Desire for chips flavoured meals

By Andrew Kadenyeka

We’re seated at the dining table, mouths full and silly, contented smiles on everyone’s face. I had earlier called Sally and asked her not to cook.

"Tonight it’s my treat so you guys ready your tummies," I tease her over the phone.

After work, I pass by Century Fast Foods and buy one kuku porno (broiler chicken) and a bunch of fries and bhajias. I then pass by the supermarket and get a two-litre bottle of Coke. This is the meal that now has everyone chewing in silent appreciation.

Rambo’s fries are swimming in tomato sauce and he is wolfing them down like it is his last supper. Now, if he could only eat his greens with the same gusto, what a happy father I would be.

Come to think of it, why hasn’t one of those large American corporations come up with a French fry flavour? A chips flavour would be heaven sent for parents like me whose children eat like they are watching their weight.

threat to vomit

Rambo is the worst, picking at his food until one is forced to investigate whether there are thorns hidden deep in the rice. If he were to be given a chips-flavoured matoke and pumpkin dish, I believe he’d devour it in a flash.

Then again I could be wrong. Rambo might just spit out the food, shoot me daggers at the attempt to con his way out of eating the food and start his "I’ll vomit" song.

Ah, yes. My boy has become quite the manipulator and I guess it has to do with what my wife and I call his limited CC. It took us a while to figure out just how to size his portions of food to avoid leaving him looking and feeling like a stuffed spider.

Imagine having spent an hour or so painstakingly spooning food in his mouth. After that, giving him even the tiniest bit of fruit as dessert would be disastrous! One would only watch in horror as everything in his stomach came flying out in protest!

Nowadays, the house-girl has his stomach size down to a science and the vomiting from overeating is rare. However, he realised at one point that by starting a coughing fit, he could sometimes force himself to vomit.

This became his favourite tactic, especially in the middle of a meal when he would contort his face like he was in the middle of a torture session and commence a frenzied coughing bout.

Shortly after that, Rambo would warn us of his intention, shoot out of the chair, rush to the bathroom and retch.

The first few times this happened, we scratched our heads in worry, but after three of his Oscar-winning performances, Sally realised he was faking it and promised to rain down God’s wrath on his backside if the behaviour persisted. That was the end of that.