Microwave a bowl of boiled whole wheat with blueberrys–or any fruit. Pour in some soy milk and a little agave nector. Mmm. Mmm.

Whole wheat? I buy a “bushel” (fifty pounds) of wheat at the animal feed store. It now costs about 15 cents a pound.

My father described a dinner scene at the farm when he was a boy, with his three brothers, my grandmother and grandfather father sitting around a table loaded with food. This was during the depression (1933).

As they were stuffing their faces with the bounty of their farm, my grandfather said, “I don’t know how anybody could starve in these times with wheat selling for 15 cents a bushel. A family could live a month on a bushel of wheat.”

I asked my father, “What would you do with a bushel of wheat?”

I bought a bushel of wheat some years ago to test his answer. I boil it for a great breakfast cerial. With a coffee grinder, I grind my own wheat. The boiled grain can be used in vegetarian chili as a meat substitute. Or it can be mixed in with a salad instead of nuts. In baking bread the boiled whole grains can be mixed in with the dough before baking.

If you buy a bushel of wheat, store most of it in the freezer. It takes a long time to use up a whole bushel.