To Eat or Not to Eat

Fiorella is an embarrasingly picky eater--nothing green but jello, nothing red but apples and jello, no dressings, no mixtures. It's partially due to her own wierdness, although another part can be traced to the WWII food rationing that was in effect when she was a child. A third part can be laid at the feet of her mother making a contest out of Fiorella's preferences. "Try it, you'll like it," she'd say. But Fio knew that if she did, Mother would triumphantly proclaim "I told you so."

Strangely, despite Mother's warning that Fiorella have problems socializing because of her limited palate, no one has ever given her a hard time. And, wonder of wonders, along the way, she's even added a some new things to her diet that Mother herself would never have eaten--like fish. Years ago, when Husband brought a sea trout home from a fishing trip, Fio watched him cook it, got curious, tasted it, and liked it--no contest involved.

When it came to her own kids, Fiorella didn't push, and after they got through some quirky teen-age food fads, all three of them settled down to much better food choices than Fiorella has ever made. And now Fio hears her granddaughter likes tofu.

More power to her!

A Blessed House

Fiorella reporting in--our Christmas day was wonderful.  We were thirteen at the table, which was really the dining table adjoined to a picnic table that Fio and Husband had lugged out of the depths of the garage.  The chairs came from all over the house and were joined by four brought by Brother Bill and his wife. After the gift give-aways and dinner--turkey breasts, ham, salmon, boiled potatoes, corn, mushrooms, pies, pudding--we all set up camp in the den, Fio handed out the stockings, and everyone talked and talked and talked.  And laughed and laughed and laughed.  Some of the guests had to leave as the afternoon wore on so the party moved into the front room, still talking.  And laughing.

Everyone is gone now, but the house is still resonating with vibes of love.

Appetite

A friend of Fiorella's announced that she is going on a sugar-free regimen, which made Fio think about how fortunate we are in this time and place to actually be able to pick and choose what we eat. She remembers reading about a Russian family, self-exiled into the wilds during some political upheaval, that survived on nuts, berries, grass, and small trapped game for three generations.  And one bad winter, the grandmother starved herself to death so the children would have enough food.

We are blessed.

Finally Figured It Out

Fiorella feels thing far too deeply--anger, grief, disappointment--even joy--but knows that expressing these emotions is not socially acceptable. So she swallows everything--everything--and gains weight.

Of course, Fio can only stomach so much, and every now and then, she vomits it all out in an emotional rampage.  The emotions, not the food.  The food stays around.

OMG!  That is the reason she writes too!

Up to Date

Fiorella used to be a news hound, but no more.  Actually, she's bored with daily reports--they're always the same.  Politicians are misbehaving, movie stars are misbehaving, Jennifer Aniston is pregnant, Angelina Jolie is having another body part removed, another Duggar is having another baby, people are killing other people, athletes are being signed for obscene amounts of money, the universe is different than previously thought, food that was bad one day is good the next and vice versa.

So Fio reads the comics and works the anagrams and occasionally the scrabblegrams, then settles down to create her own world, in which everything ends happily.

Tidbits

Fiorella is not interested in food per se.  She does not like to read about it, to talk about it, or to cook it.  She does like to eat it, though.

In re, she refuses to accept the weight that the stupid scales credit her with.  It's just that gravity has a stronger pull on her than on other people.

After all, everyone knows that chocolate calories don't count.

Rebellious Populace

Fiorella read that Americans aren't meeting the daily requirements for  exercise.  And they aren't eating like they should.  And they don't always floss or wear sun screen.   And they don't get regular physical or dental check-ups.  And they don't get enough sleep.  And they do whatever the hell they want to do instead of what they should do.

Let's face it.  The only perfect person is Dr. Oz, but he looks like an animated stick and is from another dimension, the capitol of which is the Emerald City.

Dietary Advice

Beware the tasty porcupine
Short on temper, long on spine
Stick instead to fish or chicken
Floured, fried, and finger lickin'

Flavor of the Week

Every day a new life-style study seems to come out. Eating chocolate extends women's lives by three months. Drinking coffee also adds some extra time. And quaffing red wine staves off dementia, as do fatty fish.

Fiorella's eyes are glazing over. It's like the late 1800s. when everyone and their dog was setting up eating regimens, one of which--Kellog--gave Fio her favorite breakfast cereal, shredded wheat.

But maybe we've got the cart before the horse. Maybe it's that the people who snack on chocolate, drink coffee, and eat fatty fish have more access to health care or were born with hardier genes.

Fio suspects most of these studies are question-answer surveys. She's withholding her endorsement until she sees medical reports explaining why these things work.

Stealth Raid

Muffins, popcorn, and bread--
Wendy has been fed.
In fact, she fed herself
From the pantry shelf
While Fio was abed.
Fie, Wendy! Siggu! Shame!
Fio's mad, and you're to blame.

Respect Food!

Fio is not as out of the loop as you might think. She's heard about Lady Gaga's meat dress, an attention-getting turnabout of dressed meat, and she's appalled. Not because of the stupidity of it, but because of the waste.

Fio objects to food fights and eating contests too. With so many people in the world hungry, even in the United States, food should not be used for anything but what it is--necessary sustenance. God bless our food.

Will Mikey Eat It?

Nutrition is in the eye of the beholder. Every time Fiorella turns around, an old villain has been redeemed and a former hero discredited. Thus red wine is in now, red meat is out.

Philosophies of ingestion have flip-flopped again recently and our daily bread is now being analyzed, evaluated and regulated more even than when Fio was growing up, when conscientious mothers carefully balanced all meals according to the food pyramid of the time. In between, when Fio's children were growing up, the idea was that children, if left to themselves, would balance out their own diets so Fio didn't carp at Daughter's about her all-french fry meals.

It sort of worked. Daughter is now an exercise-and-lettuce health nut, stocky son is still stocky, and skinny son, who Fio thought would never gain an ounce, is scheduled for a gastric by-pass in March.

And, left on her own, Fio has developed a taste for fish, something that never figured in her mother's meal plans. Who knew?

Fiorella's Flawed Appetite

My mother did her best to prepare well-balanced, nutritional meals. Unfortunately, I disliked (1) all cooked vegetables except corn and potatoes, 2) mixtures, (3) anything red. Many an evening I sat at the dining table after everyone else had finished, the string beans having gone cold before I would finally force down my requisite forkful.

"You'll be sorry," Mother admonished me. "Not eating what other people eat will really handicap you."

My children were also strange eaters, but I declined to fight them and, as time went by, they all managed to develop better palates than their mother. I'm glad for them because Mother was right--it's been hard to explain to various hosts that I don't eat (1) any cooked vegetables except corn and potatoes, (2) mixtures, (3) anything red.

Which hasn't prevented me from developing exactly the same roly-poly belly that my mother had.

Got Milk?

I was brought up drinking milk, which I was assured is Nature's most nearly perfect food. It's a family obsession.

My paternal great-grandfather is supposed to have said that the difference between the Poles and the Galitsians is that when a Pole makes money, he buys a showy horse, but when a Galitsian makes money, he buys a cow so the children can have fresh milk. You can pretty well guess which ethnicity my family claimed. In fact, my father's family was so besotted with the nutritional value of milk that it is still the preferred beverage of not only me, but my five paternal cousins.

I remember once when, at age twenty-five, I was taken out to eat by my parents and ordered a Coke to go with my lunch.

"Honey, don't you mean milk?" my father asked, his eyes sad, his voice solemn.

Hastily I explained I'd learned that restaurant milk never made it to the table cold enough for my taste and was sort of forgiven. Sort of.

He needn't have worried. My calcium level is so high that an osteoporosis test reported my bone density is fourteen percent higher than a woman's half my age. No wonder I've never broken a bone.

The Stepford Fruit

I'm always disconcerted to see piles of pumpkins in front of the supermarket when it isn't even October yet. I don't want to buy a pumpkin too early for fear of rot, but I'm afraid to wait till later because all the good ones will be taken.

Or will they? I look more closely. All the pumpkins look good, every single one of them. There are no bad ones--none misshapen or lopsided. In fact, the pumpkins are so uniform that they have no individual character whatsoever.

I go inside the store and look over the strawberries. I've been eating a lot of them this summer, and they've all tasted good, uniformly sweet--every single one of them. Not a sourball in the bunch.

I choose a couple of potatoes to add to my shopping cart and I don't even consider adding an extra one in case one of my picks is rotten inside. I haven't seen a rotten potato in years. They just don't make them any more

What's going on here? Produce shopping is no longer the crapshoot it used to be. Are potatoes being cloned in that mysterious back room with the "employees only" sign on it? Has the genetic engineering of strawberries sneaked past Prince Charles into HEB? Have whole fields of pumpkins been dehydrated, then reconstituted in identical molds?

And if so, would you please do something about the bitter apples I seem be bringing home lately?

Peaches!

Fiorella has left a trail of peach pits all over town. Yes, she has finally scored fresh, gooshy peaches! Bags and bags of them!

Husband craved peaches almost as much as Fio did and neither of them wanted to drive all the way to Fredericksburg so Fio got on the web and charted out the Austin farmers' markets. Surprisingly, there are about five of them, one of them where the old farmers' market used to stand on Burnet Road.

With her heart in her mouth--literally--Fio approached the tables of the lone displaying farmer, actually a farmerette from Mexia. Her family farm apparently produces an abundance of crops, all set out in an attractive display, but especially it produces PEACHES.

After sampling a slice, Husband and Fio bought a $4 bag, which had about fourteen small peaches in it and--get this--they were all ripe and all good! Thrilled, the next day Fiorella returned and bought $12 worth, sixteen peaches of which which she distributed to Hairdresser and Daughter's BF, and the rest she brought home for Husband and herself--well, except for the multitudes she ate in the car driving to and from all these places.

Fiorella is replete. Her summer is complete. And, from all the peach pits she tossed out the window as she scarfed down peach after peach (they ARE biodegradable!), Austin's roadsides with be swathed in peach blossoms for springtimes to come.

P.S. Apparently Fio's back yard will also be swathed in peach blossoms-- Wendy Dog snagged four peaches left on the kitchen counter.

The Fruits of Paradise

Having grown up with three Elbertas in the back yard, I know what a real peach is--a heavenly fruit so soft it bruises to the touch, so juicy that that you have to wear a bib to eat it.

Take it from me, an encounter with a peach should be an experience bordering on religious ecstasy. You don't eat it as much as you sink your mouth into its succulent flesh, let the golden pulp gush all over your face, the amber juice dribble down your chin, and the taste fill your soul.

So what then, you say, are those cold, stone-hard things sold by the supermarkets? Granted, they look like peaches and sometimes they even smell like peaches (a parfum Paris should be so fortunate as to duplicate) , but they taste like cuttle-bone. They are unripe fruit, picked before their time, and putting them on the window sill until they rot doesn't do the trick. If Husband and I didn't live within an afternoon's drive of peach-growing country, our offspring would never have known what a real peach tastes like.

I grant that a peach's prime is about the same as a Mayfly's, but surely we can work this out better. Please--let's allow the little fellers to get a touch of color in their cheeks of tan before we load them in the big trucks with the logos on their sides.