Diabetes – Mostly From Memory

Gas Station Food

“I hope this the one that got them free boudins today.” The man holding the door for me said as I stepped into the gas station. You say boudin just like it’s spelled boo-dan. I didn’t know him from Adam’s house cat, and I wasn’t planning to even go inside but the pump didn’t print my receipt, but he had me asking the same question: what about them free boudins? I like gas station food. I’m not talking about Funyons and a Grapico, or anything you get off the shelves-I like that too-I’m talking about the food that they have by the counter. That rotating pizza in that little glass display case always always makes me stop and have an internal dialogue: To eat or not to eat, that is the question: Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous hunger, or to take arms against the sea of cravings and and by opposing end them…To eat, perchance to snack-ay there’s the rub…

Here is the man finding out that this was not the day for free boudins.

One of the reasons I started cycling is I got into the habit of getting a pork tenderloin biscuit at the gas station on the way to work.

I’m used to gas station pizza, biscuits, and the crockpot full of boiled peanuts, but since I have relocated to Louisiana I realize that many people here take gas station food seriously. They even have jargon for it: “Hotbox.” Maybe that’s what it is called everywhere, but I also know another definition for that term.

Admittedly, the gas station food I grew up around often tasted a little like compromise with an aftertaste of regret. That is not the case in the Central Louisiana region. I will not go so far as to say it is healthy, but how often do healthy and good really coexist, especially in the context of food? We could probably square up with one another on deciding whether the food is good-there is no accounting for taste- but I think would all have to agree that the food is consistently hot, which is more than I can say about many fast food restaurants.

My brother has lived in Louisiana so long that he prefers the gas station fried chicken over Popeye’s and KFC. I’m not sure if he has gone native enough to believe that it is better than Cane’s or Chick-Fil-A, but we don’t have a Cane’s or a Chick-Fil-A within 30 minutes of where we live. I tried that gas station chicken the other day for the first time-Krispy Krunchy Chicken-and it is hard to argue with how good it is. They are in gas stations all around this area.

Did you know that Louisiana is in the Diabetes Belt?

“I had one of the best fried pork chops I’ve ever had in my life the other day at a gas station in the ghetto in Delhi.”-Joe Bowen

I’m not really sure if we’re supposed to say ghetto in 2024, but the next time I’m in Delhi I’ll look for that gas station.

These Hotboxes have caused me to ask some serious questions about fast food: Why should I pay a premium for cold food and poor service? I don’t mind waiting on hot fries, but why would I pay to wait for cold fries? Most of the gas stations will whip you up a fresh batch of fries, boudin balls, chicken, or whatever you want if you don’t mind waiting. I think the biggest question is whether fast food is worth the money in today’s economy. That is a serious question when you are feeding a family of five.

I understand that people don’t make Central Louisiana a vacation destination. But the next time you are “passing through”, don’t be afraid to try some gas station food. It’s going to be a lot better than you think.

Diabetes: A Health Topic

“November is Diabetes Awareness Month. Maybe you could a talk on Diabetes for us.”

I was asked to speak at the Senior Center about Diabetes because November was Diabetes Awareness Month and that would be a good “Health Topic.” When the lady said that over the phone I had a flashback to the fifth grade when I was assigned a body system to do a research report on. I don’t remember what my assignment was, most likely because my Mother probably got carried away “Helping” me, but I do remember Amanda Giovanni’s* topic. She was assigned the respiratory system. There came a day when we were to present our projects orally and with visual aides before the entire combined classroom of 4th and 5th graders and more importantly before Mrs. McManus and Mrs. Battle. I’m sure I did adequately on the oral portion, and my Mom’s artistic hand on the visual side either landed me some extra points or counted against me depending on whether or not my teacher’s were fooled into thinking that I had mastered the art of hatching and cross-hatching at the ripe old age of ten.

I wish Amanda would’ve had a little help from anyone. The poor girl was unprepared. When it was her turn to stand and deliver, she held up a crumpled piece of wide ruled paper with a pencil drawing of a pair of quickly drawn lungs. I can remember her anxious posture while standing before her peers. I have transcribed-from memory-the entirety of her presentation.

“My report is on the Respiratory System. Our lungs help us breathe. Without our lungs, what would we do?”

Utter silence fell over the room. I think we all learned a lesson far more valuable than any fifth grade research could tell us about the respiratory system. It was Mrs. McManus who broke the silence. She was disappointed that the child was unprepared, but there was also an element of understanding of what the girl may have been experiencing at home. Not everyone had a Mom who would drive to the BP gas station right after church to get a piece of poster board and then come home and free hand the circulatory system with H Encyclopedia Brittanica opened to Human Body while you were tucked in bed.

“You’ve had weeks to prepare for this project. You could’ve asked me for help.”

I want to say we had a whole month to procrastinate on this project. I haven’t changed all that much since 1996. I still wait til the last minute on a lot of things because I work better under pressure.

Work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.

-Parkinson’s Principle

So here I am in the prime of middle-age, writing a quick article instead of researching Diabetes. I’ll get around to it-I’ve still got plenty of time. But I did think about just drawing a picture of some cookies covered by a general prohibition sign and saying something like, Diabetes is bad. 0/10 would not recommend and just hoping for the best. I might not get asked back, but I would almost guarantee that someone in that room will probably still remember that speech vividly in 30 years.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Sweet Tea

We never called it sweet tea at the house, merely “tea”. It was probably the first recipe I learned to make after cheese crackers, which involves folding a piece of American Cheese into quarters, placing them on saltine crackers, and microwaving them for ten seconds. They are still one of my favorite snacks, although I have graduated to Ritz crackers and cheese you have to cut with your knife. My sister once microwaved some cheese crackers for about ten minutes. They didn’t taste all that good since she had deviated to far from the original recipe. Mom taught me to make tea when I was a little kid and still didn’t mind letting her cut my hair. We consumed a lot of tea at home, and it was supposed to be your responsibility to make a new pitcher if you finished off the last of it. Woe to the person who finished the tea and placed the empty pitcher back into the refrigerator.

I’ll teach you how to make tea, it’s a critical skill. You need a pot, not a kettle. You’ll need someone else to teach you to make tea if you want to use a kettle. If you’re learning from me you’ll need a pot, like a Johnny Appleseed hat type pot that you might also use for making green beans. It helps if the handle is slightly loose. Of course you will need some tea, preferably Sure-Fine brand, which is the Piggly-Wiggly store brand. If you get Red Diamond or any name brand people will think that you are snooty. Besides, those fancy name brands do not taste as good. And make sure you get black tea, nobody cares about how healthy green tea is and you’re going to destroy any of those nutritional benefits when you add the sugar anyway. Three tea bags should do it, but don’t get the kind with the strings, cause after you place the tea bags in the pot you’re going to fill it up with water and bring it to a boil on the stove. You can also nuke it in the microwave like Nonna does, but I don’t recommend this, it’s way to easy to mess up a recipe in the microwave. Once your tea has come to a boil for a bit, turn off the heat and let it set on the stove while you pour anywhere from one and a half to two and a half cups of sugar in your pitcher. My sister always did three. Pour the scalding hot tea straight onto the sugar (this is my favorite part). Stir it around with a spoon until you feel the sugar dissolve, it’s therapeutic. You won’t have enough tea in the pot to make a whole gallon-which is the only acceptable amount of tea to make- so you’ll need to leave the tea bags in the pot while as you fill it up with water to dump into the pitcher. You’ll have to do this a few times and while it may feel unnecessary those last couple of times, there are some things you do in the kitchen that don’t have to make sense.

It’s not hard to make tea, the only way you can mess it up is to not put sugar in it. My Dad once put brown sugar in the tea and didn’t tell anyone. I guess he was being resourceful since we were out of sugar. We found out though. My Dad grinned sheepishly like a child that had been caught.

You may be wondering what tea pairs well with if you are new to tea, which is hard for me to imagine. Tea pairs well with breakfast, dinner, and supper.

Sometimes for breakfast, there wouldn’t be enough tea to go around because someone the night before left just enough left in the pitcher to justify not making more tea. Mom would ration out the cold tea into three separate tumblers. I always liked cold tea better than iced tea. Those mornings you would savor it. It probably tasted best then. Sometimes my sister would run late and she would let me have hers, along with her fried weenie and scrambled eggs.

A few months after I got married, I developed an unbearable pain in my lower back. There was nothing I could do to get comfortable. Laying still hurt, walking hurt, using the heat pad hurt, not using the heat pad hurt. I had to call in sick for work. I told my wife that I think I may have a kidney stone. “You would know if had a kidney stone” she said, and told me that I was being dramatic.

The pain lasted for the longest February that I have ever lived through. I’m not sure if tea was what caused my kidney stone, but it’s what I blamed, so I quit drinking tea in an effort to make a plea bargain with this kidney stone. Finally my suspicions were confirmed when I passed the kidney stone at work. It was immediate relief. It sat in the bottom of the toilet, big enough for me to see clearly. I stooped down closer to get a better look and triggered automatic flush sensor on the toilet, which flushed right in my face.

By the time I finally passed the kidney stone I had broken a twenty year old habit and I decided to see how long I could go without tea or Coke-which is what Southerners call all carbonated soft drinks. That was ten years ago. It’s not that I think other people are bad for drinking tea or Coke, but I just don’t crave it anymore. It would probably be ok if I took it back up again, but I’m going for the world record. If I close my eyes on a morning when I’m running a bit late, I can picture myself at the kitchen table looking at three glasses each filled about a third of the way, and I can still taste that cold tea.