Sunday, June 2, 2013

No. I would not like a side of duck fat with that.

And no, Dad, I don't need you to drown that innocent slab of feta cheese with olive oil.  It has no fewer calories because it's full of first press goodness and from the olive tree farm of that guy from your village.

Just like any good 12 stepper who has successfully completed steps 1 and 2 on the program, I appreciate that I'll probably always be suffering a food addiction of sorts, but right now, the delinquent voices in my head that urge me to eat a lovely soft and delicately iced fingerbun have quietened down.

And so the battle of the moment is not within.  It is with my father.

When I was 16, my mother took off overseas for a few months.  Upon her return home, her first words - wailed even before she had given us a hug and kiss hello - were, "What have you dooooone to her?!".

It was my father, my brother and me at the airport, and so there was no mistaking who she was talking about.

And I knew what she was talking about.  I broke down right there and then, and revealed all.

"Mum, he kept on cooking this stuff - mountains of it, so many dishes - and when I said that I couldn't eat it anymore, he said that he had cooked it especially for me, and so I had to."

My mother nodded in sympathy.  She understood.  Her size 6 frame of the 1970s had ballooned to a size 12, and she knew that succumbing to the pressure to eat from the man who demonstrated how much he loved you by cooking several delicacies (enormous pot of chicken hearts, decorated in olive oil, fresh herbs, lemon and garlic, anyone?  Followed by an enormous bowl of fish soup at the bottom of which you will find a gluggy gelatinous  fish eye, if you've been a good girl) just as a way of saying, "Good morning, darling" on a  rainy Sunday.

Thankfully, with my mother back home, my father's holiday leave finished and he went back to cooking his extraordinary culinary creations only on the weekends, rather than every day.  I lost weight, and didn't turn into a porker of considerable concern until a few years ago.

Ordinarily, at my age, and married with two children, my (now retired, with way too much time to cook) father's pathological need to cook several banquets a day fit for the most carnivorous of kings would not be a concern, even if I wanted to lose weight.  However, we're living with my parents while our house is being renovated, and so we're constantly being slammed with culinary crimes against all manner of beasts and face further threats of the same every day (this morning, my father literally said to my husband, "I bought a goat to cook for you".  Not a side of goat. A whole freaking animal.).

We are talking about a man who, last year, commissioned (in the way that one might commission a piece of artwork) several different tradespeople in Adelaide to make him a custom-made spit.

Anyway, you can see where this is going.  My beef stroganoff or vegetable pitas don't cut it.  And further, my father is positively offended by the very idea that someone else might cook at home.  But I've just had to be very firm, and explain that I really do still love him and that I really do appreciate his cooking, but that turkey legs don't conform to the rules of my program if they are drowning in olive oil, and that given the holy eating practices I've now adopted, duck a l'orange as he makes it will make me ill, not to mention the vegetables so sweetly drenched in duck fat.

His brain gets it, but his heart is heavy.  By rejecting his lamb, I'm rejecting him.  I am however choosing to be healthy for my own family, and right now, that is more important.  And I believe that as I look more and more like that healthy person, my father might just ask me to cook for him one day soon.

4 comments:

  1. Wow, that is tough D! Nothing like getting those love/food messages all mixed together. I'm sure there is some great learning ahead for you all as you navigate new waters. A whole goat?! I have a hilarious visual of you trying to calculate your portion size with that beast stretched out before you with an apple (to keep MB happy) in it's mouth. Stay strong in the face of familial challenge. Love your blog to bits.

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  2. Thanks Kate. As I re-read this, I had a bit of an epiphany regarding my relationship with food; it's been much too much about love and comfort and much less about sustenance and good health. A bit of the former is ok, I guess - but it's just all been mixed up.

    Incidentally, growing up, I would sometimes open up the freezer to find that it was staring back at me. Kind of like that fish soup, but with the whole animal face rather than just a single eye! Quite disconcerting.

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  3. Ah your writing creates such good imagery, I love it! It would be so tough for you to be firm with your dad but I'm glad that you have been sticking to your guns. Your dad sounds adorable though, and so passionate about food!

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  4. Honestly ladies, if I told my Dad, "oh, my best blogger buddies are going to come to town - can you host a dinner for them?", he would be out the door and on his way to the markets before I would even have the chance to finish the sentence.

    And thank you for your compliments! It's nice that someone is reading my blog and enjoying it. I love your work, too.

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