Meat Lover

I’m a meat and potatoes kind of guy. I like most kinds of meat and I like most kinds of potatoes. When I was younger, like in high school and college, I was a pizza kind of guy. (I liked pizza with most kinds of meat.)

I was in late high school when Domino’s started delivering pizza in my small town. Domino’s had a very small area of delivery, so we’d have to actually get in our car and drive to meet the delivery guy half way. This concept makes me laugh, now.

When I went to college, I lived in an apartment closer to the center of the city, so Domino’s would bring their pizza all the way to my door. That was cool. Domino’s in that college town had a “Student Special”: medium one-topping pizza and two cans of Coke for $4.99. If I wasn’t really hungry, that medium pizza could make for two meals. I lived on that deal for a couple years.

So you see, I loved pizza. But I started to get a little tired of it. My taste moved up to steak. By the time we had our first son, I was pretty much off the pizza craving. (Although, I still absolutely love the pizza from a local shop in my home town; I still like and want that pizza.)

When our first son was still very young, he didn’t like meats. We tried several different kinds of meats, and we tried getting meats into him several different ways. We thought we had the trick with spaghetti, but he would spit out the hamburger in the sauce. I couldn’t understand how my son didn’t like meat.

The first meat we could get him to eat and swallow was pepperoni, on pizza. Both our boys love pizza. LOVE pizza! They would eat it every day if we’d let them. We try to keep it to no more than once a week—he can eat it every day when he goes to college. But now I’ve completely burned out on pizza (except for that one from my home town). I actually don’t like Domino’s and Pizza Hut pizza anymore. It’s sad.

Fortunately, my 6 year old (who wouldn’t eat any meat as late as 2 years ago) now likes steak. Last night we went to Outback for steak. We don’t go there very often, and even less often with the boys, but I was really hungry, and really wanted a steak. In the past, when we’ve gone to Outback as a family, we go through the drive through at McDonald’s to get the boys a Happy Meal to eat at the table with us. Tonight, though, we didn’t do that.

We got the 2 year old a bowl of mac-and-cheese, and the 6 year old actually asked for a steak—we got him the kid’s steak plate. He ate the entire 4-oz steak. If I hadn’t seen him do it, I don’t think I would have believed it. This is the kid that used to didn’t like meat at all, and now he’s eating a cut of sirloin. Wonder of wonders. That’s my boy.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com