“Identifying the bad dishes isn’t the problem. Now on to tasting. You need to use your eyes, your nose, and your fingers – yes fingers, you lips, teeth and only then use your tongue.
“Involve all your senses in tasting and eating. Did you know they did a study that proved people eat with their eyes? If you only eat one meal a day it will be a big meal but suddenly if you eat two meals a day your eyes will demand that both be big meals even if your body, particularly your stomach, doesn’t need it.”
Achmed kept talking but Betty was lost in thought. She was a big eyes/big portion girl. She would skip meals and eat big, feel guilty and be unable to stop and it was all because she’d unknowingly trained her damned eyes to tell her stomach how hungry she was!
“How do you un-train your eyes?” Achmed stopped talking and stared at her uncomprehendingly and then he laughed, understanding.
“You eat five small meals a day and you spend five minutes looking at your food before you taste it. Just look at it. If it isn’t appealing then find a way to make it the most desirable food in the world. Then taste it, savor it. Chew it. Let it dissolve on your tongue. Feel it with your whole mouth, even while you’re swallowing”
Betty wanted to take notes but all thoughts of eating were driven out of her head when she saw Bill standing in the entrance of the tent. He looked devastated. She ran to him.
“There’s been a murder” was all he said.
9. Chapter 8 The Lofton Fairgrounds have always been contained on all four sides by a fence and not simply to encourage visitors to pay the entrance fee. The tradition dates back more than one hundred years when several pigs were freed by some young hooligans. The ensuing chase and recapture is the stuff of legends and has been the subject of many a Lofton Elementary School play. The original wooden split rail fence was ineffective for pigs and was replaced by an oversized white picket fence that stood almost four feet tall. Only one or two sections of the old fence, now falling down and gray with age, remain.
A similar event happened again in the late nineteen sixties when just about all the show animals were freed. The police had blamed a group of out-of-town hippies who traveled with the midway selling macramé bracelets and necklaces. They were arrested and spent the night in jail with half the town outside calling for their heads.
It turned out that the high school basketball team turned out to be the real culprits. The hippies were released and after selling out their inventory to a very apologetic community they chose not to file a lawsuit. Once the dust settled, the town erected a six foot chain link fence around the fairgrounds and added security guards and now video cameras to the animal barns.
Prior to the guards (and cameras) the animal barns were the place for kids to meet and hang out. Back in the day ‘a roll in the hay’ really meant just that and the older Four H members always made sure to reserve a couple empty stalls near the back corner for use by young lovers.
For the last half century the new place to neck and pet was underneath the bleachers beside the reviewing stand.
Even during the day this was a place lost in shadows. Thirty, forty, fifty years of trash lay under the bleachers. Old newspapers and broken two by fours lay where they fell. Presumably the rotted and broken supports were replaced by county maintenance crews although one never knew. Only the bravest local teens or tourists sat in the upper seats.
With the afternoon competitions over and the sun low in the sky couples slyly made their way by various circuitous routes known only to everyone past the bandstand, past the large gate used by vehicles and animals, past the reviewing stand to the bleachers.