Columns
Wolfsie: Nutty idea
Believe it or not, I remember very distinctly the first TV dinner I ever ate. I also remember my mother and grandmother questioning this new-fangled product and wondering if my dad would eat it or just use it as grounds for divorce.
My mom was a good cook back in the ’50s so the bar was set pretty high for Swanson’s. My dad barely tolerated the fried chicken entrée. The idea of trying to make fried food yummy by reheating it in an oven was as far-fetched as a man landing on the moon, which was still about 15 years away.
This all brings me to this past weekend when my wife headed to Columbus, Ohio for her college reunion, leaving me with my 20-year-old son, home from college for the summer.
The fridge was empty with two mouths to feed. I told Brett he could go to the supermarket and pick out any of his favorite foods for the week as long as he brought back at least one thing green so I could report to his mother that we had eaten healthy food in her absence.
He and I began unpacking the grocery bags when he returned. There was the usual fare for a kid in college: Powerade, ramen, frozen pizza, ice cream and some kind of high fiber health bread without preservatives. All that with a good multi-vitamin and a quart of V-8 before bedtime and he would meet all the minimum daily requirements. As for something green, I figured out why he bought that bread: it would be the perfect shade of emerald by the time Mary Ellen got home.
Then I saw it. Was I dreaming? At the bargain price of $4.79 was a box containing — are you sitting down — two frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“BRETT, what is this?”
“Dad, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“No, but something equally frightening and hard to explain: two frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Why would you waste your money — sorry, my money — on that?”
“The same reason you and Mom buy frozen chicken tarragon with asparagus and hollandaise or veal scaloppini with a glazed vegetable medley and shitake mushrooms. Convenience, Dad, convenience. Time is money. That reminds me, you owe me $120 for the food. Say, you look annoyed.”
“My blood pressure is going up.”
“You can thank your poor eating habits through the years for that, Dad. My PBJ is low in saturated fat, no cholesterol and very little sodium. Not so, the Stouffer’s lasagna you pig out on. Want a bite?”
Did I dare? It was in a very attractive shape, like a tiny flying saucer. And no crust.
“Hmm, that is good…I mean really good…but why can’t you make these yourself?”
“Dad, I know you have lost some confidence in the quality of education in this country, but don’t include the PhDs in food science as part of your broad criticism. A great deal of research went into creating the perfect combination of jam, peanut butter and bread.”
Now, I’m hooked on these stupid things but I have to hide them in the downstairs freezer behind the Healthy Choice frozen dinners. If my wife finds out I have been spending $4.79 on two frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, she may never microwave anything good for me again.
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