Category Archives: Food
Painting in Color
Joe started drawing when he was very young. He drew horses, cartoons, Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, airplanes, things he related to. He also liked drawing on walls and in coloring books. He wasn’t thinking of art as a career and never took classes or followed guidelines that someone has to declare him an artist […]
Also posted in Al Holmes, Art, Football, Hawaii, Paint it Blue, Painters, San Antonio
Deli Delight
I was hungry and the manager of the gallery showing wild faces said the deli across the street’s world famous go on over and get something. Okay I said and pressed the steel arrow to red-light busy Melrose Ave. and allow me to cross. Inside the deli large glass cases featured food I began studying […]
Also posted in Hollywood, Lawyers, Los Angeles, Mental Health, Painters
Overeaters Anonymous
Friends, we are powerless over food and really shouldn’t be eating it but the alternative is even more perilous than gluttony so we must learn some skills of restraint. Ours is not a relatively easy addiction to overcome, like alcoholism, since people certifiably can survive without drinking, and I speak empirically as a former drunkard […]
Looting in Leyte
This story appears in the collection “In Other Hands”
Also posted in Philippines, Short Pieces - GTC, Starvation
Wild Peanuts
Joe avoided peanut butter, banning from house and no thanking those who offered. Three years later he decided could handle by setting limits, one thin sandwich. Joe again delighted in peanut butter and reveled in moderation until eating second sandwich washed down with milk. Then he ate third fourth fifth. Next day he began using […]
Also posted in Health, Mental Health, Short Pieces - GTC
Taco Delight
At party after son’s baptism host offers me taco I bite and chew thinking this is worst ever had but maybe I’m mistaken. Since tacos are always good I try another bite and gag and almost vomit before parting tortilla to see not ground beef but something like guts oozing nightmarish white. What’s this stuff, […]
Also posted in Health, Short Pieces - GTC
Bakersfield at the Movies
Legions of teenagers and adults march into theater carrying troughs of buttered popcorn and sodas large enough for elephants, and guffaw during previews of teddy bear wrestling man, creamed pants jokes, president slicing face open to reveal he’s bullet-dodging, axe-wielding “Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.” Amid chomping and slurping, I wonder how many here have watched […]
Also posted in Abraham Lincoln, Bakersfield, Los Angeles, Movies, Short Pieces - GTC
Pool Player
Fourteen relatives, who’d already lost in Christmas 8-Ball Shootout, encircled pool table and were joined by everyone else, and all swigged beers or sodas and munched rich appetizers as watched finalists and pre-tourney favorites Bill and Fred strike and counter with deadly long shots, cut shots kissing balls into unlikely pockets, and taps leaving cue […]
Also posted in Alcohol, Families, Health, Pool, Short Pieces - GTC
Maris Prime Rib
In mid-sixties Sacramento a restaurateur, exhibiting either grand generosity or manifest ignorance of human hunger, offered eat all you want prime rib lunch on Sundays. Two fast-growing adolescents and I, salivating after a hot afternoon of schoolyard baseball, scurried into an establishment that, a few years earlier, had presented Roger Maris the baseball he hit […]
Also posted in Adolescents, Babe Ruth, Baseball, George Thomas Clark, New York Yankees, Roger Maris, Sacramento, Short Pieces - GTC
Garden Party for William H. Johnson
(A major feature about painter William H. Johnson, 1901-1970, will be posted later this spring.) I wish William H. Johnson, gifted painter of a unique world, were at this party honoring young African American artists, staged by the foundation bearing his name, at an elegant old two-story home near the Wilshire district in Los Angeles. […]
Also posted in Art, Housing, Los Angeles, Mental Health, Painters, William H. Johnson
Ambitious Diet
much younger wife serves spicy meals and strong drinks
Also posted in Alcohol, Diet, Marriage, Poetry - GTC
Concerned Citizen
eli constantly rails online denouncing greedy bemoaning hungry as shoves more food into belly
Also posted in Economics, Internet, Poetry - GTC, Poverty
Christmas Food
thirty years merry company christmas parties no one damaged evident act of god no longer assured worries new boss banning festivities since every year food sickens millions hospitalizes thousands kills hundreds
Also posted in Christmas, Health, Parties, Poetry - GTC, Religion
Wealth
This story appears in the collection “In Other Hands”
Also posted in Agriculture, Bakersfield, California, Fresno, Immigration, Modesto, Poetry - GTC
Taco Delight – Part 2
at party after son’s baptism host offered me taco i bit and chewed thinking this is worst i’ve ever had but maybe mistaken since tacos always good tried another bite and gagged before parting tortilla to see not ground beef but something like guts oozing white what’s this stuff cow brains host said you shoulda […]
Also posted in Poetry - GTC, Religion
Dining at the Hotel Ritz in Madrid
The double-deck tour bus with top open had just completed its modern Madrid route north of downtown on shady Paseo del Prado into the chic Salamanca neighborhood where renowned Real Madrid plays soccer in a massive stadium and the most exclusive shops are found, and then back down Calle Serrano past several elegant foreign embassies […]
Also posted in George Thomas Clark, Hotels, Madrid, Madrid Vacation, Spain, Travel
Rescued by George Gershwin
In a Bakersfield month I lose twenty pounds eliminating milk and cottage cheese and meat and an avalanche of pies, cakes, cookies and other heart-clogging, prostate-bashing carcinogens, and switching to soy milk and fresh vegetables and fruits, and marvel that I don’t feel starved but worry I still haven’t abandoned the comfort and control of […]
Also posted in Al Jolson, Diet, George Gershwin, Hershey Felder, Ira Gershwin, Kay Swift, Music, New York City, Pasadena
The Eternal Jack Lalanne
On a fall late afternoon in 1975 I was watching the news when legendary master of fitness Jack Lalanne celebrated his sixty-first birthday by performing a physical feat unimaginable to most. For the ensuing thirty-five years I recalled that he’d swum handcuffed from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf while towing a thousand-pound boat. But, reviewing […]
Also posted in Bodybuilding, Exercise, George Thomas Clark, Jack Lalanne, San Francisco
Food, Inc.
Welcome to Food, Inc. Your hunger will here be suppressed with high-tech nutrition that’s accelerated more the last fifty years than since the Stone Age. Don’t be overwhelmed. We know you weekly stroll through a typical supermarket’s forty-seven thousand products and enjoy the orderly world designed by a handful of giant companies that produce and […]
Also posted in Documentaries, Movies
Food Overdose
Friday morning after Thanksgiving Abernathy called from San Diego where he was unable to extricate himself from bed. “God,” I said, “you’ve haven’t fallen off the wagon again.” “I’m afraid I have.” “You must accept you’re an alcoholic and powerless under the influence of tequila.” “I’m not talking about alcohol; I’m talking food.” “Stay off […]
Also posted in Thanksgiving
