make do

A young French nutritionist was in my kitchen asking for a food processor. We don't have one, and I told her she'd just have to make do. "Make do"? How is that expressed by the French? Improviser. When confronted with less than optimal circumstances, most humans will fashion tools from whatever is at hand.  Folks seeking employment in the 30s arrived at the desert canyon of the lower Colorado to work on the Boulder Dam. Unemployed, European-trained craftsmen created terrazzo floors with Native American-inspired patterns, fashioned hundreds of cubic feet of copper cabinetry and machined colossal valves and fittings in exchange for a pull on these big, concrete teats. Despite heat, primitive living and scarcity of everything but rocks, these workers were making do, big time. And so were their bosses: Kaiser, Bechtel, et al.