TWINKIES ARE NOT A VEGETABLE

I don’t remember how we got on the subject of vegetables, but the other day my friend, Barbara said, “I like all vegetables except rutabaga.” “Is rutabaga a vegetable?” I asked. “Not in my house, it isn’t.” she replied. Of course, Barbara is from Wisconsin, and everyone knows that the favorite vegetable in Wisconsin is cheese.

Recently, scientists at Cornell and Brigham Young universities have discovered that school children will eat their school lunch veggies if you pay them to do so. They found that providing a reward increases vegetable eating by 80%. For a long time “incentives” have been used with children to improve reading habits or manage behavior, but is it really okay to bribe a kid to munch on a carrot?  What ever happened to, “It’s in front of you. Eat it!”

Sometimes the definition of “vegetable” is confusing. For instance, a tomato is a fruit that is called, “vegetable.” In the mid-1980s, after Congress cut one-billion-dollars from the Child Nutrition Program, the USDA came up with the brilliant idea of labeling Ketchup as a vegetable. Of course, they thought no one would remember that tomatoes are a fruit. Only a kid who puts green beans up his nose to entertain his friends would want tomato concentrate on his Fruit Loops.

Onions make me cry. I have never cried peeling an apple---unless I cut myself---then I cry. My father-in-law told my mother-in-law (who was a gourmet cook) that he didn’t want her to cook any dish that required onions. I asked her, “How can you make all those delicious dinners without using onions?” “Easy!” she replied. “I tell him that it’s celery.”

The only vegetable my mother liked was iceberg lettuce. She would take a cleaver, whack the head into 4 wedges, and smother the chunks with Thousand Island dressing. Then she would command, “Eat!” That cleaver was my “incentive.”

President George H.W. Bush raised a ruckus with farmers and the produce industry when he said, “I do not like broccoli, and I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And, now that I’m President of the United States, I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!”

Often people will not like vegetables because of how they are prepared. On the East Coast, people enjoy their veggies blanched (barely cooked). They call them,
“Tender-crisp.” Southerners will bare a shotgun, send those vegetables right back to the kitchen, and yell, “ Cook my greens until I can suck ‘em through my teeth!”

I have several friends who are vegetarians. They have taught me that lamb chops are not vegetables. Since I like these people, I try to accommodate their dietary preferences and have prepared many vegetarian dishes. While looking for vegetarian recipes, I came across a good suggestion by Jim Davis who recommended that, “Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin pie.”

Also, since herbs in the strictest sense are vegetables (plant kingdom), I have discovered that chamomile tea (a plant of the daisy family) tastes, “Oh, so good” when prepared with a dollop of honey and a shot of whiskey (a vegetable made out of grain).  Works for me!

Esther Blumenfeld (“Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?”) Anonymous

GO FISH

Fishing is a sport that no one in my family or my husband’s family ever attempted. Well, that’s not entirely true. When my husband, Warren was in college, the story goes that he was asked to carry a case of beer for a fishing trip. But, when he jumped into the rowboat, it sank. A young woman screamed, “I can’t swim!” So Warren suggested that she stand up, since they were still at shore. Heroically, having his priority straight, he fished the beer out of the water, and was the only one to catch anything on the whole trip.

When our son, Josh was 4-years-old, we visited with our in-laws in Florida. They lived in a sub-division that was crisscrossed with water canals. Rumor had it that these canals were stocked with fish. Why else would people find alligators in their backyards? Of course, Josh’s grandpa Chuck could never say, “No!” to his favorite and only grandchild. So when Josh said, “Let’s go fish,” grandpa rigged a fishing pole out of rope and a broom handle. For bait, he used kosher salami. I didn’t know if alligators ate kosher salami, but found out that ducks love the stuff. Surrounded, by fowl, Josh, yelled, “You’re not fish!” tossed the fishing pole into the water and ran home as fast as his little legs could take him.

Dave Berry said, “Fishing is boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it’s disgusting.”

I’ve gone fishing a couple of times in my life, and found that sitting around doing nothing on a sunny day, on the bank of a river, is just as good as sitting around the house. Of course, Steven Wright reminds us: ”There’s a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.”

I think there’s a certain romance in fishing, except no one ever told that to the fish, and drowning innocent worms seems not so nice. Fishing is a little like golf, except it’s only acceptable to hit a fish with a club if you are out in the middle of the ocean, and no one can see you.

If I remember the theory of evolution correctly, creatures came out of the sea and acclimated to dry land. Had man paid attention, we could have learned some lessons from this experience. Fish don’t have any problems until they open their mouths.

Eating fish can be a dangerous experience. The Japanese have a delicacy called “Fugu.” (poisonous Pufferfish). It is very expensive and can be more deadly than cyanide if not prepared correctly. I don’t know how it tastes because I’m not partial to cyanide, but Fugu appears on more than 80 menus in Japan. The chef has to be a licensed Fugu cook. I don’t know if you have to sign a release before eating the dish, but if it isn’t prepared correctly, your lips swell and you die before you can send it back to the kitchen.

On a happier note, I thought I’d give Josh a chance to redeem himself after the salami escapade. This is what he said: “The last time I went fishing was with a neighbor in New York City. We went out in Sheepshead Bay near Coney Island. I think I actually caught a sheep’s head. It was on a party barge, without the party. You could keep what you caught, including any diseases inhabiting the fish. Going fishing in New York City is kind of like owning a Porche convertible in Alaska---it’s possible, but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

Esther Blumenfeld (angling for a Carp-e diem.)

WANTED A PUPPY. GOT A BROTHER

“The highlight of my childhood was making my brother laugh so hard that food came out of his nose.” Garrison Keillor

I was nine years old when my brother, David was born. My father called and said, “You have a baby brother.” “Hooray!” I shouted into the phone. “Is he a boy or a girl?”

Now, some eighty years later, as I look across my kitchen table, I remember the boy, but see the man whose funny quips and gentle laughter remind me so much of our father. David is no longer the little boy who slid down the banister, jumped on top of piano, stomped on the keys---on his way down to terra firma--- bounced off the piano bench, and then ran like Hell to get away from our grandfather, the pianist.

His musical explorations continued when he fell in love with the big bass drum, and joined the band in grade school. The school couldn’t afford summer uniforms, so at the 4th of July parade, he sweated in his woolen uniform, valiantly banging on that enormous drum, while marching behind two flatulent horses.

Although my teenaged girlfriends swore that his first name was “Get out of here, David,” I acclimated to his mischief and mayhem. Most of his pranks were harmless, such as when he “borrowed” my lipstick to make himself up as a clown for Halloween, but I thought there was a limit to this sharing stuff when he gave me his chickenpox.

Most of his mischief was harmless except when he and his larcenous friend, Chuckie ran away from home, ended up on a farm and asked the farmer if they could “borrow a horse.” I want to think that Chuckie was the mastermind when they broke into our grandmother’s apartment, and ate all of the goodies in her refrigerator. David claimed that it was to teach her not to leave her window open when she was gone, because “burglars could get in.”

When he became a teenager, I was convinced that he would never be a successful criminal, because when he sneaked a smoke in the bathroom, he left a window open---just where Mother was tending her garden. Busted!

He grew tall and strong as he lifted weights in his bedroom. To this day, I don’t know how the weights left those deep indentations in his bedroom ceiling.

When he joined the Peace Corps in the 1960s, he was sent to a primitive area of Micronesia for two long years. The letters and audiotapes sustained us, but we knew his homecoming was overdue when a coconut fell on his head, and then he wrote, “I am looking forward to reading the Sears Catalog.”

I don’t know when my little brother became my big brother, but it happened. To the outside world, we have changed, but with our memories, stories and shared laughter we reach beyond the touch of time.

Once, when I was angry with my brother, I yelled at my mother, “You should only have had one child!” I didn’t mean it, but she considered it, and I’m sure if she had taken my advice, I would not be here to tell this tale. Once a Prince always a Prince!

Esther Blumenfeld “Big sisters are the crab grass in the lawn of life.” Charles M. Schulz

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

At one point in my life, I earned certification from the Atlanta Jewish Board of Education as a teacher of Social Ethics. For all of my efforts, I was awarded a lovely certificate and a not so lovely class of 15-year-old students. Soon, I decided that the best way to grab the attention of boys who would rather be playing baseball, and girls who’d rather be polishing their fingernails, was to
role-play.

For my first lesson, I didn’t need many props---a walking cane, some cotton balls, pebbles, gloves and a pair of reading glasses lightly coated with Vaseline. The student, whom I volunteered to become old in an instant, put cotton in her ears, pebbles in her shoes, the glasses on her nose and the gloves on her hands. Yes, and after all that---she needed the cane.

I instructed another student to play the role of a bank teller, and gave her a form for her “elderly customer” to fill out. I also instructed her to speak softly and rapidly. Rapid is easy for teenagers. Then I asked three other students to get in line behind the “old lady.” One was a man late for work, another was a mother who needed to pick up her children at school, and the third was a fellow on his way to meet his girlfriend. I do not need to describe the rest of the exercise, but the reaction of the class was illuminating.

The conversation went something like this: “Getting old is hard.”  “It doesn’t have to be. My grandparents wear hearing aids and Grandma walks with a cane, but they just took a cruise to Japan and brought me a Samurai Sword.” I don’t know what the sword had to do with the conversation, but sometimes it’s hard to keep kids on track. One girl said, “I’d rather die than get old.” A chorus of “That’s stupid!” followed with glowing personal stories about their grandparents. But then the gadfly said, “Yes, but what if you get really sick when you are old?” Whereupon, I said, “What if you get really sick when you’re young?”

Then I asked, “So, what’s the worst thing about getting old?” Silence was followed by an illuminating comment from the back of the room. “The worst thing about getting old is when people treat you as if you are invisible—like you don’t matter anymore.” And, then the bell rang. Those students are now dealing with their own aging parents, and I often wonder if they remember the lesson.

P.G. Woodhouse said, “There is only one cure for grey hair. A Frenchman invented it. It is called the guillotine.”  I must admit that as I age, I sometimes fight the perception that I am becoming invisible, but then I remember that there is my inner essence and that belongs to me. If people show a glimmer of interest, I may or may not choose to share it with them.

One morning, I was alone, sitting at the top of a mountain, watching the sunrise. I thought, “In this big universe, do I really matter?” Then I heard a loud sneeze. It bounced from mountain to mountain. “Oh, nuts!” I thought, “Moses got a burning bush, and God sent me a sneeze.  Then I spied a hiker, and realized I wasn’t alone on the path.

My friend, Carol, a recorder of oral histories was commissioned to interview residents in nursing home, and then their stories were framed and hung outside of their rooms. The purpose of the exercise was that the elderly should not be pre-judged as “just old folks,” but as people who had made something of value with their lives. It was a brilliant exercise to battle prejudice—which comes from pre-judgment. It reminded everyone who entered a room that, “I’m not who I was, but that doesn’t mean that I am nobody.”

The hard thing about growing old is to accept the stupid remarks that come from the most unwelcome sources. A person is only invisible to those who don’t want to see them.  Margaret Atwood said it best; ”I’m not senile. If I burn down the house it will be on purpose.”

Esther Blumenfeld (“The sky is filled with stars invisible by day.”) Henry Wadsworth Longfello

DREAM ON

Many years ago, when I graduated from the University of Michigan, I was informed that I had an over-abundance of credits in philosophy, psychology and English. Because of University policy, I could only claim two of those areas of study as “minors”. I can’t remember which two I selected. However, I do remember immersing myself in the works of Sigmund Freud, and discovering early on that the good doctor had provided himself escape hatches to some of his theories involving dreams.

I remember clearly that he wrote, “All dreams are wish fulfillment, attempts of the unconscious to resolve a conflict of some sort---something recent or from the past.” Then he covered his butt by discussing dreams that “do not appear to be wish fulfillment.” Whew!

When I worked full-time as a deadline writer, my friend Nancy, who was an artist used to call me and describe her dreams. They appeared to her in vivid colors, and then she would translate them to canvas. I kept my mouth shut during these glowing descriptions, because my dreams consisted of words running across a piece of paper, and they were in black and white. All night long, I dreamed words and more words. I never knew if the occasional “cha-ching” was the paper moving through my dream machine, or my husband’s snoring. A few times, I woke up and scribbled something on a piece of paper in the dark, but it never made any sense in the morning since I couldn’t read what I had written.

One of the most famous dream stories is the one about Jacob, who put a stone under his head, fell asleep and dreamed of angels running up and down a golden ladder. If I had put a stone under my head, I’m sure I wouldn’t have such a dazzling dream, but rather I would have awakened with a headache and a very stiff neck.

In his early works, Freud would have found a sexual connotation to Jacob’s dream, but in his Interpretation of Dreams (Fifth edition, 1919, Chapter 6, Section E) Freud said that he never claimed that all dreams require sexual interpretation. At some point he even said, “Even a cigar may be just a cigar.” Rest easy, Jacob!

So, why all of this talk about dreams? It’s because for the first time in my life, I had a colorful geometric dream, and this is a big deal for someone who almost flunked geometry. I dreamed of a solid, golden sculpture made of squares, triangles and rectangles---gleaming in the distant sunlight. I woke up feeling good.

My first impulse was to call my broker to advise him to invest in gold bricks, but I thought better of that. Don’t know why I dreamed it, or why I remember it, but I suspect that my dream was more Tiffany than Freud.

Nightmares are a different kind of dream. When my nephew was a very little boy, he had a bad dream about monsters in his closet. I told him that I would stuff them into my suitcase and take them home with me. Now that he is an avant-garde artist in New York, I guess I should ask him if he wants them back.

Actors have nightmares about forgetting their lines on stage. With some plays, that might not be such a bad thing. I often have nightmares about my computer, and I’m not even asleep. The best dreams are those that when you wake up and have to think, “Did that really happen?”

Joseph, a prisoner in Pharaoh’s hoosegow had the best political dream. He dreamed about 7 fat cows that were eaten by 7 lean cows, and 7 fat ears of grain eaten by 7 lean ones. Joseph got out of prison when he predicted that a famine was coming. Pharaoh put enough grain aside to save his people and Joseph became something like Vice President of Egypt.
 
And, I learned that grain has ears.

Esther Blumenfeld (Sleep tight, but first check the mattress for bedbugs)