Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The key to longevity

My father ate octopus fried in lard with hot peppers on white italian bread with margarine.  He would down these sandwiches with Gordon's gin and a cigarette; instead of water, he would drink cup after cup of coffee with heaping spoons of sugar. Even after the doctor told him to drink water to prevent his frequent kidney infections, he refused to touch the stuff. He said there was plenty of water in the ocean and staring at it was sufficient for him. 
He thoroughly enjoyed cooking meals that no one else would eat like goat soup in a mixture of beer, water, salt, peppers and Adobo. This depression-era character had brought recipes from the old country, and when I was remiss in cleaning up after my rabbit, he made rabbit stew. 
He gave up the Winston cigarettes after a heart attack - there must've been a hidden clause in his pact with the devil. He recovered quickly from his heart attack and continued cooking with pork fat, watching baseball games, putting his footmarks on the wall as he sat at the kitchen table - showing off how flexible he was. 
Oh, he did have one health regimen: he ignored 99% of what happened around him and he drank a glass of grape juice with a raw egg.

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