Journal of a Living Lady #401

Nancy White Kelly

It’s that time again. The crops are coming in.

Buddy and I learned many years ago that we need to lock our car at church. Once a well-meaning friend loaded up our back floor board with vine ripe tomatoes and forgot to tell us. It took nearly a year before the family car quit smelling like home-made vegetable soup. As for fresh tomatoes I just don’t like them. Never have and never will. When the slimy innards of tomatoes enter my eye-gate, my esophogate reacts.

The only way I’ll eat summer tomatoes is if they are fried. No matter what, squirrel or squash, if you flour it, add a little salt, fry it in hot oil, the whatever inside morphs into a southern delicacy that tastes so GOOD.

For the record, I don’t eat citrus fruit either. I am allergic to it and break out in hives. I never liked citrus anyway. Maybe it is the texture or the smell.
Buddy used to make fun of my food finickiness. After he saw that documentary about human fluids and contaminating germs on lemon rinds, he too requests his tea or water without that yellow wedge.

The family car was jokingly sabotaged one other time with cantaloupe. Nothing in my personal repertoire of food smells worse. Cantaloupe is in a category by itself. Occasionally Buddy buys one for himself, but keeps it in the shop. I know because I see the rinds in the chicken yard. Is that love or what?

Buddy will eat about anything. He likes liver and onions. I don’t. He has two friends who like it too. Their wives don’t care to cook it at home either so they occasionally go out for a man’s lunch out.

One delight Buddy and I do share is banana pudding. That is my secret weapon when I want to buy something expensive or have really messed up.

We both have valid private pilot licenses obtained years ago. Imagine calling your husband and telling him you just ran the airplane into a telephone pole? I admit to not being good at parking.

Buddy was an aircraft mechanic by trade and it was just a tiny dent in the wing. Nevertheless, I made so much banana pudding for a pardon that I called him Chiquita and bought him a monkey. Really.

nancyk@windstream.net