For someone so apt to rail against the lotus-eater, The Neilitist can postprandially rub his satisfied belly with the best. Tonight, I made fruit salad of a pineapple ($1.99 at the Aldi’s) and mangoes (89 c. per, I believe). Dressed it with a splash from my five dollar bottle of Midori and some chopped up mint– the first mint seen this spring. Kids asked why I ruined the salad with mint, but they ate it with the mint, so the insult was merely formal. There was a fair amount of juice left-over along with some fruit. I smushed up the fruit real well, added a splash or orange juice, a little brown sugar, some cream and a healthy snort of rum,and a little nutmeg. Hence the contented belly rubbing.

Most things I make which I find delicious, the kids find an abomination. They love to wipe sauces off with a sly napkin, or simply let it loll out of their mouths back onto their plates. Once Mrs. The Neilitist was making a sausage casserole (from a recipe by Paula Dean, bless her heart) and our daughter asked what that smell was because it made her “want to…you know…vomit a little.” I do cut the kids a fair amount of slack knowing that much of what I now make would’ve seriously grossed out my younger self. However, I am wistful now for all the good food the younger, pickier me let go past. I see my tastes in my daughter, who won’t eat a potato if it’s not a chip or a fry. I did not care for mashed potatoes until late in my seventeenth year. I will let the gravity of that statement sink in….

….I drifted off  thinking toward the weekend and what I want to eat. Maybe more mango, a rum sauce, maybe an upside-down cake. And polenta and greens. And some smoked ribs. Okay, now to think of those things and rub my belly and wriggle my toes and let the recliner take its course.

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