Food Fight!

I was an art student when I met my husband in 1979. I was impossibly thin weighing 125 pounds at 5’ 11” tall I worked 8 hours a day and attended university full time. I subsisted primarily on cigarettes and iced tea. I ate one meal a day and considered anything that didn’t require preparation or cooking to be “junk food”. I ate dinner when and if I had time.

I never ate out. I simply could not afford it. I cooked at home: tuna noodle casserole often without tuna, rice with peas and a hint of hamburger. I made a lot of pinto beans with an onion and one strip of bacon for flavor. I could always curb that nagging appetite with another cigarette and glass of iced tea. (I stopped smoking 11 years ago.)

Four years in military service and years as a poor art student did little to develop the gourmand in me. I’m not a foodie. I don’t particularly like to cook. I do like to eat. I’ll eat an old shoe if it’s marinated in enough balsamic vinegar and sautéed in butter with capers and lemon.

My husband, however, loves fast food. I can count on KFC buckets in the trash bin when I return home after a missed dinner. If I have a meeting that leaves my husband on his own for dinner, I know fast food will be involved. The house reeks of onion rings, fries and supersized cholesterol bombs. And who eats those 10 pound bags of chips he brings home from the warehouse market? Somebody does! I don’t!

Ummm I will confess to a weakness for White Castle. I’ve indulged in a bag of chokers from White Castle two times in the past 50 years when in Louisville on business. Bliss and heartburn. I am still burping those onions! Thankfully, there are no White Castle burger places in California.

When neither of us feels like going out for dinner or cooking, the conversation degenerates into a discussion of why I won’t agree to a big ol’ bucket of fried chicken for dinner. I just won’t eat it! No reason: I don’t think it’s good for me. After 30 years, you’d think he’d get the point. I won’t eat that stuff!

I am still 5” 11’ and now weigh 175 pounds. I’ve gained 50 pounds over the past 30 years. These are pounds I needed to gain! I stopped there. I no longer look gaunt and malnourished. After 30 years, my husband still calls me at lunch time to ask what I had for breakfast and to remind me to have something, anything for lunch. I generally hit one of the two, seldom both. And I’ve gained 50 pounds over these 30 years.

I gained 50 pounds and I stopped gaining. If I wasn’t a picky eater, I’d still be a growing boy

So, ummmm… what’s for dinner? Big ol’ bucket of chicken? Here we go again!

As a reminder, please take a minute to visit my website at www.JerryLHanson.com and take a stroll through my artwork. All of it is for sale (except for “Icarus” and “Winter Rain”). Please contact me if you want to buy one of my works or if you have any questions about a specific piece. My contact information is on my website and you can leave a comment on this blog site for me to contact you. You can e-mail me at JeryL@JerryLHanson.com and you can telephone me on my studio phone 760-992-3157: you can call me. I won’t mind).

Thank you for listening,

Jerry L. Hanson