|
|
Side |
|
|
Return to Current IPS Features
|
Over
the 21 years of our marriage, my husband has been pretty good about
not comparing me unfavorably to his mother. Of course, a lot of this has
to do with the fact that though she is a dynamic independent woman of
strong opinions and high intelligence; my hubby's mom isn't what one
could call obsessed with housekeeping and the like. However, the one
picky little point he has let slip time and time again- a problem I have
with meals that continually falls short of dear old Mom- is that I don't
lavish the veggies on my crew. "My
mom," he announced, in the early days of our marriage when we were
eating the tuna fish sandwiches I made for dinner, "always made a
point of serving at LEAST TWO vegetables at EVERY meal. She would have a
GREEN vegetable as well as a YELLOW and/ OR ORANGE vegetable." He's
not making this up. His mom is a nut for the vegetables. Even in the
days before she lived on a farm, as she does now, she would purchase and
cook the aforementioned green and yellow veggies with every meal. It was
a Mecca of health, I tell ya, and frankly, it was way too much to aspire
towards. Besides, a lot of those green veggies can be yucky and when we
were first married it was just the TWO of us. Who was going to eat okra?
Not me, that's for certain, so I called potato chips a vegetable and
told him to get over it and eat his chips.
Deep down inside, though, he still hankers for those veggie filled
meals. And every once in a while, I oblige. Call it a sense of tribute
to his nostalgia; I will go to the store, buy fresh veggies and let the
good times roll.
Except that they don't. Roll, that is, not around this joint. Between my
three sons, only my middle son will eat uncomplainingly. Perhaps it is
being stuck in the middle of two picky brothers; he will fork down even
the scariest vegetable without a word. The other two, however, are a
different tale altogether. Last night was one of my wild hair nights and
I purchased fresh snow peas ($4.98 a pound and I wasn't going to let
them go to waste!) and fresh sweet potatoes and prepared both to be
served with dinner. Luckily for the picky boys, the main course
was London Broil- good old American red meat, so they were happy......
at first. "What
is this?" My youngest held up a snowpea pod like he was holding up
roadkill for disposal. "It's
snowpeas. It's good." My husband, thrilled beyond comprehension at
the appearance of TWO vegetables was in a good mood.
My son gave it a long hard look and proceeded to dissect the pod,
pulling the microscopic peas out of the pod and eating them.
"You are SUPPOSED TO EAT THE POD!" My oldest son, who was in a
huffy mood because we had made him take a sweet potato (he had tried to
sneak out of it by saying, 'no thanks to the sweet potatoes if it just
the same with you, I'd rather pass on them.') was now the enforcer of
his brother's eating.
"Well, if HE doesn't have to eat his snowpeas, then I am not going
to eat my sweet potato." My oldest hates any of the orange colored
vegetables like carrots and squash and sweet potatoes and he saw his
brother's finicky eating as his ticket to a pass on the sweet potato. "BOTH
OF YOU ARE GOING TO EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!" My husband finally
roared. The boys ate their "horrible" veggies with all the
enthusiasm reserved for the most bitter medicine and gagged a little for
effect. "NOW
do you see why I don't bother with the vegetables?" I told my
husband, while my youngest was still retching on snowpeas. He
agreed that it wasn't pleasant forcing young men to do what is healthy,
but, he couldn't help adding, PERHAPS if they were served the vegetables
on a more regular basis they wouldn't be so adverse to them as they were
now. After all, he reminded me, HIS mom served AT LEAST two veggies a
day, and look what a good eater he turned out to be.
|
