RIND STONE COWBOYS

Wow, was it dark when my alarm went off. We've got to stop fiddling around with this Daylight Savings thing. Even the sun was caught off guard this morning. Another breakfast by flashlight.

Back when my daughter was table height, she refused to eat the crusts of her bread. This was particularly disturbing when it came to my celebrated French toast. What became known as freedom toast, I'd cut into ninths, two cuts vertically and two cuts horizontally, which stacked two high produced eighteen pieces. Since my daughter wouldn't touch the pieces attached to the crusts, only the centermost two pieces were palatable to her.

So, for years I've eaten the outermost sixteen pieces -- which explains why Al Gore and I share the same tux size. Now, however, my daughter is going on fifteen, and still she has not made peace with her bread crusts. Even though I completely de-crust the French toast before cutting it into ninths, she still refuses to eat the perimeter pieces. According to her, the outermost pieces, though crust-free, were once married to the crusts, and are therefore tainted and unfit for consumption.

Where does this aversion to food extremities come from? I've always eaten the whole package, leaving no prisoners. Whether apples, pears, potatoes, or bananas, I eat the whole thing. Waste not, want not, I believe. I will admit, pineapples are tough on the stomach--if not the throat--and Gouda is better without the red waxy part, but it's never killed me. Besides, it adds bulk and leaves me satiated.

I had a roommate once named Chuck who thought that bologna rinds were natural casings-- that is until they showed up as a plastic ball on his stomach X-ray. The X-ray tech thought it was stones. His gastroenterologist thought it was a rubber band ball he had swallowed. The doctor wasn't all that relieved when he learned the truth. Chuck became known around school as the Rind Stone Cowboy.

My daughter, however, would peel her grapes -- if she ate grapes. She doesn't like any fruit, presumably because of its contact with the outside world--the peel. To me, the outsides are the best part. No, with the exception of oranges and coconuts, I don't waste a thing. I was taught not to waste food.

For example, after I finish de-boning a cooked chicken, forensic scientists would have a hard time finding trace DNA on the carcass. Dinosaur fossils have more organic material than my chicken bones. I even drill out the wishbone with my Black and Decker, for its marrow. My wife, a soup maker, has complained about this for over 20 years. The sorry soup bones she gets from me result in broths clearer than water.

I've learned never to say: Honey, isn't this soup a bit thin? And I have a "stock" question for dinner guests: "What flavor would you imagine this soup to be?" It does save on dishes however. We can just dip our tea bags directly in our soup bowls.

I grew up in a family where meals started not with grace, but with a reminder of the starving kids in Tanganyika. In my family, nothing went to waste. I was a human dishwasher, leaving the plates shiny before they even left the table. I did it for the kids in Tanganyika. It was my job to beef up the kids in Tanganyika.

Kids today are different. My daughter has no feeling for the world's hungry, like me. In fact, she told her Global teacher that I'm the reason for the worldwide food shortage.