A big family and not quite enough food can mess you up for life. My sisters and I learned to eat fast, hunching protectively over our plates. But no matter how fast we ate, Big Brother would finish first. Then he’d inevitably loom over us, asking, “Are you gonna eat that?”
If our mouths were too full to answer, he’d take that as a no.
Fork duels ensued.
Once we got high school jobs, we stashed food in our rooms. My size eleven boots could hold a lot of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and none of my siblings – not even my crafty older sister – found them.
Then my father got a chocolate Labrador Retriever. Like many Labs, Toffee had no off switch when it came to food. Any unattended comestible was fair game. Cooling apple pies disappeared from the kitchen island. Whole batches of chocolate chip cookies were lost. Pizzas, too.
The Naval Academy was soon responsible for feeding Big Brother, but my other siblings and I had to guard our food from the dog. And not just in the kitchen.
Toffee busted into my closet. She ate my entire stash of Reese’s.
Yes, chocolate is bad for dogs, but Reese’s is barely chocolate and Toffee was ninety pounds.
She not only suffered no ill-effects, she lived to be seventeen.
The same cannot be said of my boots.
*****
Fast forward a decade or two. Baby Brother came to visit. As a twenty-something single guy on his own in NYC, he was living on ramen. My husband and I weren’t surprised when Baby Brother haunted the kitchen, scarfing down everything that came out of the oven. He was appreciative of every scrap of food, and he ate it like he was afraid someone was going to rip it out of his hands.
He especially adored the devil’s food cake with ganache frosting that takes me six hours to make. But when he disappeared in the middle of his third helping, things got weird.
I looked around and asked Andy, “Hey, where’s Baby Brother?”
“In the bathroom.”
“But…he was eating cake. Where’s the cake?” (One of the residual impacts of childhood food scarcity is unconsciously keeping tabs on how much food is being eaten and knowing exactly who is eating it and if they are exceeding their allotted share.)
“Huh. I don’t know.” We searched the kitchen and the living room. Nothing.
I eyed our rescue mutt Woofie. Woofie was part chocolate Lab and therefore a champion counter-surfer. The dog stole everything from pot stickers to loaves of bread. He laid on the floor, snoring. I shook my head. “If Woofie had eaten it, he’d still be licking his chops. And there would be a plate, licked clean.”
“Maybe not,” Andy answered. “Remember how Woofie ate that rock?”
We considered our dog’s oversized maw until Baby Brother came out of the bathroom.
He held a plate with one bite of cake left.
I said, “You DID NOT seriously take your cake into the bathroom.”
Baby Brother said, “What? What’s wrong with that?”
“I just…I don’t…I can’t even – SO MUCH! Andy, tell him!”
Andy was laughing too hard to be of assistance.
Unfazed, Baby Brother ate his last bite. “It’s good cake.”
*****
A year or two later, Big Brother had a conference in Los Angeles. He stopped in for dinner. (My family used to come visit for Disneyland, now they only come for conferences.) We had Andy’s pot stickers and hot and sour soup. Even though there were still pot stickers in the serving dish, Big Brother leaned over when he finished. He pointed at my plate and asked, “Hey, you gonna eat that?”
I mimed stabbing him with a chopstick.
Andy, confused, offered the serving tongs to Big Brother, saying, “Plenty more pot stickers here and in the kitchen. Plus Autumn made cookies for dessert.”
“Cookies! Yum!” After finishing off a few more pot stickers, we took napkins of cookies into the living room. We wound up talking about gardening. Like most guests from D.C., Big Brother expressed orange tree envy. Within minutes, we were out in the backyard so Big Brother could pick his own orange. He carried it proudly back to the living room.
Only to yell, “Hey! What happened to my cookies?!”
His napkin lay on the coffee table. Empty.
Woofie, licking his chops, slunk hurriedly out of the living room.
So maybe I owe Baby Brother an apology.
Maybe taking your cake to the bathroom is the way to go after all.
No dogs here so we don’t have the Woofie problem but when I was a kid we had a cat that counter surfed. It wasn’t unusual to be missing a pork chop or two. My Mom (bless her heart) accommodated by making extra. My siblings and I never fought over food, just desserts. The biggest strawberries or the biggest piece of chocolate cake! The worst was the Russell Stover candy box with all varieties. We had creative ways of finding out if a piece was one that we liked. When not, we would put it back, teeth marks and all.
Did you ever find the pork chop remnants? Cats are much harder to guard against than dogs. Cats can get everywhere. Your mom was crafty — I find myself leaving out accessible “decoys” sometimes, in order to protect the main dish.
Usually she deposited the bare bone by her dish (a message?). The thing was that we (the family) kept private about this as a guest would not relish the idea that they were eating a pork chop the cat had rejected or (egad!) licked.
So did she hide under a bed with it? When Bat Cat got meat — or lettuce — she’d drag it under something and make the most terrifying growling noises as she ate it.
I’ve never been happier that She Who Arises and Meows doesn’t seem to like meat that much. We’ve left roast chicken on the counter and she’s ignored it.
Truly, She Who Arises and Meows is a most miraculous cat. Mine have stolen everything from rice and tofu to Mexican wedding cakes.
I’m a slow eater, and I remember a friend pointing out, “You didn’t come from a big family, did you?” I was confused, “No, why?” He explained that if I did I’d be a much faster eater! Apparently, the military does this to you, too. 😛
Yeah. Although Andy is a very fast eater, his family isn’t very big, and his parents constantly pushed food at him. He has no excuse except for the evolutionary advantage a fast eater gets.
The dog ate all of your Reese’s back then. No! Those are so expensive 🙁 Taking the cake to the toilet is a new level altogether when it comes to food hoarding. Maybe he sat on the toilet bowl eating the cake. It seems even creepier to eat the cake facing the mirror….
I actually like ramen, or what we call here instant noodles (here in Australia if you say ramen, that would mean eating Japanese noodles in a fairly nice Japanese restaurant). I love instant noodles, and sometimes look forward to eating them much more than eating something ‘better’ outside.
Oh, definitely instant noodles, then! What I keep trying to figure out is where he put the cake in the bathroom when he needed both hands. There’s not a lot of space in there. It’s a mystery.
I’m guessing he held the cake platter with one hand and used the other to eat the cake. That would be the most logical thought. If not, maybe he put the cake on the floor or toilet bowl. Or balanced against the sink.
Baby Brother is way more talented than I give him credit for.
I love this. My beagle Grommet was an expert counter surfer. (Beagles are even worse than labs.) He was too small to jump up, so he learned to pull open the oven door and use it as a springboard to launch himself onto the counter and eat everything on it. Wait…I’m suddenly feeling like I’ve told you this story before. Anyway Grommet was the best. And so is this post.
No, I’ve never heard of Grommet! That is awesome, he gets an A for ingenuity AND effort. All Toffee and Woofie had to do was go up on their hind legs. Was Grommet named after the character in Wallace and Grommet? I loved those animated characters.
Haha, yes he was. I got the spelling wrong at the time because the movie character was actually Gromit. I had a cat named Wallace too.
I hope Wallace liked cheese. 🙂
Hmm, I actually can’t remember. I hope he did too.
I only have one sister. Both of us are slow eaters, especially me. When I was in a kid, the other kids always made it to recess ahead of me. I tried to eat faster but never succeeded.
My mouth is watering just looking at that cake. I don’t think I could eat more than one piece though.
So much healthier to be a slow eater. You eat less. I have to make an effort to do that.