Free Hungry by Sheila Himmel

ate a good amount of steamed broccoli. Lisa went for more of everything. In about fifteen years, we would be counting bites again, this time for Lisa.
    In the preschool years, we tried various subterfuges that we thought they might not notice. Usually it was just a chipper comment, like: “Wow, the lasagna is so good! Is this organic chicken-apple sausage in it? We’re lucky Dad is such a great cook.”
    Too often, I imagine, there was an imploring look that said, “Lisa, haven’t you had enough? Jacob, won’t you have a little more?”
    Did we deny Lisa a voice, or stifle her needs, at the family table? That is one of the often-mentioned triggers to eating disorders, especially binge eating.
     
    lisa: Dad has an annual holiday baking extravaganza to make gifts for his staff, and a lasagna-size Tupperware container of “extras” for us always ends up in the freezer. I loved donning the personal assistant hat, proud to be the chosen one. Dad is the executive type of chef, not one to easily share the kitchen, but for me he gave up total control. That’s where I got over fearing raw ingredients like the two sticks of butter and pound of semisweet chocolate chips that went into his cookies, which later became my cookies.
    Mom was not the most inventive cook although my brother and I most likely did not give her much room to explore. He barely ate anything, while there wasn’t much that I would not try. I’m sure my parents found it difficult to cook meals to please the picky versus insatiable appetite. At restaurants I felt limited by the small portions on the children’s menu. I knew how I liked my hamburger cooked and rarely did I get one from McDonald’s. I preferred the homemade, hand-sculpted thick and juicy patties from the Peninsula Creamery, the one and only diner in downtown Palo Alto. My grandpa also had a knack for making delectable juicy hamburgers, although he often put onions in the meat or served them in an onion roll. I didn’t eat onions—one of the only things I wouldn’t eat.
    I also remained set in my selection of ice cream flavors from the neighborhood parlor, Rick’s Rather Rich Ice Cream. I’m not sure if we ever knew the real Rick, but we liked to guess which one he was, the lanky brunet with a mustache or the round, balding elderly man? It didn’t matter. Rick’s was the place for families. We usually saw someone we knew there. More often than not I ordered a junior scoop of cookies and cream, which had a minty undertone in its creamy vanilla base with generous chunks of Oreos. I still prefer my chunks of cookies nestled within the creamy texture of vanilla, but sometimes I branch out into the land of peppermint, mint chocolate chip, or cookie dough. I’m the same way with frozen yogurt—fairly plain vanilla and chocolate, but always with rainbow sprinkles swirled in.
    “Let’s have the orange lunch today!” I proclaimed to Mom one sunny Saturday afternoon. My best friend, Feyi, had come over. Like me, like everyone, Feyi loved Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, bright cheese powder sprinkled over bleached white noodles. Mom snuck in some health, by way of carrot sticks and orange slices, on orange plastic plates if they happened to be the clean ones, so that we could have the all-orange lunch or dinner. By age seven, I was making my own. That is, boiling noodles and adding a fat source (butter and milk) with the orange powder.
     
    sheila: In the 1980s, a few grocery stores and supermarkets had little deli departments over by the meat counter, but mostly they were in business to sell the raw ingredients for dinner and other household necessities. Takeout still usually meant metal-handled cardboard boxes from Chinese restaurants. Convenience foods came in frozen packages and boxes that you took home and dropped in boiling water or at least microwaved.
    Ned and I are not back-to-the-land lunatics. We allowed processed foods in the house, the occasional soda, and we microwaved leftovers. We