A new thing to eat!

Just what I need.  I love food.  I’m not a picky eater, but I’m a bit of a snot about food.  Yes, I occasionally eat some garbage, like Krystal and The Varsity.  Each, MAYBE twice a year.

There isn’t much I don’t like.  I hate bananas with a passion.  Anchovies/sardines/caviar.  Yuck/yuck/yuck.

Certain things I choose not to eat.  Like babies.  Veal and lamb, to be specific. 

No processed, packaged stuff.  No “Helpers”  Geeze.  If you need help figuring out what to do with hamburger, you are beyond help.

“Suddenly Anything”   Again, if you can’t make a simple pasta salad without a sack ‘o chemicals, I got nothing for ya.

I told you.  I’m a food snot.

Not because I’m a health nut or anything like that.  I’m a country girl.  Plus I’m old.

Growing up, if we ate anything “canned” or “frozen” it was because we grew it and couldn’t eat it all fresh, so Mama either canned it or froze it.  No solutions or stuff to “retard spoilage” bla bla bla.

It was clean and pure and delicious.  Ditto the fish we caught from our lake.  And the bullfrogs we gigged.

The cows and pigs we raised and sent off to slaughter.  Which came back in neatly wrapped packages.  Gross when I think about it now.

No growth hormones.  We were in no hurry.

As long as I have been alive, I would try any new food.  Especially when I was little and didn’t even know if I was being offered monkey brains.  My mother would smile sweetly and offer me a bite.  Or a pickled pig foot.

For the record, we never ate monkey brains.  And my mother was loathe to share her pigs’ feet.

But she always called me her “good little eater”  And I still am.

I still refuse to eat pony.

Or puppy

Like I said, I’ve never been “picky”

Just selective.

Back around 1983/4, I  suppose, when I moved here.   After fleeing the marriage from hell, I reconnected with a friend who just happened to live across the street.  Her name was Deanne Pilgreen (of the East Point, GA steak family).  Deanne was a gifted writer and renowned drunk.  With a heart as big as Texas.  Deanne knew she was a drunk and made no apologies.

I met her as a friend of a friend and reconnect as a friend of a different friend.  During this dreary period of my life, Deanne was a godsend.  She told it like it was, as only a drunk can do.

She called me “Little Bunny Rabbit”  I have no idea why, but it always made me feel safe and warm.

Anyway, one dreary evening, I went across the street to visit with Deanne.  She was drunk (duh) and began to tell me about some new liqueur she had never tasted that someone had introduced her to.  Deanne told me how delicious it was and then said “Like I need a new thing to drink” and followed it with the most delightful throaty laugh you could imagine.

I laughed as well, and then proceeded to tell her my latest romantic woes with friend of friend of friend.

“Oh, little bunny rabbit.  That is the wrong man for you.  Yes, I know it is exciting and filled with thrills.  But that man is bad for you.  Here.  Have some soup.”

Well, this soup was so fucking good, I can’t even tell you.  Lots of all kinds of beans and meat so tender!!

DEANNE!  This soup is delicious.  And the MEAT!  OMG!  What is it???

“Oh, little bunny rabbit, it’s Spam.”  It might as well have been monkey brains.

Gotta go Deanne.  She packed me up a jar of Spam soup to go.  Yippee!!

So when I find a new thing to eat, I paraphrase Deanne.  I don’t need a NEW THING TO EAT.

I wonder if she’s still alive…