Squashed

My plan for the New Year was to introduce a wholesome influence into the family’s diet, but it’s impossible to provide healthy meals when one child thinks eating tofu is a Fear Factor challenge and another child only eats food that is covered in pizza sauce or stays crunchy even in milk. They rejected whole wheat bread like it was liver loaf, and the time I bought skim milk at the grocery store, I got voted off the kitchen island. Cooking healthy meals for the family shouldn’t be like an episode from Survivor: Spinach Casserole.

My kids are convinced that broiled chicken is a bird that stayed in the farmyard without SPF 30 and died from exposure. Their idea of fine dining is to supersize their fries. I can’t imagine where they got this attitude. Sure, I believe the road to down below is paved with exercise videos and sugar substitute, but that’s just geographical fact. I haven’t eaten a dessert in six months that wasn’t presorted into 100 calories packages.

“What’s for supper?” Son One strolled into the kitchen licking the icing off a cinnamon bun and tearing open the paper on a candy bar so sticky it looked like it was made of library paste. This kid’s idea of healthy eating is frosting a salad with honey-mustard dressing.

“I thought we’d combine two of your favorite food groups for something new.”

“We’re having Italian and Mexican? Cool!”

“Those aren’t food groups. They’re nationalities. We’re going to have a healthy meal.”

“Did somebody give you a bushel of cast off zucchini again?” Zucchini is the stray cat of the vegetable world. It always shows up on my doorstep at dinnertime.

“You’re so suspicious,” I said, nonchalantly raking chopped zucchini into the dog’s bowl. “I thought I’d make that baked chicken they had at church.”

“You mean Death Chicken? Count me out.” He peered into the freezer and extracted a pizza that had been in limbo so long the pepperoni was petrified and the cheese came in crystals instead of shreds.

“It’s not really death chicken. We just call it that because it’s so easy to make that a lot of times we’ll take it to someone who’s had a death in the family.”

“Yeah. Ever wonder what they died from?”

“Probably from eating zombie food that was in the freezer so long all the vitamins turned to dust.” I managed to sneak a few small zucchini out of the bag under cover of the answering snort.

He peeled off the wrapper and shoveled a layer of ice from the crust. My kids think perma frost is a basic building block of the food pyramid. “What do I set the oven on for undead?”

“Very funny. It wouldn’t hurt you to try something that’s good for you.” Just then the dog wandered through the kitchen to check his dish for food molecules left over from breakfast. He picked up a zucchini slice, chewed thoughtfully for a moment, then looked at me reproachfully and spit it out on the floor.

“See, even Bo hates vegetables.” Son One plopped the pizza down on the oven rack. It sounded like he’d launched a hubcap at the dumpster.

I put my hands on my hips. It was time for decisive action. “From now on we’re watching what we eat.”

“You’ll need to spring for something with a wide angle lens,” Son One mumbled, scraping up a shred of zombie cheese off the counter with a fingernail.

“I’ll start by cleaning out the refrigerator. We’re going to throw away everything that’s bad for us.” I held up a pack of withered bologna. To me, lunch meat is the gastronomic equivalent of an Elvis painting on velvet. Everyone thinks it will gain in value the longer they save it and their children end up using it as a gag gift at a holiday party and complaining about their inheritance.

Next came a cheese product that had so many additives it no longer qualified for any of the food groups. When I finished cleaning out the refrigerator, all that was left was a mushy, brown stalk of celery left over from Thanksgiving and a frozen diet dinner left over from the healthy eating binge I launched after the baby was born.

Just then the baby trotted through the kitchen jingling his car keys, and clutching a breakfast pastry made of simulated cookie dough and synthetic chocolate frosting. Eighteen years after his first bowl of sugar frosted cocoa bombs, artificial flavoring is still his favorite food group.

“I’m late for class. What’s for supper tonight?”

I smiled sweetly and chopped the remaining squash into miniscule green bits.

“Not zucchini.”

“Good. Last time I slipped mine to the dog. He had indigestion for a week.”

So I’ll cover it with fat free cheese. They’ll never recognize it.

Food Fight

My previous husband, the Man Who Salts Everything, was basic in his tastes. He wouldn’t touch tuna with a ten-foot fishing pole and industrial strength test line. He liked beef, well-done, with a side order of sodium. His ideal woman was Lot’s wife.

This particular husband, The Defendant, didn’t believe in frills such as spaghetti sauce, salad dressing, or any vegetable that didn’t get stuck in your teeth. Through a careful catch and release program, I attempted to educate his palette. We eventually settled on two vegetables, corn and broccoli, two fruits, apples and bananas, and any red meat, provided the red was banished in flames hot enough to give the sun a smart case of prickly heat. This kind of selection makes it hard to get your money’s worth in a buffet restaurant. Unless they had sirloin on tap, we lost money. Over the course of our thirteen years, I managed to introduce a few delicacies. He has a finer appreciation of Oscar Meyer as a result of our years together.

By comparison I will eat anything that doesn’t require a greater output of energy to prepare than it takes to consume. Therefore, it never occurred to me that I would have children with food issues. That sort of thing happens to other people, loners or postal workers with a grudge. But it happened to me, so it could happen to anyone who is careless with entrees that come in boxes festooned with the words “Ready in Minutes!” or “Turn Your Meat Into a Meal!” I'm a sadder but wiser girl. Exclamation points should not constitute a major component of the food pyramid.

Son One will eat any food item that does not come into physical contact with another food item during growth, processing, or preparation. Except for beans. Beans are unacceptable for consumption at any time. If he were in a comatose state heading toward the light and I touched a bean to his lips, he would return to the Land of the Leftovers long enough to call emergency services and report me for abuse. Most other food is satisfactory, excepting, of course, the standard internal organs, as long as no other food compromises its integrity by intersecting its boundaries. Once the corn touches the potatoes, you may as well call the dog in to lick the plates, because supper is over. Son One’s favorite food group is any carbohydrate that is available in bulk quantities.

Son Two eats only attractive food. Grill marks and stray condiments are unacceptable. Any crust-bearing foods, cheese varieties that are unwelcome at the pizza buffet, or items swathed in juices recycled for extended durations in a crock pot are unacceptable at mealtime. Vegetables, while handy for use in slingshot weaponry, are not welcome offerings, except for the fluffy treetop parts of the broccoli which may be served in alternating months that contain an R. Son Two has grown to teenagerhood on sweetened cereal, cheese pizza, and filet mignon that drips blood like an open wound. Artificial flavoring is his favorite food group.

The latest Surgeon General reports stress that family bonds grow as a result of mealtimes spent together. Odds are the Surgeon General never had to cut the crust off the biscuits while making sure the gravy didn’t create an alternate route through the potatoes. Frankly, that’s more bondage than I can stand.

Watertight

It’s not that I don’t get embarrassed. There’s a name for the special shade of red I turned when my youngest son jumped the communion rail at church. But after years of doling out sermons on the subject, I’ve done the unthinkable, and I have the decency to feel a bit bashful about my lapse.

But since I’m 48 years old, I feel that I have earned the privilege to balance my walker on the wild side. So when I was wheeling my buggy down the aisle of the local Super Duper Market, I grabbed a bottle of water that was on sale.

That’s right. I paid for water. If Jennifer Aniston can do it, so can I. We have a lot in common, after all. She shaves one leg at a time just like I do. Except that she can afford laser removal and will probably stay silky smooth all her life, and I’m at the age when random hairs shoot out of various body parts with alarming frequency, requiring a doctor wielding lasers like Jesse James with a pair of six shooters to keep up.

Later, as Bill and I unloaded the groceries together, a little bonding exercise I like to call Marital Freezer Burn, hubby dear took the opportunity to lighten the mood with witty commentary. I kept busy trying to hide the bottled water beneath the Brussels sprouts. He’s a good sport, but he’s listened to so many speeches about money wasted on water over the years, the man is afraid to throw a penny in a wishing well.

“You got liver.” He made accompanying facial gestures that either indicated disapproval or suggested he had his boxers on backwards.

“It’s good for you.”

“I don’t eat internal organs.”

“Oh, it’s not to eat. It’s for a possible donor situation.”

“Very funny. What’re you hiding under the vegetables?”

“I’m not hiding anything. There are no secrets in our marriage.”

“What about the Johnny Depp poster you’ve got stashed in your women’s magazine?”

Drat. I planned an undercover Depp relocation for later that evening. “That doesn’t count. Besides, you’ve got Penelope Cruz stuck in that National Geographic in the bathroom.” I started edging down the hall with the grocery bag.

“What’s in the bag? Did you get saturated fat?”

“Yes. I’ll show it to you later.” I gave him what I hoped was a come hither look. “After the kids are in bed.”

“Did you drop your contact in the cat food again? You’re making that scrunchy face.”

I sighed. The hall was inches away. Trying not to draw attention to the grocery bag, I turned to saunter nonchalantly away.

“So. Is it a member of the crunchy fried family?”

“Ummm, I’d say it’s more smooth.”

“So it’s not pork rinds? You never get me anything I like.”

“Last week I let you have turkey bacon.”

“I’ll alert the media.”

“I’m looking out for your health.”

Sensing junk food on the horizon, the kids appeared from their room, the land where video games go to die. Hearing the rattle of bags in the kitchen, the dogs rushed past the boys to get their shopping day surprise, knocking the bag holding my clandestine purchase out of my hand and sending the bottle of storebought water rolling across the floor.

“What’s this?” (Why is it that gleefulness can sometimes be more irritating than being swerved Scampi with shells still on the shrimp?) “You’re cheating on the grocery budget with. . .SmartWater?” He was happier than a Collie in a cow pasture with all day free to roll.

I had the decency to harbor a bit of embarrassment. “Okay, I’ve been drinking SmartWater. But so far, it hasn’t helped.”