food

Food

My family and I are absolute meat lovers; from poultry, fish, beef, and even an occasional pork diet. Despite the unhealthiness pork might cause there’s no discrimination when it comes to satisfying my family’s appetite. About the time when I was a young boy my mother would do her best to include vegetables in our meals. We hand a small, but very diverse garden in our backyard. They were the healthiest collard greens, bell and hot peppers you would ever notice. These greens would wave like trees in the spring winds that flew across southeast Texas. The green and red bell peppers were in comparison to a traffic light but without the caution.

Once the afternoon arrived, I took that as an early hint that my house was going to start warming up, from the action taking place in the kitchen. I knew instantly that the air would be filled with an aroma that only my mom knew exactly. After the curiosity reached its peek, whatever was in the oven or on the stove would start to take its form. No matter what was being cooked, meatloaf steaks, chili with hot peppers, or catfish my mother would watch over the kitchen like she was the secret service guarding the president of the United States. Meat preparation would always seem to take a long while. I can remember sometimes the smell of chicken being fried stuck on your clothes. Or the smell of bar-b-q roaming down the block just to make its way up my nose. I would ask my friends do you smell that and they would reply strongly, “No,” like I was having dreams or been in the sun too long.

Although I’m a carnivore, and to me meat is essential in my lifestyle, having balance with my meals played a significant role in my development. As you get older one person can see the value eating vegetables and other sources of nutritious foods have. My absolute favorite was greens and others related to it. It was something about those steamy greens that made them almost perfect. What gave them there wonderful smell was the precise amount of pepper and sometimes, for instance, if you were to look into and study that pot of greens you can see little black specs of pepper floating around in the water as they boiled to temperature so hot it would sizzle you skin.