Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Food Story Contest

Originally posted on November 11, 2010


So, this woman who runs the Walkable Eastwood page online and who also posts on her own food Blog concerning great places to eat in Syracuse, decided she was going to host a food story writing contest. Sadly, I came in second place but Yay me anyway! hehe So a lot of you know I love to write and many more of you know I have a million horrifying stories about ridiculous things I have done or said. So here is the story I submitted for the food contest . . .judge for yourself . . .

     
As a child I was a complete and utter Daddy's girl. I looked forward to seeing him after school, having him help me with my homework and more than anything, sitting down to dinner with him and the rest of my family at the end of whatever kind of day we had all survived through. My dad might be one of the friendliest and most eloquent people I know, so sitting down to dinner with him was guaranteed to be filled with many boring stories and long narratives about completely irrelevant topics to a 12 year-old girl. You are wondering why I said I loved sitting down to dinner with him, right? Truth be told, as entertaining as he was NOT to me at that point in my life, he was funny! No, he didn't tell jokes or relate humorous anecdotes from his teaching career . . .he would be so distracted by his own chronicles that he would bite his lip, tongue or cheek. Still not so entertaining to a pre-teen. However, it was his reaction that killed me every time. He would completely stop talking, becoming extremely red in the face as the rage built and his fork and knife would inevitably rise into the air only to slam down onto the table with the expletive of "God Damnit!" It sounds scary, but when this happened, he would completely forget what he was saying as someone would start giggling. Inevitably, we all ended up in stitches and he grumbled his way through the rest of dinner.

     This story does not end here and it's important because I treasured those dinners so much. So much that when he became very ill and needed surgery around this same time, we were left with many dinners without him. It was a very stressful time with dad in the hospital and mom trying to be everything for everyone. Suddenly, no one was giggling and everyone became quite curmudgeonly. The whole scenario was at a breaking point one evening when my mom, sister and I decided that dinner out was easier than sadly picking at our food at home. We bickered the entire way from the hospital to The Retreat in Liverpool, right through the process of choosing appetizers. Our Calamari was delivered and I instantly reached for the "round pieces" as there was no way my 12-year old self was touching the "squiggly bits." My sister proceeded to pile an enormous amount of the creepy crawlies that revolted me onto my plate in an effort to pick a fight. I responded by screaming at the top of my lungs . . ."I do not WANT those testicles!" Every single person in that room looked at me, I looked down to the floor and my mom and sister began to giggle. Suddenly, through my embarrassment and utter horror, there was laughter again and I could imagine my dad gloating that it was not at his expense.

THE END

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