6 • July 2018 • UPBEAT TIMES, INC. Never Name Your Food by Gabriel A. Fraire of Healdsburg, CA ~
gafraire@comcast.net
is always at the top of the list. Both my wife and I love it. I’m not sure if it’s the taste or the fact it is consid- ered a great treat, either way it is always enjoyable and we look for- ward to that meal. At the time of this one visit my in-laws, all lobster lovers, insisted we prepare the feast at home. The day of the meal my
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father-in-law brought home a bunch of live lobsters. The girls, of course, were fascinat- ed and all the cousins gath- ered around the large box con- taining the lob- sters. “What’s that daddy?” asked one of my daughters point-
hen we visit our family in New England eating lobster
that one lobster “Barny.” Ev- eryone thought it was cute, at the time.
Knowing that in order to cook lobster one has to drop the live
lobster into
boiling water I decid- ed to distract my
girls during this process and we went
play. The day of
the meal my father-in-law brought home a bunch of live lobsters....
ing to a barnacle on one of the lobsters. I explained and the children all started calling
When it was dinner time we all went inside to sit and my father-in-law began pulling out the lobsters one at a time and putting them on each person’s plate. But as soon as he brought up the lobster with the barnacle the cousin whose plate he tried to
put it on screamed, “No, I can’t eat Barny.” That’s all it took. Each girl
outside to
in her turn shook her head. No one wanted to eat Barny. So, finally I said, “I’ll take it.”
When the lobster was put on my plate both my daughters looked at me with these big sad eyes and I quickly added, “I’ll take it outside and bury it.” All the chil-
dren smiled. The dinner was saved.
Of course I didn’t bury it but simply hid it in the garage and after the kids were asleep I brought it in the house, cleaned it and ate my lobster cold.
Moral of the story, never name your food.
Gabriel A. Fraire has been a writer more than 45 years. He has written fiction and non-fiction books, plays, poems, music lyrics, and news articles.
But, he writes about his children
exclusively for the Upbeat Times.
www.williebirdsrestaurant.com
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6 • July 2018 • UPBEAT TIMES, INC.
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