Battle of Shepherd's Pie Hill

I come from the generation of kids that were sent to bed without dinner as a punishment for acting out. But, if I didn’t like my dinner, I couldn’t leave the table until I finished it. That’s some great parental logic, right there…


I’ve always been a picky eater, but thinking back, I would’ve ate more if Mom just knew how to cook. She didn’t cook very often, but when she did…you better have plenty of napkins available for stashing mouthfuls.

She was notorious for placing balls of black, leather like meat in front of us that were meant to be hamburgers. I have a vague late 1970’s memory involving a stuffed pepper stand-off. The tops of the peppers were all bubbly black and overflowing with a charred mixture of hamburger and rice. I don’t know any 4 year old that would have eaten a stuffed pepper to begin with, but certainly not one looking like this! Thankfully, she must not have liked them either because I never saw another one. I may have won this battle, but the war would wage on.

She pulled out the big guns with her infamous Shepherd’s Pie. For a picky "no food can touch" eater like me this was the worst kind of torture… a topping of dry crusty, mashed potatoes over a layer of blackened ground beef (not the seasoning, just the color,) over…gulp…Veg-All! Oh the horror! There was every horrid canned vegetable ever imagined mixed up in this dry overcooked mess, including UGH! Lima beans! Yuck!

After coming to the table for battle, a few too many times, my hold on the war was slipping, and my troops were suffering. I was almost out of ammo. She caught on to my stuffed mouthful trips to the bathroom. She stopped letting the dog under the table while eating. I could only shove so many napkins in my little pockets. There was only one thing left to do. I had to do something drastic, and I had to do it before sitting down at the table, or be stuck sitting there as awful food turned into cold awful food. So, approaching the kitchen, I dropped one last bomb…

“This sucks! I hate this SHIT!”

My mom moved like lightning as she crossed the floor to snatch me up.

I slyly hid my little grin as I thought, “It worked! Sent to bed without supper!”

But, only after learning the awful taste of soap…blech!

♪ you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find, you get what you need ♪ (Rolling Stones)