Happy New Year to all!

My mother is, on a good day in her imagination, 5 feet tall and 80 lbs soaking wet while carrying 10-pound dumbbells in each hand. But at no point during the day is she not thinking about food. It is amazing. In her world, there are only three times of day. There is talking about food time, eating time, and talking about what we ate time.

As Sue told you we went for a drive to Deerfield Beach.  It is about a 20-minute drive (and 20 minutes to park) away from her condo.  We drove over, walked along the beach for about a mile, and then I drove home.  About 5 minutes away from the condo, I mentioned that I was hungry. (It was about 1 p.m.) My mother immediately said, “We should pull over and get something to eat.” I said that I would wait to we got home. My mother leaned forward from the back seat and said to Sue, “Be ready to grab the wheel if he faints from hunger.” Good news is that I made it home without fainting. Whew.

The other food-related challenge is that there appear to be only 8 hours between the start breakfast (around 9:30 a.m.) and the start of dinner (5:30 p.m.). So in order to get three full meals in AND still save time for cocktail hour (with cheese and crackers, nuts etc.) you need to be very careful about timing. As I mentioned above, the day we went to Deerfield Beach, we did not plan well. By the time we arrived home from the outing (1:15) and ate a quick lunch it was already 2 p.m. After cleaning up from lunch, we had time for a quick stroll before we needed to prepare for cocktail hour and then get rolling for dinner.

My mother eats no gluten. On our last night, we went to an Italian restaurant that serves warm rolls at the table.  They have plain and garlic rolls. When the waiter asked which type we wanted (plain, garlic or mixed), I asked for a mix, but my mother overrode the decision by stridently ordering only garlic.  We all looked at each other and thought: there is something wrong here, the one person who won’t eat them made the decision on what the rest of us would eat.  I love you, Mom (or at least please leave me in the will).

Dessert was served in the middle of the night–you know, 7:30.

P.S.: We are both going on a diet when we get home.