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He Eats Only Potatoes!

Dinner with my father

Shefali O'Hara
3 min readMay 8, 2023
Photo by Ben Libby on Unsplash

My father did not always eat healthy, according to my mother. She grew up with strict parents who served healthy home-made meals and expected the children to eat what was served. He grew up somewhat spoiled. His parents sometimes sent the servants out to pick up “Bombay Chaat”. These are tasty but not particularly healthy treats that include fried foods and are heavy on grains and light on veggies.

So even though they were both vegetarian, they ate different diets.

When Mom and Dad got married, they both expanded their tastes.

On the weekends, she joined his family in ordering things like Idli/Sambar (South Indian breakfast food) and she would join him for one cup of coffee in the mornings, something she’d never done prior to marriage.

However, she also served a wide variety of vegetables, not just potatoes.

My father loved potatoes. He also liked beans of all kinds, peas, onions, and garlic. Those last two got him and his father in trouble with my grandmother because she was Jain, which meant she didn’t eat those vegetables. She also did not eat nightshades such as eggplant, but my mother loved those.

When we lived in New York, she grew a garden in our backyard where she planted roses and vegetables. Every year she…

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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