Paleo, low carb, gluten free, vegan and vegetarian.  There is no end to the diets available, but have you heard of freegatarian?  I hadn’t either until having dinner with a friend who works downtown Portland.  She mentioned that a  young woman had started working in her office and had the desk next to hers.  Susan, wanting to get to know this young woman, asked her questions and then got onto the topic of food.  Susan is an avid cook and hoped they might have that in common.  So she asked the young woman if she was on any particular diet, was she a vegetarian for instance?

“No, I’m a freegatarian” she said.  Susan thought she had misunderstood.  “A what?”  Susan asked.  “A freegatarian, I don’t eat meat unless someone else buys it, I get it off of a buffet or find it somewhere.”  Susan was stunned into silence but all she could think of was dumpster diving.

Later Susan looked it up in the Urban Dictionary and sure enough there were two definitions, neither quite what this young woman had described but darn close. Look it up. I sure hope no one in my family is a freegatarian as I am embarking on a family cookbook/memoir project.    Why did I decide to do this?  Do your children know anything about you?  It’s been simmering in my brain for several years and I am currently in a memoir writing group which is motivating me.  The story below is really why I have decided to do a memoir.

 

Detour:  Yosemite.  Forced onto a 3 hour detour around a raging fire on our way to Yosemite, we tried to call Max who was home, and who we’d given strict instruction to not have a party or a bunch of his friends over while we were gone.  The detour took us along a canyon road so far away from anything that we had no cell phone service.  This meant we couldn’t call Tom’s business partner, Sharon, who had rented the two rooms for us for the weekend, to tell her we would arrive very late.  At check-in the clerks were confused by Tom’s request to change the billing to his name that we gave up and went to our rooms.  We awakened very early and took off to see the Valley.  We hiked several trails, stopped and had dinner and didn’t return to our rooms until 9:00 PM.   Sure enough, Sharon had tried to get hold of us when we were over two hours late arriving and all day Saturday.  Failing to reach us, she called Max to find out if he’d heard from us.  When he said he hadn’t, she told him to call the California Highway Patrol and report it.  Which he did.

Max:              “My parents are missing.”

Dispatcher:  I need some more information.  What time did they leave and where were they                                     going?”

Max:            “Uh, maybe around noon yesterday and they were going to Yosemite.”

Dispatcher:  “Have you tried to call your parents?”

Max:             “I would if I knew their number.  Their friend called me and said they were really late                           and she hadn’t heard from them.”

Dispatcher:  “How old are your parents?”

Max:            “Uh, pretty old.”

Dispatcher:  “How old is pretty old?”

Max:            “ Maybe 50 or 60?”  (We were in our early 50’s at that point.)

Dispatcher:  “What do they look like?  What kind of hair color, build, thin, medium, overweight?

Max:           “My mom has blonde hair and my dad has brown hair.  Probably medium except that                         my dad drinks a lot of beer, so maybe more than medium.

Dispatcher:  “What kind of car were they driving, license plate, year and color?”

Max:       “Can you hang on while I go see what car is in the driveway?  OK, they took the black                          Mercedes which is an old car, I don’t know how old and I don’t know the license.”

Dispatcher:  “ OK, this is what I have:  An older, nondescript, slightly overweight, beer drinking                                  couple on their way to Yosemite in an older black Mercedes. Does this about                                         describe it?

Max:        That about describes it.

Now you see why I need to write a memoir!  The cookbook?  Why not incorporate family recipes and the stories that go with them.

Have you written a memoir?  Or a cookbook?  How did it go?