Wednesday was always spaghetti night at maggie ‘s house until his uncle had heart attack when his dad came home from visiting uncle sylvio in the hospital , dad was a different man
it’s his arteries “ he told mom they’re all clogged up
You know what cause clogged – up arteries? Foods with animal fats and eggs meat milk and cheese ! we’ve got to cut out all the animal fats!
Dad picked up a vegetarian cookbook
He went to the refrigerator began writing down which foods we needed to cut back on eggs and butter beef cheese and chicken
Breakfasts were simplified you could have anything you wanted as long as it was fruit .
School lunches save my older brother Matt and me . we could buy fries , a milkshake , and hamburger at school
Then dad got wise and started getting up early to prepare us vegetarian lunches which was fine but we certainly missed our occasional burger!
Matt began eating at his girlfriend’s house , and he didn’t even have a girlfriend.
After a month of this , I was famished. I was more than ready for some traditional food a steak some fried chicken , chocolate chip ice cream , and scrambled eggs and bacon.
usually , dad’s enthusiasms wane after a while . we waited hopefully for this to happen with the new diet. It wasn’t happening this time . as far as he was concerned , this diet was permanent . and we couldn’t argue with him . the fact was he was right the food we were eating now was a lot better for us . as much as I appreciated his efforts, I couldn’t help but think a balance could be struck between our old and new family meal menus !
Halfway through the second month of the diet, I began to dream about spaghetti , not just spaghetti spaghetti with meatballs. Spaghetti the way mom made it . I did more than dream . ssecretly , with money I had earned from babysitting and odd jobs , I began collecting the ingredients for a spaghetti
Matt had cooked once or twice . so he remained to supervise.
When mom and dad came through the door with timmy , the table was set .
Dad didn’t say a word at first . then he cleared his throat with authority . “ well, just Wednesday night spaghetti one meal each week , I guess one meal can’t hurt”