Chapter 19

Chapter 19

Food

You know that stuff that grows on plants, trees, swims in water and even walks on 2 and 4 feet?

You might associate food with something called eating, normally done sitting at a table located at home next to the kitchen or places called restaurants, diners and dives.

You even associate foods and flavors with your mom. When you look at a menu you see an idem such as fried chicken and a flavor pops up in your mind of what moms fried chicken or pot roast tastes like and you're either pleasantly surprised if it does taste like moms or happy for a new taste of how different food can taste when done by someone else or severely disappointed when it doesn't even come up to your expectations!

This happens every time you think of food. How did mom do it! Close your eyes and think of your favorite food mom cooked for you or anything cooked by anyone, and I'll bet you can taste it in your mind if not around the edges of your mouth of how mom cooked. Am I correct? Of course I am! I'm a truck driver I know everything!

The past 2 weeks I have been eating everything I can think of! I'm spending stupid money at the truck stops at the buffet looking for food I can taste! The list is getting impressive!


Eggs Corn Baked potato
Sausage String beans Macaroni and cheese
Fried chicken Candied yams Sausage and gravy
Pot roast Apple Cobbler Biscuits
Fish (salmon) Peach Cobbler Rye, wheat and white breads
Roast pork Cherry Tart Salisbury steak
Steak! Cantaloupe Spinach
Carrots boiled Peaches Fried Chicken
Carrots roasted Pears Baked Chicken
Potatoes Watermelon Turkey
Peas Honeydew Dressing (turkey)
Sweet potatoes Soups of all kinds Cole slaw
Chili Beets Hamburger
Milk (both!) Tea Sodas
Pancakes Waffles Candy
Cake Cobblers Pies
Milk Milk shakes

I'm pretty certain that's the complete list, except for the canned crap I've been putting down my feeding tube!

Food!

For you parents who still have small children below the age of 3 who battle the good fight of trying to feed a small child what they need and fail, stop fighting as you will not win! STOP! I completely understand how it was with my children and now I understand how taste works, at least for me!

I was raised out in the rural country west of Atlanta where a good sized garden was almost always growing full of everything you could buy in cans at the grocery store. When food was put in front of me I ate! The rule was, eat or go hungry! I choose to eat and eat it all! The only things I didn't like were whole tomatoes (drove my dad nuts!) and boiled okra! I really wasn't to keen on fish (I LOVED to fish!) and I loved it if it grew up in a shell (no not snails!) Liver and onions, oh, hell, yes! My sisters hated liver and I reveled in the thought of them choking it down as the RULE applied to them to and they liked to eat too! So they ate their little pieces of liver also and I got what they didn't eat! But the best part was the faces they made as that wonderful piece of fried liver went over their lips! To bad we didn't have cell phones back in the 60's! What pictures I could post!

Now, the thing about my taste is with my treatments were they were in the area of just below my eyebrows (the reason I still have eyebrows!) and my collar bone. My taste buds and salvia glands were seriously affected by the radiation and might take months to come back and it's not positive that they'll come completely back at that! I wake up with the worst case of cotton mouth, yep just like smoking pot only worse and it takes a lot of sweet tea to get rid of! I understand I'll have that for the rest of my life but at least there will be a rest of my life!
Taste is so important to what you put in your mouth along with smell and even the way food looks will play a part of your brain deciding if what it sees, smells and tastes will make it past the lips or even down your throat!
It's the same thing with children. My son Jerry had a "touch" test! If it didn't "feel" right there was no way in the world we would get it past his lips! Let the kids learn the tastes and they'll come around! When buying solid food for a baby, buy 1 jar at a time and write down what he ate and didn't!

Me, at this stage after having stopped radiation treatments 1 month ago I'm going crazy! I can smell EVERYTHING being cooked! And that part of my body and brain is working great! It's back to taste where I'm having problems. I can taste for about 5 bites or maybe more and then it goes away and I'm stuck with the decision of to finish what I have on my plate by choking it down or leaving it to be thrown away! I can't stand the idea of throwing away food! My dad would clean out the serving bowls at the table and usually it wound up on my plate to fill those 2 hollow legs I had! From reading this you'd think I was a huge man. Maybe a Santa in the making! Well no, I'm not. When I went into the Army at the ripe old age of 17 I was 5' 8" tall and weighed 130 pounds! I got out 3 years and some months later and weighed the same! I drove my DI crazy as me and 2 other "skinny" recruits were put at the front of the chow lines and made to eat everything on the line! TWICE! My DI got in my face after week 4 and asked where I was hiding my food to dump in the slop barrels when done and that was after him standing over me for a week! I, over the years made it to a size 32 waist in my pants and weighed 155 pounds when I started this dance with cancer! I have to get my weight back to that target but it's a long ways off! It all comes down to calories versus body!

Like I said, I can smell food cooking. I can watch the Food Network and I can imagine that I'm watching mom cook and smell the smells from 40 years ago and I want to lick the TV screen! It smells so real! And when I sit down to my meals now I get my 5, 6 or 7 bites and the taste buds are over loaded and stop working but with that target weight ahead I force it down and hope for a good calorie count which is supplemented with caned crap! 2000 calories a day minimum!

As for tastes, I know you read last chapter about my first taste of fried chicken in about 3 months? OH JOY! Then there was the run in with pork. Snoopy dancing was in order after that! My veggies had taste and even pears and peaches but not so well when eating any fruits made in cobblers! ARRRGGG I love cobblers and pies but for some reason the taste buds covering sweets aren't working yet! Well except for the ones that can taste cherry tart pie. They could taste the tart of the cherry but not the sweet in the tart, but they DO taste sweet tea? Chocolate? Nope, not there (ever wonder how YOUR life would be without chocolate? Try mine!) Now if I drink chocolate milk I taste it then! But don't drink milk with chili. Now everyone knows that if chili or Buffalo wings are to hot (spicy) it helps to cool the heat off but with chili now it really tastes bad! Almost nasty! No, no milk with chili! I can't even taste candies such as peppermint or those pink ones that taste like Pepto Bismo. Candy bars if there are no peanuts in them so I can chew (? LOL) them are still off of my list as it's like wet card board! And bread. Oh, man, bread and butter is like a taste of fresh air along with biscuits and pancakes but DARN, because they are bread products I can't have fun with them either! Bread is still a little rough in my mouth and so off of my can do list for a little longer but I still try! And the syrup wasn't a hit either!

Now, about my trip to Lone Star Steak House last night. Needless to say just pulling into the parking lot with my son Jerry, my mouth started to water as the wind from the chimney was blowing right in my face! We walked in and were seated and here comes the menus. I want it all! Ahh, wait, there's not that much in the wallet so I settled for the salmon, a bowl of chili and the twice baked potato and Jerry had the Cajun Sirloin, fries and a salad.

I started with the bread they put on the table, pumpernickel I believe. A large spread of butter and it was good! I ate a piece and waited not to kill my taste buds before the fish and steak hit the table. The chili cane and it was ok but actually not as good as Wendy's chili! I'm not kidding, I've had 3 bowls from Wendy the past week and their chili actually kept the taste going to the last bite! Just enough Jalapeño peppers to add a bit of life to them! Lone Star needs a little more tomato sauce or dried tomatoes to bring a better flavor out so I don't think I'll order the chili again or the twice baked potato either as I got nothing out of it.

But, the salmon…….. Pure heaven! As my eyes closed and rolled back into my head and the moan of ecstasy escaped from the flood of flavors, Jerry looks at me and goes "Dad! Stop! You look weird!"
It's still hard to explain what I go through when I get a burst of flavor like I do! When the flavor of the first bite subsided I looked across the booth at Jerry's plate and that 12oz steak on his plate and he knew what to do or loose the whole thing! He cuts his dad a nice piece and forks it over to my plate and I look at it for a few seconds just knowing how it was going to taste! I cut a little piece off and in it goes hoping it would be………… at least good. Oh was it ever! All over my mouth and let it set for a few seconds before chewing and it was great! Again, Jerry's telling me to stop as I look funny and when I open my eyes the old couple sitting next to us are watching me, smiling as I guess they over heard me telling the server how to cook for my old toothless mouth!

Last night was better than sex! Thanks to Jeannie who made it possible! Thanks Jeannie XOXO!

Now, that's another story there about Jeannie who was one of my baby sisters best friends all the way back to 1st grade along with Kathi, Vickie, Joy and a few others and they came up with a name for the whole group. That name being "The Nasty Girls"! Don't even ask me as I have NO clue where they came up with that name! But weather at home or in a restaurant they would be the center of attention! And have a grand ole time doing it! I always enjoyed it when I was lucky enough to get back to Lithia Springs for a get together! Even me calling to tell her I would be by would cause a get together! Food with that crowd was never dull and always geared to please the palate! I can close my eyes now and imagine anything any of them cooked how it tasted! And my "new" brother in laws steaks or anything he put in that big green egg of his were delicious!

Food

Turns a kitchen into a party area, or a gathering place where stories and jokes are told as the smells and sounds of food being prepared is rooted deeply in our fabric of life.

Food

Not only needed to nourish the body but to nourish your soul and life with friends and family

Food

Close your eyes and talk to your mother today!