A big shot of paprika is good for the heart
Are We There Yet?
Lori Clinch

‘Oh no!” exclaimed our eldest offspring as he came into the kitchen the other day. “Mom’s been messing with the paprika.”

“Why would she get into the paprika?” questioned Huey.

“Has she been watching the Family Experimentation Channel again?” asked Lawrence as he joined the group.

“It’s nothing that simple,” commented their father from a dark corner of the kitchen. “Your mother made me go to the doctor, and he said my cholesterol is above average. I made the mistake of mentioning it to her, and now she’s decided to put me on a low-fat, no-taste, high-vegetable diet, and you know what that means?”

“Yeah,” said the eldest. “That means that what her meals lack in taste and texture, they’ll make up for with paprika.”

The thing about men is that they just don’t appreciate what we women go through to keep them alive and healthy. Why, if it weren’t for me, my beloved would be sitting in a lodge somewhere eating deep-fat-fried onion rings with a side of real mayonnaise.

I shudder to think.

When my husband first learned of his elevated cholesterol level, he was determined to do something about it. He was totally gung-ho, a real Captain Ima Lowcholesterol. He read the labels, refused to eat anything that wasn’t on his list from the doctor and feared that anything that tasted good would elevate his LDL.

I was impressed by his enthusiasm to make a change in his lifestyle. Out of love and adoration, I singlehandedly created a lovely menu for him that consisted of faux cheese, faux ice cream and my own personal favorite, faux bacon strips.

Things went splendidly until last Wednesday. With his head down and a scowl on his face, my husband quietly sat down for lunch and ate his whole-wheat turkey and sprout sandwich, light on the spread, heavy on the mustard. He complained that the cauliflower had no zest and wondered out loud what low-fat people eat for dessert.

On Thursday, he returned from work and announced that his co-workers had contended that, and I quote, “If you can’t eat what you want, then life ain’t worth the living.

“Therefore,” my precious husband went on to say, with his chest puffed out all cute and everything, “I’m going back to eating like a normal human being.”

How darling is that?

To celebrate the moment I whipped him up a stellar batch of low-fat chili. I was sure he’d be impressed, I thought he’d pat me on the back, boast of his love for his bride and offer up a glass of skim milk as a toast.

Instead, as he looked into his chili bowl and grumbled, “Where’s the beef?”

“There’s meat in there,” I said as I counted out his daily serving of saltine crackers.

“I don’t see the beef.”

“See,” I responded as I held the bowl up to the light. “Look right here, don’t you see it? There’s the hamburger.”

“I don’t see the hamburger,” he said. “All I see are beans, and I swear there’s enough of ’em in here for an army.”

“You’re just lucky I didn’t make it with fish,” I said in my defense.

He wasn’t so quick to respond to that. He just stared at me with wild eyes and amazement. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights.

“You’d really put fish with beans?” he finally replied, as if the thought of it were sacrilegious.

“Happens all of the time.”

He took a deep breath, put his hand to his mouth and whispered, “Does your mother know?”

“You can whine like a 2-year-old,” I said, ignoring his dramatics, “but you ain’t going off this diet. I’ll be danged if I’m going to be a 40-something widow who’s raising the kids on my own because my stubborn husband can’t eat a bowl of low-fat chili.”

“I’m still hungry,” he proclaimed after he gagged some down.

“Says here you can have a half of a banana,” replied one of the boys, as he brought a food chart over to the table.

“Who eats a half of a banana?” he protested.

“People who want to live,” I pointed out.

“What are you going to do with the other half? Put it in the fruit bowl in hopes some desperate soul will happen by and consume the other half? Do you really think someone is going to come along and say, ‘Boy, that half of a banana looks good; let me just cut the black mushy end off that bad boy and consume it like nobody’s business?’ ”

“Actually yes, I think it’s bound to happen.”

And you know, with a little paprika it didn’t taste too bad.

Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book “Are We There Yet?” Her e-mail address is clinch@atcjet.net.