Tag Archives: food

50 shapes of chicken

We were on our way to KFC for dinner, because I’m classy that way and it’s only the best for my family.

I don’t know why I periodically crave KFC. I would guess that the 11th herb or spice must be crack cocaine, except that I don’t think they make a version of crack that you would crave only once or twice a year. Maybe it’s the mind-boggling number of different shapes of chicken you can get in a single store. It certainly isn’t the clear, informative menu posted behind the counter. My dear Colonel, as your friend I must tell you that your menu board has never enlightened anyone about the various manifestations of chicken and chicken-like products you serve. Your front counter is a reservoir of confusion, where customers and cashiers meet to gaze in wonder at the petroglyphs above and ponder their possible meanings.

Anyway, I was driving to KFC to get some spherical chunks of chicken for me and my family when my son called out from the back seat, “Hey look, I found some white trash.”

Okay, just because I have a sudden taste for KFC does not mean you get to call me names.

I glanced over my shoulder. The boy was holding up an old, curled register receipt. It was white and it was very likely trash. I was relieved that he was not, in fact, hurling an insult at me. I reassured myself that KFC was a fine, upstanding establishment and I was perfectly within my rights to enjoy one of its many incarnations of poultry.

At the store, the cashier and I went through the mutually baffling routine known as placing my order. We got most of what I thought I’d ordered, which I counted as a success, and went to eat in the pristine dining room for which all KFCs are famous.

Our dinner conversation settled upon the issue of whether our boys more closely resemble myself or my wife. People tell us one or the other, but we have never been convinced of a strong resemblance between either boy and either parent.

My wife asked our older son to put his face next to mine.

“Why?” he asked.

“Mommy wants to look at us together so she can tell if you look like me,” I explained.

His look communicated that he thought this a preposterous idea. Running his palm over the crown of his head, as if modeling his skull for Men’s Fitness Magazine, he replied, “I have lots of hair right here, so I don’t look like you.”

Ouch.

The kid was on fire, tonight. This one wasn’t a coincidence. This one was targeted shot. Fortunately, I am comfortable with the amount of hair on top of my head – more comfortable than I was with random chicken bits on my plate.

boy and iguana

That’s the crown of the boy’s head in the foreground. The crown of my head is below. Family resemblance? You decide.

Bald comparison

Speaking of birds, apparently I don’t much look like this “Bald” Eagle either. The eagle is at far right – the one with the great hair.

Welcome to the real world; here’s your cheese sandwich

My son sometimes plays a game where he pretends to be a waiter. He calls us Sir and Ma’am and writes down what we would like to eat on his imaginary order pad. We have grown to like the restaurant he works in because they have an expansive menu and can prepare anything we think of ordering.

As the boy grows up, the world becomes less pretend and more real. In this development, something is gained and something is lost. For instance, last night our four-year-old waiter actually served real food. This was a revolutionary step forward, but it played havoc upon his once expansive menu.

“I’m hungry,” my wife said to my son. “Can you get me something to eat?”

“Okay, what would you like?” he replied as he got out his invisible order pad. We expected him to take the order, disappear, and reappear with an equally invisible dish of whatever was ordered.

“Pizza,” my wife decided.

Cheese sandwich

THE COOK: The key is folding the bread right. A delicious sandwich must look as good as it tastes.

The boy hesitated to write it down. “Okay,” he said, “I will make you . . . a cheese sandwich.”

“No pizza?” the dejected mother asked.

“No. A cheese sandwich is the only thing on my menu. So, what would you like? A cheese sandwich . . . or nothing?”

“I guess I’ll have a cheese sandwich. But I only want one slice of bread.”

“Good choice.”

He went to the kitchen. We heard noises of actual food preparation from that direction. “Do you want a kid plate or a grown-up plate?” he yelled to her.

“A kid plate is okay.”

“Good, because I’ve got a red one for you. It’s solid red, okay?”

“Okay.”

Bringing Mommy a sandwich

THE WAITER: Our menu has expanded to include cheese sandwiches served on solid blue kid plates.

He rooted around the kitchen for a few minutes before returning with a beautiful cheese sandwich on a solid red kid plate. The presentation was as good as either of his parents could have done. There was one piece of bread, folded evenly over a few neatly stacked slices of American cheese. There was nothing sloppy about the sandwich.

“Wow! That’s a nice-looking sandwich,” his mother told him. “Look at all that beautiful cheese.”

“You got an extra slice because you’ve been so good today,” he informed her.

The sandwich looked so good that everyone, including the baby, had to have a bite of it. I’m not a huge fan of cheese sandwiches, but that was just about the best bite of anything I’ve ever had.

As we all took a taste, the waiter/cook/restaurant manager explained the shortness of the menu. “I can only make things that don’t go in the oven or on top of the stove, because I could burn myself.” He gave us a serious look. “I mean, I could burn myself really bad.”

So, they no longer have a huge selection of entrees at this restaurant. I don’t care about that. What they do have, they make with great skill and, I dare say, with love. Besides that, the service is excellent.

Got them low-down, no-good, bottle-feeding blues

Both times we’ve had a new baby in our family, my wife has taken pains to prepare me for the first time I would be left to care for him. “Are you ready to handle him all by yourself?” she asked, as if she thought I was afraid of him. I think a lot of mothers believe that Daddy is secretly afraid of the baby. I would be insulted by this condescending attitude, except that they are right.

Toddlers, we’re okay with. By that time, the playing field has been leveled. In fact, fathers are sometimes better suited to meet toddlers on their own mental and emotional levels than mothers are. But when it comes to infants, Mommy has an inherent, secret weapon that Daddy will never have, leaving Daddy feeling a little vulnerable because he has nothing on which he can so confidently rely.

He'll help Daddy manage while Mommy's out - with his polite requests and gentle reminders.

Mommy’s secret weapon is actually a twin-pack of big guns. They are strapped right onto the front of her, and they never seem to fail.

My wife claims that a moment with the nipple will quiet a man of any age from his fussing; my own data supports this conclusion. Our new baby is no exception to the rule. He might be wailing like the sky is falling, but snap him onto a booby for 15 minutes and it’s all sweet dreams. Once he’s taken off, he’ll doze through a quick, satisfied burp, as if to whisper, “Oh yeah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Then, just lay him down and he’s out for hours.

No bottle works like that. Bottle nipples are always too slow or too fast, leaving Daddy with a baby who is frustrated or messy, or both. Also, the milk is the wrong temperature; that’s what you get for mixing drinks with only one hand while an infant screams impatient demands into your ear. Even if the child could find some comfort in the bottle, he is so full of gas by the end of it that he practically has to do calisthenics to air himself out.

Some of the pieces of Daddy's baby-feeding kit. (Including the refrigerator in the background.) Mommy's kit is easier to keep track of, having come fully assembled and ready for use.

So, you’ve just fed the baby and he’s still crying like Armageddon. What else you got up your sleeve, Pops?

I tried swinging him in the car seat first. This was moderately successful for a while, but car seats grow heavy. Swinging them gets boring. Next we sat together in the rocking chair. That was less tiring, and also less effective, than the car seat. In desperation, I even tried putting him into the useless chair. The useless chair is a reclined device that slides back and forth on its base. The motion is supposed to be soothing, but it never calmed Baby #1, and so far it has done nothing for Baby #2. Its record is still unblemished by success.

Frustrated that he had spurned all of my attempts to sway him into contentedness, I gave the baby the finger — the pinky finger of my right hand is the one he usually finds most soothing to suckle. But he closed his mouth tight and shook his head. Even Daddy’s tastiest finger would not do.

Because Daddy has no ace in the hole to settle Baby down, he needs some luck to have a good day with Junior. Luck came to me in the form of my three-year-old son, who reminded me that all of us guys in our family are Bluesmen. How could I have forgotten the semi-secret semi-weapon I had developed during the first go-round? Before a moment could be wasted, we were listening to Luther Allison on the stereo, swaying to the soulful notes from his electric guitar and floating on his gravelly lyrics. In mere minutes, the baby was in dreamland and I was feeling pretty mellow myself. (Watch Luther Allison YouTube clip.)

"We're all Bluesmen here, Daddy. So let's quit with the cryin' and get with the wailin'"

The baby woke up when he was hungry again. By that time, Mommy was home and Daddy had to rush to salvage a half day at work. I couldn’t stick around to watch, but I doubt Mommy had any problems with her hungry baby. I’m sure she just hooked him up to the spigot for half an hour and then had the afternoon to herself.

Killing me softly with yogurt

As a rule, I avoid the ladies (and occasional gentlemen) who hand out samples in the grocery store. My wife likes to see what they have to offer, but I don’t even like to make eye contact with them.

One summer during college, I worked in a grocery store, often behind the bottle return counter. This was before anyone invented machines to take back all those gross, sticky bottles. Instead, they got handed to me. I had to touch every one of them in order to sort them into the proper bins. With that kind of baggage, is it any wonder that I find the idea of eating anything in the grocery store abhorrent?

The days of my youthful exuberance, before working the bottle return counter made me cold and cynical . . . and bald. (My neck is no longer bent under the weight of that hair.)

So, no, I don’t want to try a sample. It’s probably some unholy combination anyway; hence the need to force it upon unwitting passersby. Even if it could defy the odds and appear somewhat appetizing, I have my grocery store demons to keep my teeth clenched together.

I was appalled, therefore, shopping with my son, to find a sample lady beaming at us expectantly from the end of our aisle. This meant I would have to sacrifice another little piece of my soul in declining the generous offer of a kindly stranger.

Worse was the betrayal I felt at realizing that my boy was pulling me toward the trap, eager to see what treats this woman was offering out of her gingerbread house. I hate it when he acts like his mother’s boy and his mother is nowhere near to deal with the consequences.

Overcome with a rare spell of patience, I concluded that it was not right to make the boy carry the burden of my supermarket baggage. I allowed him to lead me to the sample cart, where his instincts were proven to be uncanny. The lady was doling out cups filled with flavored yogurt made especially for kids.

Through what witchcraft this lady wordlessly reeled him to her, I cannot say. I let him taste a sample, but I stayed very near his side. As sweet and gentle as she appeared, she was still a grocery store sample lady.

My son ate the entire sample. He said he liked it. I was skeptical. This boy eating yogurt? It didn’t seem right. I asked him if he were sure he liked it. He nodded. He really liked it. We should buy some for home.

A scientific breakthrough of enormous potential: flavored yogurt developed especially to appeal to kids.

I asked the proud lady where this magical, child-friendly yogurt was to be found. She pointed toward the opposite corner of the store. Excellent. This would give me a chance to remove the boy from her sphere of influence and question him privately about the yogurt. When the truth came out, we could exit the store yogurt-free, and without Yogurt-Mesmer knowing our deception.

She read my duplicitous soul through my eyes. A knowing smile lit her face. “I happen to have one more four-pack right here,” she said, materializing the item from the amorphous folds of her robe. (Robe, apron, what’s the difference?) My son’s eyes grew bright. Mine darkened. Defeated, I took the package and put it into our cart.

Later that day, when my son asked for a snack, I opened one of his cups of yogurt for him. He took the first spoonful willingly enough, but made an unhappy face at tasting it. The second spoonful took more effort. It was the last. “This stuff is disgusting!” the boy declared. He’s never taken another bite of the concoction. He runs away whenever I mention opening another cup of it for him.

Wasted potential: flavored yogurt developed especially to appeal to kids, meet garbage disposal, developed especially to erase evidence of Daddy’s gullibility.

That’s how modern witchcraft works, my friends. No longer does it lure children into candy houses where they are fattened up as dinner entrees. Now it lures them to the sample cart, where Daddy’s money is sucked down the rabbit hole of the retail machine. It’s good to see that even fairy tales are keeping up with the times.