talking about food

I used to eat in the hospital cafeteria in Herrin Illinois when I was doing my CO work.  One day I told the person behind the counter that I would have some of those funny looking beans.  "Them ain't no beans Sir," she said, maybe less colorfully than I am putting it, "Them 'ere is black eyed peas."  Well I swan, do tell I had heard of black eyed peas but I had never meant one before eye to black eye.  They were okay, but nothing to write home about.  Fifteen years later I was in Austin Texas at the Horse Shoe Bar on New Years Day, and there was a big old tub of black eyed peas,  "He'p yerself Yankee," the cowpokes told me.  "A bowl of black eyed peas on New Years Day will give you good luck the rest of the year."  I don't recall that I had especially good luck, and like I said, they were nothing to write home about, but I thought they tasted a lot better than that cold chunk of pickled herring sliding down my gullet.

I went a little wild last summer at the farmer's market and bought some rutabagas and some celery root.  They were pretty good.  Not a fan of celery itself, but when it came in a chunk rather than a leafy stalk it was pretty good,  Liked the rutabaga too, kind of like a super turnip I reckoned it.  I'm a big fan of the turnip.  They both come with a tough skin however, which is a chore to peel.  How about parsnips, they look pretty good, but I fear that they might be a little sweet, and taste a bit like carrots, the rare root vegetable which I do not favor.  Crunchy is good.  I don't know why anybody buys the smooth peanut butter when the crunchy is sitting on the shelf right beside it.


It seems to me that back in the days of my youth everybody shoveled their walk.  And for those who didn't, I made a little kid's fortune prowling the hood with my trusty snow shovel.  I don't think I charged that much because my memory of the take was a handful of coins.  But what a handful, buffalo nickels, Roosevelt dimes, Liberty quarters, and how about  those big old Franklin half dollars with the Liberty Bell on the backside?  Money was money back in the day, not some flimsy little card where you have to punch keys on that damn little machine that none of them work alike, and the grocery line just crawls while even the guy who is only buying a can of pop has to go blippety blippety blip.  Bah!

I don't see those armies of little kids with their shovels anymore.  They certainly don't approach that stretch of Irving Park between the Brown Line and the Ten Cat on the southern side of the street.

I remember once in Mrs Arvin's history course at Gage Park High taking part in a debate about FDR at Yalta.  I was against him.  Well my family newspaper was the Trib, and I knew that Mrs Arvin loved FDR so that's how I ended up on the anti FDR side,  My argument at the time was that FDR surely knew that he was dying so he should've been harder on the Russkies, though I expect, in retrospect that nothing was going to stop the Russkies from hanging that iron curtain.  I googled FDR and communism and got a lot of hits calling him a commie from right wing sites, but when I went to the wiki it didn't have much to say on the issue.