My dad and his sausage.

From Esquire Magazine, Dec 1999. For their 100th year publishing, they did a head shot and blurb from one person born in each of those years. Some famous, some grabbed off the street like my poppa.

My dad liked to play "hide the sausage". He was born in Vienna, Austria, to solidly upper-middle-class Jews in 1934. Though the dad I knew was pretty much a Jew by culture and a solid atheist by belief, back then there really was no such thing as an "atheist Jew". Everyone went to temple, everyone honored the high holidays, everyone ate kosher by default. This was before the reform movement in Judiaism. You were either "religious" or "very religious". There was no wiener schnitzel in the Wildmann household circa 1934 Vienna, and there was no pork sausage in the Wildman* household circa 1971, Staten Island....except for the hidden breakfast sausages that were tucked in the back of the freezer, never to be openly served in the kitchen. So what did you think I meant by "hide the sausage"? 

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Sausage

Though my dad arrived in the U.S. in 1940, he and his family left Vienna in early 1939. They first spent time as refugees in Cuba, and after about 6-8 months, the U.S. started accepting refugees from the Holocaust. His father tried to start up his music-store business in the U.S., but was unable to get traction but found work. His mother had a number tattoo on her arm she never spoke of or explained. As a 6 year old in the Bronx, he spoke German and some Spanish, but not  a lick of English. The one or two photographs that exist from this time show a skinny kid with a massively round head, like a Peanuts character who had seen too much of the world. 

Ist dieser Ellis Island? Espero que no haya buena salchicha.

What was he eating? What did they serve in Cuba? Did his parents keep up with the kosher diet after having their entire lives uprooted, traumatized and tossed to the other side of the world? My father passed after a long, successful and well-loved life a few years ago, and I'm afraid those answers are gone. But I remember growing up with the impact of his early years.

I grew up in a big house with front and back yards on a hill in Staten Island. The 1920's era construction had a full basement with a washer/dryer, a boarded-up abandoned mud-room and a secondary room used as a fully functioning wood-shop. My dad made much of the cabinetry for the house, some of which lives on in my brother's home and my apartment. And then there was the food pantry.

Underneath the stairs leading from the ground floor to the basement was a large wooden unit with doors which my father made. It was stained a medium brown, and the doors were cheap thin plywood with a little metal clasp to keep them from swinging open. The multiple shelves with in were always full of mostly canned goods, some glass jars and boxes of dry goods. I remember huge cans of College Inn Chicken Broth, gefilte fish, ketchup, tomatoes and tomato sauce, dried beans, rice.

From the earliest memories until the day they moved from that house to retire, that food pantry was always full. Whenever there was a sale at the supermarket, 10 of something would go in the pantry. If there was a steep discount for dented cans, those dented cans would end up in the pantry. I think about 65% of the canned goods in that pantry ended up rusting, swelling and being thrown out. It would drive my mom crazy, but my dad would just grunt and shrug it off.

In hindsight and with some education, I now realize that my dad was acting in a way that probably meant he had some serious deprivation when he was a kid. Food probably wasn't too forthcoming when they packed their bags, traded in all their wealth for paperwork to get the hell out of Vienna, take a steamer to Cuba, then spend months and months in a refugee camp. He never spoke of it, but it oozed out into the pantry in the basement.

And then there was the hidden sausage. What the hell was that about? My parents did not keep a kosher household, but what we ate was primarily influenced by what they grew up with, which was kosher and kosher-style. The pantry was out in the open, but the sausages were in the back of the freezer, never to be served out in the open. I only knew it was my dad's because my mom would bitch about my dad hording food and batteries in the freezer (they were on sale!). My mom would have loved to throw out as much as possible if my dad let her. There were plenty of large trays of meat that would eventually get freezer-burned and thrown out, but there was always a small number of Jimmy Deans in the back.

And I ate them. I would reheat them in the newfangled microwave, and eat their greasy, goyish spicy goodness on the down-low. It gave me the same thrill as going into the basement and rifling through my dad's massive collection of Playboy magazines. It was naughty, it was adult, mom didn't approve, it was so NOT Jewish! Mmmm sausage!

My dad grew up with too little, I grew up with too much. I hope I can get it right with my kids. My dad could blame Hitler, so perhaps I can blame Hitler  for my over-eating, too. I'm sure that would make Big Soda and the Food Industry happy. -sigh-

Good thing or bad thing: when one google-images "funny Hitler", nothing particularly funny comes up?

*When my dad and his family passed through Ellis Island in 1940, they lost the extra N. By naming me Noah, they brought enough Ns back for everyone!

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Mmmm, go-go juice!

ADD and ADHD is a topic way too large for a glib addendum, but there was a frightening piece in the NY Times this week about giving ADD meds to kids in school to help them increase their grades. NOT because they have ADD, but because the schools are low on funds and have given up on trying to increase their grades the ol' fashioned way. As I read the headline, my first thought is, "did they consider diet?" But as the news-churn has been demonstrating, adjusting school diets is a fraught and expensive thing, while drugs are cheap. More next week.

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Nice to see a well-done anti-soda promotion. Nice to see the polar bears and "HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY" themes of the multi-billion dollar Coke advertising complex recontextualized.
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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2,463
REFINED SUGAR: 15%
Not a great eating week, almost every day I succumbed to some form of refined sugar, and illness made the later part of the week sloppy. Next week I'm focused on cooking for a knish event on Saturday, the kitchen will be turned over to production, a little worried my eating is going to take a turn for the worse.
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MONDAY COUNT: 2535
Due to school being closed for more Jewish holidays, Edie rode on my back while I did my second set of push ups. Managed to get through 15 instead of the usual 35, but considering 10 used to be my limit for unweighted push ups, that's pretty good. Haven't slept well in a couple of days, woke up tired.

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9am, steel cut oatmeal with butter, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon & salt, water, 375 cal

AM SNACK: 10:30am, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 12:30pm, fresh papadelle pasta with chicken & andouille ragu, small side salad, 12oz diet coke, +/-850 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, broiled sole, steamed string beans, whole wheat cous cous, 7oz diet sprite, 935 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7pm, cake from a box, +/-250 cal
Wasn't planning on dessert, but a friend came over with cake, and it was exactly what I needed after a high-stress, under-slept day. Hormones or something.
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TUESDAY COUNT: 2175
Tried to do some work after everyone went to bed, then tried to watch TV, and failed at both. Put myself in bed at 10, woke up to B leaving for work at 8:30, guess I needed that. Wasn't hungry for breakfast, but Edie insisted on noisy ice cream, so I guess it was good in that it kept me to an eating schedule -- people who eat more breakfast eat less dinner.

Ordered in Chinese with grandma, but since this is not a weekend, tried to go light -- string beans instead of noodles, 1 cup plain brown rice instead of 2 cups of fried rice. Still calorie-heavy, but not obscene, and by the end of day, I felt that slight hunger, but nothing I couldn't sleep on.

AM SNACK: 9am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:30am,  fruit smoothie, 375 cal

AM SNACK: 11:45am, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, sardine & avocado on whole wheat toast, 7oz diet sprite, 525 cal

DINNER: 6pm. shrimp & stringbeans with 1 cup brown rice, shrimp toast, 12oz diet coke, +/- 900 cal

EVENING SNACK: 9:15pm, 8oz chocolate milk. 250 cal

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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2425

Chores in the morning, got home for lunch, fit in weights in in the afternoon . Controlled my eating at school, and had a relatively light dinner. 

AM SNACK: 8:30am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 300 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, almond butter & grape jelly on whole wheat sandwiches, momma salad, 7oz diet coke, 960 cal

SCHOOL SNACK: 6:30pm, small piece of grilled chicken, 1 ladle of mashed potatoes, small portion of swiss chard with caramelized onions, lemonade, +/-400 cal

DINNER: 8:30pm, Stouffer's Frenchbread pizza, 740 cal ds axd

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THURSDAY COUNT: 2365

Are there restaurants in the city that are healthier than national-chain fast food that ALSO supplies calorie counts? I want to go to there.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:00am, whole grain chex with whole milk, 300 cal

AM SNACK: 11:30am, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 12:15pm, quarter pounder, fries, diet coke, 900 cal

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, 7oz diet sprite, 0 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, whole wheat spaghetti with chicken sausage, tomato sauce and roasted brussel sprouts, water 1040 cal

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FRIDAY COUNT: 2815

Original plan was to wake up early and go riding, but couldn't get out of bed, sore throat, foggy head. Fortunately I had the ability to chill, with a baby sitter taking care of the Milli. Spent a slow day indoors, took myself out for lunch, then again in the late evening for dinner. Not a good eating day, but food did give me comfort.

BREAKFAST: 10am, good yogurt with honey, vanilla, almonds, +/- 500 cal

PM SNACK: 1:30pm, momma salad, pickle, 115 cal

LUNCH: 3pm, veg dim sum, +/- 1000 cal

DINNER: 9:45pm, 2 slices of streetza, ice cream bar, +/-900 cal

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, peanuts & chocolate chips, +/- 300 cal