bonus. It was more that we were beginning to feel that we might have better things to do than watch TV. We'd noticed that Clementine's mood and behavior was better, the less TV she watched. And we noticed that even though we spent every evening together after she was in bed, we didn't talk all that much.

We decided to watch only what showed up on over-the-air channels, on the computer (Hulu^, Internet Archive ^), on DVDs borrowed from the local library, and from a Netflix subscription (1 DVD out at a time, plus streaming content, less than $10.00/month).

We've been without satellite for just over 3 months now. We saw the amount of TV we watched drop precipitously right away. We began turning on the TV to watch a specific program, then turning it off when we were done. It no longer stays on with no one watching it, or worse - it doesn't draw us in to watch whatever junk just happens to be on.

 

Artist's conception of what a switched-off 
television set may look like.
From Wikipedia, in the public domain (^)

As a percentage of total TV time, we watch more movies. We sit down as a couple or as a family with a specific film, having discussed what we'll view in advance. We watch more documentaries, which is definitely good, at least compared to other things we might have watched. We watch very few network shows. We don't watch sports, but we never did to start with.

On weekends, the TV stays off most of the time, which is great. As a result, we're spending more time outdoors and on projects. Last weekend we painted with watercolors, and made chalk to draw with. We go outside every day and watch bugs, water our flowers, and enjoy the weather. We were doing that before, but Clementine no longer has to be dragged out the door. We've started playing games again - Dan and I both love to play Scrabble and backgammon.

In the kitchen, while cooking, we've started listening to music and to programs on NPR instead of having the small TV on. Clementine now sometimes listens to classical music, nursery rhymes or stories when she plays.

One thing I've noticed is that if she watches TV, she turns away to play occasionally. When she listens to music or stories, she turns away and devotes much more of her attention to her toys or to whatever she's doing. The music takes second place and leaves her much more engaged than the TV ever did. Her behavior, what wasn't bad before, improved immediately. She's usually much more interested in playing, reading and drawing than in watching TV.

We now go entire days without the TV being on at all, and have spent evenings talking, playing, reading... I guess we're well on our way to becoming one of those families now.

We're not quite here yet, but maybe some day.
by Pablo Gonzalez Vargas,  free photo
 from Morguefile (^)

I don't think we're quite there yet. We still have a TV. I'm not sure if we'll get rid of it, or if that is even our goal. Our goal at the time was to watch less, and for the children to watch less. In that, we've already succeeded. I don't know if "none' is doable, since Dan and I both enjoy movies, and this is the only way we usually get to watch them.

I do know that the saying "less is more" is true in this case and many others. Whether "none is more" remains to be seen but as of right now, I'm happy and proud of what we've accomplished so far.

Yay, us.

Namaste 

Recycling Crayons... a project straight from the Handbook (sshhhhhh)

When my oldest was quite little, she once asked me how I knew how to be a mommy. How did I know Santa's address? How did I let the Tooth Fairy know that she had lost a tooth? How did I know how to make play dough? How did I know where the gnomes and elves were in the yard?

The Tooth Fairy

I quietly explained that when babies are born, their mothers get a copy of the Mommy Handbook in the hospital, which had all of that information and a lot more. Of course, I couldn't show it to her, because she wasn't a Mommy yet, but when she got married and had her own kids, she'd get a copy and we could talk about it. Until then, it was all very hush-hush.

What the Mommy Handbook may look like

My copy of the Handbook is pretty dog-eared now, covered in unidentifiable stains. But its full of all sorts of great information, suggestions, recipes, and activities, and has lasted me through two-and-a-quarter childhoods (so far). The margins are full of notes, and late additions have been stapled to the back cover. Directions for kissing away the pain of ouchies, and the recipe for Making It All Better. The recipe for Monster-banning spray, Thanksgiving dinner, and the instructions for Hiding Birthday Presents So That They Cannot Be Found.

And there is this, How to Recycle Crayons. I'm pretty sure every mom does this with or for their kids at least once. It's cheap, and simple. The results are fun and a lot more interesting than "regular" crayons. They make great gifts at Christmas and for birthdays. There are probably as many ways to do this as there are moms. This is how we did it.

from here, used with permission(^)

Step 1. Sort through your child's crayons periodically, removing all of the broken pieces. When you have enough to make new crayons, spend an evening reading or watching a movie and peeling off all those fiddly label bits. I've read that soaking them off works well, but it didn't work for me at all. This is a mind-numbingly tedious task, but I found that I settled into a grove while watching a movie and before long, it was all done with a satisfying pile of naked crayon bits in one bowl, and a pile of paper in the other.

Some of our recycled crayons

If you haven't the patience or the time to wait until you have hundreds of broken bits, you can usually find crayons in bags at the thrift store for nearly nothing. You could also ask your local restaurant to save them for you if they do that sort of thing. My one thought on these methods of acquisition is this: we buy crayons which are made in the United States because we're not sure about the dyes and coloring used in those made overseas. They may be safe, but there have been so many recalls that we choose not to risk it. Starting next month (late July) crayons will be incredibly cheap due to the back-to-school sales, so if you want to make enough for gifts or don't have the patience to wait for all of yours to break, that will be a great time to find them for practically nothing.

We did a combination of the first suggestion (save out broken crayons) and the last (bought new) when we realized that our daughter doesn't break them fast enough. I bought new during the back-to-school supply sale last August. Boxes of 48 crayons were 11 cents each. My guess is that we used about 150 crayons, 50-ish broken an old, 96 (2 boxes worth) new. The cost, since we always stock up every summer for the following year, was maybe 35 cents, not counting the energy from the oven. 

Step 2. With all of the crayons peeled, we rinsed the broken bits to get rid of any errant cat fur, since kitty is shedding right now. They drained over night on a piece of toweling in the kitchen. You can discard the paper, or do what I did, which is to save it for making new paper. The pieces will add colorful flecks to new sheets. Making paper is another project for another day, of course.

Step 3. The next day, we sorted the crayons into greased muffin tins. We talked about what the colors combinations reminded us of as we sorted. We made sure that all of the crayons were broken up into small bits, and broke any that looked big. Large pieces leave a lot of space in container, and will result is smaller crayons. We wanted big, strong shapes which would hold up to lots of coloring.

 from here, used with permission (^)

We combined yellows, reds and oranges to make an Autumn crayon. Pale blues and white for a Winter crayon.  Pastels for a Spring crayon. Greens and yellows for a Summer crayon.

We mixed mixed greens and blues to make an ocean crayon.  Black, purples, and blues to make a stormy night crayon. Pinks, purples and reds made a lovely Valentines crayon. Blues, greens, and purples for a crayon that reminded us of deep space. Browns, reds and oranges for an earth colored crayon. We ended up with a total of 14, all different.

Step 4.  The soon-to-be-new-crayons can be microwaved in a safe container and poured into silicone molds. They can be melted over a double boiler and poured into molds. They can be placed in their mold in a slow-cooker and melted that way. And they can be placed in the oven in greased (and possibly papered) muffin tins with the oven on. I chose this method.

Even though we have a couple of silicone molds, I read that some molds have a bad habit of melting from the heat of the wax. I don't know which will and which won't, but didn't want to take the chance just now, because we want to try to mold chalk with later this month (page 486 in the Mommy Handbook). 

Step 5. We greased our muffin tins. We should have used foil or paper liners. Please use foil or paper liners. Take my word for it. They should also be greased well. Don't use your vintage cast iron muffin tin (like I did), because when crayon gets on them, it'll take forever to get it out and you'll end up kicking yourself (like I did). Use "tin" muffin tins - the aluminum kind. If the worst happens, they'll be much easier to clean.

Step 6. After the muffin tins are lined and the crayons are sorted (we sorted the broken pieces all the way to the top of the rim of the tin) place the tins in an oven which has been heated to 275F. Due to our daughter's age, this was something that I did by myself. I started checking progress at around 10 minutes, and removed the molten pools of liquid wax at around the 14 minute point. You know your stove best, so start checking on the low end of when they may be done. "Done" means that the crayons are melted. The wax will be pooled in the tin, but won't be particularly well-mixed. This was the effect we were looking for - crayons which could color in more than one shade at once. If you'd like a more uniform effect, a light stir with a wooden skewer as soon as they come out of the oven would accomplish this, but might muddy the colors.

 Our ocean crayon in an old enamel pan

Step 7. Turn off the oven, and wait 30 minutes or until the wax is entirely set. If you absolutely need them as quickly as possible, you could put the muffin tins in the fridge for a while. I didn't want to risk it since I didn't like the picture that hot, heavy cast iron and cold, glass fridge shelves conjured up.  Besides, at out house, it was bed time by this point in the process, so we decided to leave our creations until the following morning. 

Step 8. Remove crayons from their mold. The next morning, because I hadn't used liners, I had a heck of a time thinking of how to get the crayons out of the tins. I tried popping them in the freezer, which didn't work. I didn't want to pry them out, and finally figured out that if I poured very hot water from the sink onto the backs of the tins, the crayons would loosen up and pop out. The cast iron tin ended up with a thin later of crayon on the inside To get it off, I eventually resorted to having my husband burn it out upside down on the gas grill after dinner. It worked and the tin is fine, but it would have been sooooo much easier to line the tins.

several of our finished crayons

Step 9. Enjoy! As soon as my husband got home, he joined us on the back deck with paper and our new crayons. We colored and drew and had a lovely time.

 Breaking in our new crayons

A very happy bunny

 

details from a picture of the ocean. 

the pattern is caused by the wrought iron table we were working on, 

not by the crayons.

 

Probably a famous art critic in disguise

Namaste.  

=^..^=

Today was...

... terrible and wonderful.

Today, early, we ended up having to make a trip to the emergency room, but everything is fine now.

Today was the Supercat's first T-Ball practice. The name she suggested for the team was adopted. Go Ponies!

Today I have been living in Colorado for ten years. 

Today, at the end of the day, we ate dinner together as a family, then after the Supercat was in bed, Dan and I sat on the back deck in low Adirondack chairs, talking about nothing and everything.

Today is many things.

Today I am thankful and grateful to experience all of them.

Having someone to love, and to love you; to pass the time with; to discuss ideas with; to raise a family with.

Having someone who you understand and who understands you.

Having someone to care for and take care of you.

Having someone to watch the sun set with and to be with them when it rises again the next morning. 

Give thanks for today. 

Namaste.
=^..^=

Our weekend and our week ends

We had a lovely, quiet weekend,  staying home nearly the entire time, working on projects around the house. Saturday morning, we planted our flowers for the summer, including a gorgeous Columbine, the state flower of Colorado.

 publicdomainpictures (^)

Every year we've had less and less to purchase and plant, since we try to plant perennials and re-seeding annuals as much as possible. Still, I was surprised that we were able to get by with so little this year - a 9-pack of pink petunias, a pink geranium, the columbine, and 2 portulaca. 

It's been unseasonably hot so far this June, and it may cause me to break down and get a tomato plant. Colorado has odd, unpredictable weather during the day, and tends to have cool nights, which is a bad combination for  tomatoes. Still, hope springs eternal, so I usually end up getting a plant or two, nursing it through the summer, and getting maybe one or two tomatoes total. Sigh. I'll probably never learn. 

Dan spent the weekend doing several things on his "Honey-Do" list. He installed a cat door in the door that leads from the master bath to the hallway. We close our door when we leave the house to keep the dog downstairs, but the kitty tends to manage to trap herself on the wrong side of the door about 50% of the time. This way, as long as the door between our bedroom and the bathroom is open, kitty can come and go as she pleases. 

Dan also fixed the microwave (the turntable had stopped turning); rehung the door on the tool shed with new screws to prevent it from being saggy; and positioned the fans for the summer season. Oh, and he taught the SuperCat to play Tee-ball in advance of her first practice this week. She has a remarkable sense of hand-eye coordination and picked up on batting the ball off the tee right way. Running the bases was a bit harder to explain, but she seemed to be getting it toward the end. 

As for me, I worked on several projects, including de-cluttering the kitchen and organizing some files. I did a bit of writing, and spent about 3 hours doing all of our summer scheduling this afternoon. Everything I can possibly think of is on our shared schedules with reminders, notes, directions, and so on. 

Because the weather has been so cooperative, we ended up grilling on the deck Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. I read about a technique for preparing chicken last week at the Amateur Gourmet called "spatchcocking" (^). I ended up trying it tonight and don't think I'll ever grill or bake a chicken any other way ever again. 

Basically, you excise the spine from the chicken with a super-sharp knife, then push the whole thing flat. That's it. If you're up for it, you can remove the breast bones and ribs from the inside, but you don't have to. The flat chicken is more or less the same thickness all over and will grill or bake quickly and evenly, resulting in all of the meat being very moist. 

 spine removed, laid flat. 

the scissors are to snip around the tail bone

 spine, breast & rib bones removed

Dan grilled ours with a bit of spicy-vinegary barbecue sauce. It cooked very fast and evenly, and was as moist as any chicken I've ever had. 

 leg quarter after cooking

S'mores made with GF Graham crackers

  Dennis looking forward to any 

spare chicken parts

We served the chicken with "Gaga beans", baked beans named after my mother-in-law, who puts relish in her beans. Dan makes "Daddy beans", which have mustard, cider vinegar and liquid smoke. "Mommy beans" (mine) are sweetened with brown sugar, and are spiced with chopped onions and diced garlic. They're all different, but are all yummy. 

We have more than half of the chicken left over from dinner, and it'll form the basis for dinner for the next night or two. 

After dinner, Dan hooked a lighted button to the SuperCat's blouse and she ran and careened in the dark on the lawn, flashing like a lightning bug, darting in and out of the shadows. Before we went in, we made S'mores on the still-warm grill, and talked and laughed. A perfect end to a perfect weekend. 

Namaste.
=^..^= 
d

P.S. We ended up staying home all day Sunday, and so we go into Monday morning and the beginning of Week 2 of the June Food Stamp Challenge (^) with the same figures as yesterday, having spent $110.61, which is 31.87% of the total lowest monthly food stamp allowance ($347.00) for a family the size of ours.

So far, so good...

Monday morning will be the end of Week One for the June Food Stamp Challenge (^), but I'm going to go ahead and total up my receipts because I don't plan to spend anything between now (Saturday night) and then. If I do, I'll recalculate.

At Costco, I purchased:
2 boxes of Fiber One Bars, 30 bars per box
1 very large bag of corn tortilla strips, Kirkland (Costco's house brand
1 34 ounce box Kirkland Spiced Pecan cereal
2 large loaves light wheat bread (45 calories per slice)
4 jars Kirkland brand organic peanut butter. No sugar added, just peanuts and a bit of salt. Two 28 ounce jars for $7.69
1 64 ounce (4 pound) jar Kirkland animal crackers (no HFCS & organic)
2 large jars Nutella (chocolate-hazelnut spread)

We still have all of the tortilla strips and the crackers. We have most of the bread, cereal, peanut butter, bars, and Nutella. Our youngest starts playing ball this week, and we'll be packing the crackers as a snack twice a week. Peanut butter goes into sandwiches, sauces, and baking. Tortilla strips go into salads, soups, and chili, and are the base for nachos. Nutella is our little one's favorite. She eats it with peanut butter on sandwiches, and dips apples in it.

The food total at Costco came to $66.51.

At King Soopers (Kroger nearly everywhere else), I purchased:
3.15 pounds of organic cherries
1 gallon of organic milk
2.57 pounds of bananas
4 pounds of organic gala apples
6.78 pounds of chicken (@ .78 cents a pound)
2 pounds of low-carb pasta (for my husband)
2 packages of gluten-free Ivory Teff wraps
2 packages of Haribo Gummi Bears on sale (for our daughter)

The chicken will be tomorrow night's dinner &; will be part of other meals after that. We have several apples left, along with most of the pasta, bananas, apples and wraps. We still have over half of the milk, but the Gummis are gone gone gone :)

The total at King Soopers Kroger was $44.10.

The total for the first week is $110.61, which is 31.87% of the lowest food stamp + WIC benefit estimate of $347.00. That doesn't tell the whole story, though.

First, as noted, we still have most of the food purchased above. For much of the week, we ate food we purchased previously, including corn,  tortillas, fruit, veggies, cheese, milk, bread, cereal,tomatoes, and so on.

Next week we'll be eating foods purchased this week in addition to some things in the pantry/fridge/freezer. Along with tomorrow night's chicken, we're planning chicken and rice, Musubis (Hawaiian sushi), grilled pronghorn kabobs (thanks to my husband the hunter), sandwiches, bagels, oatmeal, etc. Monday will be "left over" day, when we put together meals made up from  whatever is in the fridge. I'll be baking gluten-free bread and probably some cookies next week, in addition to packing meals for our youngest to eat between ball practices. 

Speaking of bread: While I was at Costco, I noted that the 2 loaves of bread purchased for my husband &; daughter came to $4.29. On the baking aisle, I noted that 25 pounds of wheat flour came to around $5.50. Add in yeast (less than $4.00 for 2 pounds), oil, and so on, and it becomes clear that its much less expensive to bake bread than to buy it. Even factoring in a second-hand bread machine, it wouldn't take long for the savings to outstrip the initial cost.

If I thought I would need to rely on food stamps for any length of time,  I would make a point of purchasing flour and yeast in bulk (and/or starting a sour dough culture), as well as locating a bread machine. I  own/moderate a recycling list in my city, and see bread machines given  away on a regular basis. I see them at the thrift store for under  $10.00 every time I'm there. An investment of under $20.00  (machine, yeast, flour) would yield huge savings. 

Previously, I baked nearly all of the bread eaten in our house, but that fell by the wayside when I stopped eating wheat. At this point, I bake my own bread (gluten-free bread is ridiculously expensive - often more than $5.00 a loaf), but purchase wheat bread for everyone else.

The Little Red Hen and her bread

It clearly makes solid financial sense to go back to baking all/nearly all of our bread, so in the weeks ahead, we'll be doing just that.

Namaste. 
=^..^=

It Turns Out That Ignorance May Not Be As Blissful As We've Been Previously Led To Believe

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,  butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance  accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give  orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem,  pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently,  die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. Robert A. Heinlein, The Notebooks of Lazarus Long

After I posted about our family's decision to take part in the June Food Stamp Challenge (^) a couple of days ago, several friends made more or less the same comment, which was "The government should offer classes to food stamp recipients in cooking and shopping". I know what they're saying, and they aren't being snide or uncharitable - they are stating what most of us come to know at some point or another: learning how to be frugal and wise with resources are valuable skills; skills  which can be taught and learned. 

I agree, insofar as I think everyone should take home economics in school.   Everyone.

So... why isn't it mandatory anymore? As far as I know, HomeEc, as it was known back then, is no longer required in most school districts across the United States.At least not in any of the ones I've lived in since then.

When I was in junior high, HomeEc was required in 7th and 8th grade in the school district we lived in in South Carolina. We moved to North Carolina the summer between 8th and 9th grades, and ended up taking it again the next year, too; three entire years of Baked Alaska, Blanc Mange, and hemming skirts.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that I can whip up one heck of a white sauce (^), and have mad apron-making skills.

Back and front view of a woman wearing an apron intended for cooking and  a house cap of the "Dutch bonnet" style. Figure 3 and 4 from "House  Aprons and Caps" by Mary Brooks Picken, published by the Women's  Institute of Domestic Arts & Sciences of Scranton, Pennsylvania,  1922. In the public domain (^)

I'm not sure when, but at some point, it seemed to become much less important to know how to do all the things that allow us to be independent adults. Where once saying you couldn't cook or repair something would have been an admission of fault, it became something of a badge of honor. 

I have more important things to do than cook. 

I can afford to pay someone to fix my car. 

But the truth is, most of us, almost all of us, don't have more important things to do. We won't always have enough money to pay someone to take care of us and being incapable of performing basic tasks quickly becomes paralyzing. 

No one should be ashamed of being a competent, complete individual who want only the best for themselves and their family. It is not demeaning to know how to cook or clean or drive a hammer or change a tire. It should be demeaning to be willfully ignorant.   

Thankfully, the pendulum seems to be swinging back the other way. In the last few years, anyone who has been paying attention can't help but have noticed the renaissance in the "home arts" in the blogosphere and elsewhere. It seems as though everyone is busy knitting, sewing, cooking, canning, and growing stuff. And then writing about it at length. 

This is good, because it turns out that ignorance is a bad thing, not something  to aspire to. Being self-reliant allows us to be strong and independent. Relying  on others for everything weakens us. And it turns out that being unable to perform basic skills hurts the poor and disadvantaged much more than it hurts the wealthy.

Wealthy people can often afford to pay others to mitigate their personal ignorance. The rest of us? Not so much. The less we can afford to pay others, the more important it becomes to learn to do it ourselves.

Which brings us back to classes for food stamp recipients. Yes, I think that people on food stamps should take classes in how to shop and cook.  Everyone should take these classes. Everyone should be afforded the opportunity to be independent as they possibly can be.

Everyone should be able to say that they can care for themselves and their families. We should demand that these skills are taught, or take it upon ourselves to teach them, learning along the way if need-be. We should refuse to raise another generation who thinks that ignorance of basic skills is somehow preferable to mastery.

I'll leave you with this, a HomeEc film called Buying Food, from around 1950, which teaches the fine art of grocery shopping. It's a bit condescending, but full of helpful information nonetheless. Enjoy.

Namaste.