Dinner time...which would you prefer?

"My mother's menu consisted of two choices: Take it or leave it." - Buddy Hackett

Oh so true.  Growing up my mother and father both cooked.  Both of them cooked pretty well, for the most part.  But no matter what we were having, there were always two choices...take it or leave it.

I remember being young and sitting at the table with both parents and all siblings.  As good as that was, the menu was not always desired.  I remember my mother always cooked the same thing on New Year's Day.  She made black eyed peas and cabbage.

I was okay with black eyed peas.  Cabbage however, no dice.  There was one year, I must have been 13 or 14 years old, when my mother told me I couldn't get up from the table until I ate all of the cabbage and black eyed peas.  Well, I ate all of the peas.  That was no problem.  But cabbage?  It was a green pile of soggy, gross smelling foulness on my plate.  Unfortunately there was no dog to feed it to.  So, there I sat.  I was all alone at the table...for about an hour.  Then I realized no one was checking on me.  So, I had an idea.  All of the other plates were still on the table, probably because it was my turn to clean the kitchen.  I decided that slowly, I would move one fork full of the nastiness from my plate onto the other plates.

Luckily, my ploy worked.  Now, it could have been because I was so smart that out-foxed my parents.  Or, it could have been that they just gave up on waiting and forgot about me sitting there alone.  Either way I won, sort of.  Because I had only eaten black-eyed peas, I was starving a little while later.

But that was how it was at our house.  You ate what was fixed, or you did not eat.  It you got hungry later...oh well.  Sure, as we got older we had a little more of a say in the menu, but by then I was almost out of high school and starting college.  By then, I had the freedom to eat somewhere else.

Looking back, I guess it really wasn't important what we ate at dinner time.  What was important was the fact we all ate together around one table.  Sharing dinner with the family was good times.  When I got older I missed that.  I never realized how important it was until we didn't do it anymore.  As we all got older our schedules became so different.  We all had one game or another.  We had jobs or after school events.  Dinner became an after thought.

Luckily, I am able to still do this with my family.  When we cook a meal, we sit around the table to eat.  Yes, we eat out sometimes.  But we also cook at home a lot.  When we do, we sit around the table, not in front of the idiot box in the living room.  For those of you who do that...I'm not judging.  We just prefer to sit at the table, maybe with some music in the background (ask my wife why.)

Actually, I will tell you.  Anyone remember the Carl's Jr commercials?  If you don't know what that is, it is a fast food burger joint.  They had commercials that seemed to turn up the volume on people chewing their food.  I cannot stand...no, let me re-phrase...I hate hearing people chewing.  Holy smokes, that sound makes me cringe.  I must have some noise to drown it out.  It's like nails on a chalk board to me.

Anyway, we sit around talking a little, eating, and just enjoying several minutes of non-busyness, no matter which menu option is offered.