hungry

Croc the Dog: A Hilarious Mealtime Experience

Our mastiff-lab mix came to live with us about seven years ago at the age of three at a svelte ninety pounds. Having no interest in body image or physical fitness once he moved into a childless home, he let himself go and started packing on the pounds. He eventually got up to a a roly-poly one hundred twenty-eight pounds. Though he continued to be proud of himself, we dreaded taking him to the vet. It wasn’t so bad if we got the portly vet, but the slim and trim vet fat dog-shamed us. I’m pretty sure she came close to mentioning our physiques, like dog like dog parent I guess.
we tried cutting back on the amount we fed him, but he begged for food incessantly .

After considerable suffering, I decided to can his food myself: one third each portions of lean meat, vegetables, and brown rice. The weight started to drop off. Over about three months, he’s lost twenty-eight pounds and is allergy-free. He gets a quart every morning and evening

.I thought you might like to see how my big dog Croc feels about his food. You needn’t watch the 4 minute 24 second video to get the idea. For the full experience, turn the sound up. He usually interrupts his meal half-way through to drink about a pint of water, not bothering to close his massive mouth before walking back to his food bowl, wetting four feet of kitchen floor en route. He never wastes a morsel of food, except maybe to get a smear on my white cabinet doors. He’s generally grateful enough after a meal to come kiss me.

Childhood Memories of Food and Family

Bud and I grew up together. He was raised like me, one of five. Like my home, there was plenty of food at mealtime but treats were rare. After school snacks were leftover biscuits, cornbread, or a grizzled flapjack left over from breakfast. Should a bag of cookies or chips miraculously materialize, ravenous kids would fall on it like a hoard of locusts. It brought new meaning to term, “first come, first served!”

Bud’s mom made cookies one evening. He ate all he was allowed before being dispatched to bed. Long after the house quieted, he lay sleepless, those cookies silently beckoning him from the cookie jar. He waited as long as he could stand it before slipping into the dark kitchen surreptitiously opening the cookie jar. Naturally, he was too wily to turn on the lights.

Slipping back into bed, he gobbled his bonanza under the covers. His appetite satiated, he laid back, finally ready for sleep. Moments later, Bud noticed a tingly, ticklish feeling on his hands. Upon investigation, he found them crawling with the remainder of the ants he hadn’t already consumed.

It was the same at the Swain house. I had some dainty little cousins. Their mother constantly worried that they wouldn’t eat. Invariably, Mother embarrassed me by remarking, “My kids eat anything I put in front of them!” Even a blind man could have inferred that by the smacking. It was hazardous to reach for the last piece of chicken. A slow kid might get a fork in the hand.

Anyway, I spent a few days with my non-eating cousin. Still smarting from Mother’s remark, I made up my mind to be a picky eater for the duration. Though it nearly killed me, I turned up my nose at every meal. I even spurned fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy, my favorites.

Aunt Bonnie tested me sorely when she emptied her freezer and offered up the remains of a carton of butter pecan ice cream before she tossing it. Along with her honestly snooty kids, I refused to consider it. I very nearly died of heartbreak as she rinsed the carton with hot water and ran the ice cream down the drain. I fear I would have lost my resolve and eaten out of the garbage if she’d left it in the carton in the outdoor garbage can.

By the time I got home, I was gaunt with hunger, having made a point to be pickier than her miniature children. Finally, my efforts were rewarded. The minute we got home, Aunt Bonnie claimed I was the pickiest eater she’d ever seen. I’d worried her to death!”

I was overjoyed! I rushed into the kitchen and snatched a dried out biscuit off Mother’s stove. I hid under the bed and ate it where Aunt Bonnie wouldn’t see me.

This is me and my cousin. We were about a year apart in age. Of course, I was the big one.

Croc’s Breakfast Adventures: A Morning Routine

Things went Croc’s way for once this morning. For once I slept later than Bud, I normally feed and water the dogs first thing in the morning. It’s written in stone for Croc. I picked up Croc’s dish, filled it and put it in front of him. He gobbled his food, like always, looking at me plaintively like Oliver Twist. “Please Ma’am? Can I have some more?” He got no more.

jLittle dog turned his nose up at his breakfast, like he usually does. When given the word, Croc gobbled it, too.

just then, Bud walked in the living room. “I fed Croc.” He told me.

”Oh no! I did, too!. He was begging when I came through.”

Depriving Bonnie

I love, love, love my sisters-in-law, however, to protect the guilty, in this story, they will remain nameless. I also love to can all kinds of food. Taking advantage of chicken I’d caught on sale, I canned up several quarts of chicken and dumplings, saving back plenty for dinner when Sybil((alias) and her husband were to join us.

At dinner, Sybil told us of her friend Bonnie’s recent accident and broken leg. Concerned for Bonnie, I gave Sybil two quarts of my chicken and dumplings for the unfortunate Bonnie after reminding Sybil to extract a promise to tell Bonnie I had to have my jars back, My generosity does not extend to jars. Like all canners, I am territorial about my precious jars.

Sybil took my jars. A few evenings later, Sybil and her partner in crime found themselves at dinner time with no particular plan. My chicken and dumplings sat innocently on the counter, awaiting their trip to poor, hungry Bonnie. Reasoning Bonnie didn’t need two quarts, hunger overtook them, They put Bonnie’s dinner on to heat for their dinner. Before the dumplings came to a simmer, another sister-in-law showed up hungry, with her starving son in tow. Sybil made them her willing accomplices without a thought for Bonnie.

Needless to say, Bonnie’s dumplings were soon history. The good news is, I did get my jars back.

So, if your name is Bonnie, you broke your leg, and nobody brought you chicken and dumplings, it’s not my fault.

How to Raise Healthy Eaters in 5 Easy Steps

Kids

I am the girl in the second row with the dark sweater.  See how hungry we all look.

Connie and Marilyn's Toddler Pictures

Just look at the spindly legs on these poor, undernourished babies.  They suffered so!

Bill 2

Pictured above is the poor, hungry creature I sat on while I ate the only Twinkie from the day-old bakery box.  I think malnutrition stunted his growth.  He is only six foot four.  He is pictured here with my mother, the woman who deprived us all of delicious goodies.

My mother was a child-rearing genius.  She taught me her fool-proof plan for raising healthy-eaters, though she never sat down to delineate it for me.  She was too busy trying to get dinner on the table.  I’ve done that for all of you.  You are welcome.

  1. There were five of us kids.   Mother’s food budget was minimal.  She put the food on the table, believing no child starved with food available. We ate like pigs in slop because should we we tarry, one of the other pigs got it.  It would be a long, hungry time till the next meal.
  2. Kids don’t eat what isn’t there.  She only bought and served nutritious foods, which we hated, by the way, but not as much as hunger.  Our diet was based on vegetables supplemented by a modicum of chicken.  Mother checked the markdowns and specials first.  Though she bought many dented cans, she inspected them carefully for leakage, swelling, and signs of spoilage.  It must have been a great disappointment, but she never managed to poison any of us.  I often showed up at the table disgusted again to see beans, peas, greens, corn, rice, potatoes, corn, squash, spinach, tomatoes, and a tidbit or no meat on the table, again.  A time or two, I tried turning my nose up at it.  Mother’s response killed that.  “Fine, maybe there will be a little left for supper.  Now start on the dishes while we eat.”
  3. Leftovers were snacks.  That meant, you might get a leftover biscuit, piece of cornbread, or flapjack if you beat the other kids off the bus. You had to be pretty hungry to go for flapjack.  Mother’s flapjacks were disgusting.  Sometimes, if she caught it on special, Mother bought peanut butter and saltines.  We burned through those in a day or two.  We made quick work  Once in a while Mother made popcorn, but that was a family snack to be shared by the whole family while watching “Gunsmoke.”  Remember “Gunsmoke?”
  4.  Dessert was rare, usually reserved for Sunday’s and holidays.  No cake, pie, cookies, lingered long.  On rare blessed weeks, she went by the bread store to pick up a box of day-old bread, pies, cakes, hot dog buns, and various and sundry cast offs.  One of my fondest memories is finding a lone, moldy Twinkie near the bottom of one of those boxes.   I sat on my brother and ate it without chewing.  If by some miracle a goody survived the initial family attack, the last piece had to be saved for Daddy.  God help the misbegotten fool dared go there.
  5. Finally, she shared her pain when company dropped in for the WHOLE weekend polishing off the carefully stewarded foodstuffs that would have barely let her squeak through till payday, anyway.  We needed to know that she would have to kite a check to get some dry beans, flour, shortening, and that a couple of chickens in the barnyard have a date with destiny this week.  It stimulated our flagging appetites!

Sometimes, I’d hear Mother’s friends complaining that their kids were picky eaters.  Once, just once, I’d have loved to hear her defend us saying we were, too, but, no!  Invariably she’d crassly complain, “My kids eat anything I put in front of them!”  She had no pride at all.

Turned Out In The Cold

imageUncle Joe sent word he needed the boys to cut firewood one November day in 1934.  He’d be ready about ten the next morning.  They walked barefoot three miles through the woods, kicking at the fallen leaves, since it was a still a warm day as November often is in Nortwest Louisiana.  Shoes had to be saved for school, but the opportunity to get a day’s work took precedence over school.  They needed whatever Uncle Joe paid, whether it be a little money or food.  Maybe they’d get a meal or some cast off clothes, too. Continue reading →

Swapping Lunches (from Kathleen’s Memoirs of The Great Depression)

velda n melbaI was fascinated with the twins, Velda and Melba Peterson, from a family of eleven kids on a poor farm way down in the low country. Their daddy “drank.” They often came to school beaten and bruised. They carried their lunch in a silver-colored syrup bucket and ate it under a big oak on the Continue reading →