A Brilliant Idea

At the time, it seemed like a brilliant idea. I was packing up for the Golden Old Time Jam and Campout in Boonville, and I was filling up my food tub. If I didn’t bring any goodies, if I didn’t even bring sugar or honey to make up something, then no matter how tempted I was, I wouldn’t eat those things that make one fat. Smugly, I packed cans of beans and olives, tuna fish, corn tortillas and olive oil, and two kinds of cheese. I brought milk and Grape-Nuts and walnuts. Mayonnaise and beer. Seasoned quinoa grains. And a mystery can from the scratch-and-dent cart that I thought might be mandarin oranges.

I arrived Friday at noon, after a long drive. Any time I felt hungry, I just heated up the griddle, threw a tortilla on it and arranged different ingredients from the ice chest on it. Everything was lovely. The fairgrounds filled up with Volkswagon vans, pop-up canopies, tents, and Priuses. As soon as people arrived, they got right down to business- the business of playing Old-Time music. It seemed the only thing that suspended the playing momentarily was when friends would put out the spread and have potluck. I had a few offers, but I was really enjoying my tortillas.

Saturday morning, my daughter Melinda arrived. Like-minded, in both food and music, we enjoyed the day together in perfect harmony. We had a lovely little jam, tucked back behind my truck, until my fingers started to give out and it grew a little chilly. Melinda and I kicked back then, enjoying the night, listening to the music. A few minutes passed. Then I had to say it.

“I want something sweet.”
“So do I,” she said. “Did you bring anything?”
“No.”
“Neither did I.”

We pondered this calamity in silence for a few minutes. We already knew it was no use walking to the little store uptown—we’d tried that for ice earlier and they’d already closed.

“What have you got?” I asked.
“I have some trail mix. It has a few chocolate chips in it.”

Well, that was good news. Chocolate is always good news.

“Is that it?”
“I have some cinnamon too. We could make oatmeal and sprinkle the cinnamon and trail mix over.”

Then I remembered a half jar of home-made applesauce I’d thrown in the ice chest. All together, this sounded like it might work. Desperation can make many solutions sound rational.

“Oh Oh! I have some millet! Let’s use that instead of oatmeal!”
Now, I didn’t really know what millet was; I’d never eaten it. We were unsure of how long to cook it, so we hovered over the little bubbling pot, periodically testing the little round seeds. The first few grains I tasted brought a memory rushing back. I was a little kid again, playing in one of my grandfather’s big parakeet cages. He raised them to sell. We loved to play in the ones that had been emptied to clean because the seeds on the floor came up past our ankles, and we could dig around in them looking for lost parakeet eggs. I loved that grainy aroma. And now I realized it—I was eating bird seed.

Bird seed apparently takes a long time to cook. 10 minutes went by, and my standards were lowering by the second. Finally, although the seeds were still a little hard, we decided they were done enough and made our desserts. Melinda stirred in the cinnamon, we spooned it into Dixie cups and topped it with trail mix and applesauce. We crunched without speaking for a few minutes.

“With the applesauce, it’s sort of like apple pie,” she bravely said.
“Mmm. Sort of. I guess.”

Each of the 3 chocolate chips in my portion was a bright star in the middle of my harvest cup. It looked like something a schoolchild would make for a “Christmas Present for the Birds.” I ate until all that was left in the cup was millet. At least I didn’t crave anything sweet anymore.

Next morning, buying ice at the little market, we noticed the fudge display. We stopped. In an out-of-body experience, I heard myself ordering a quarter pound of chocolate praline fudge. I decided it was fate when the clerk misunderstood and boxed us up a half pound. It was delicious and probably the only thing that could have settled the bird seed.

The Adventure is the Whole Problem

The Problem to what? you may ask. Well, that nasty problem of being overweight and eating all the wrong things for a healthy body.

It's easy to ruminate on these things, as I sit here regretting the second piece of birthday cake and ice cream. 2 layer German Chocolate (homemade icing with extra pecans) cake and Double Cookie Dough Ice Cream. Ok, so the pecans were healthful. Uhh, there were a few eggs in the cake. Oh yes, I drank green tea with it! Anti-oxidents and all. It was great fun making the cake, and yes, it was delicious.

What if food were boring? We would all just eat what we needed. It would be a task we needed to do to live. I'm sure we could still find pleasure in eating. Just look at a dog tearing into his kibbles. Kibbles for breakfast, kibbles for lunch, kibbles for dinner. And still it's, "Wow! Look! Kibbles!" What would people kibbles be like?

I'm thinking sort of a trail mix, but in biscuits. Into the hopper would tumble veggies, protein, fiber, a little fat, and little round hard cakes would pour out into a sack. A machine would sew across the top, and the pallet of bags would end up at the little grocery store, which would also sell beer and ice. No more agonizing about what's for dinner. No more "Just one more piece for my mouth." No more dishes to wash. There's something slyly tempting about the whole idea. But...

I think I would end up doing things like, "I wonder what a kibble would taste like deep-fried?" And we are back again to the adventure. So I guess I'll just have to attempt self-control while continuing to hunt up new gastronomical pleasures.