Friday, January 28th, 2011

Food For Thought: The Wrath of Hot Dog Boy

This story is for any of you who happen to know, or are related to, a child who’s a picky eater. You may describe him as having a limited palate. I may describe him as being an anti-food terrorist. He probably sees himself as a member in a vast army of freedom fighters: Freedom from vegetables. Freedom from being told what to eat. Freedom to be the boss of their own stomach.

My tale centers on one 3 year old boy who’s gone by various nicknames: the Aristocrat, Naked Boy, Blondie, Cookie, Juice Thief, Speed Demon. But we will refer to him thenceforth as “Hot Dog Boy”, because that’s all he really wants to eat. Actually that’s not fair. If he was allowed to choose all of his own meals then his diet would probably consist of the following:

Yogurt.

Rolls with jam and butter.

Bagels.

Macaroni and cheese, preferably from a box (more on this later).

Apples (the one thing preventing him from getting scurvy).

Ginger-ale (first tasted during a stomach bug that ran rampant through our town; now he