MONDAY MUSINGS: BON APETIT, Ess- EAT

 One thing I used to take for granted was a 'good appetite'. I was one of those kids who was taught to clean their plate. And that was never a problem because I am sure all of you heard the guilt induced story about all those children starving in China. G-d forbid, we could ever waste our food. Yep, we were brainwashed into believing we needed to belong to that 'clean plate club.'  

In the old days, a healthy appetite wasn't a problem and those calories would burn themselves up.  Growing older our metabolism  slows down and we discover it's not really wise to eat those big American servings. In fact, sometimes if I am out to eat, I ask for a take home box before dinner arrives. Then when it does, I cut the meal in half putting it immediately into the to go box. If I don't, I'll polish it off. The indoctrinated clean plate club.

Yet, not everybody has an appetite and it's not just about dieting. There are two important bodies in my life who are not consuming the calories their bodies need. 

One is Balto, my 4 legged companion whose appetite is waning again due to his illness. Doctoring his food hasn't helped the last 2 days.  Finally, last night at 9, he decided to chow down . What a relief even if I would to get up to walk him in the wee early hours of the morning, I was relieved to say the least. 

The other body that needs calories is my Dad's. He uses every excuse in the book of why he can't eat what's on his plate. We try to introduce different caloric foods.

 Yesterday we had some help from a couple of my Mom's friends from her beloved German Club who arranged to bring a home-cooked German meal of sauerbraten ( a tangymeat in sauce), potatoes and red cabbage. My brother and I were invited to partake too. It was delish. Not exactly like our Mom used to make but it was really good. Dad said he couldn't chew up the meat which was btw super tender, and the red cabbage wasn't the sauerkraut he had expected. Go figure, he did eat the potatoes which my brother insisted he wouldn't eat. I even added more gravy on top for those extra calories.

Personally, I heard all those voices of Jewish mothers from  centuries past saying 'Ess, mein kind, ess.' Eat my child, eat... and I did.