TV Eating

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 A couple nights ago I was on my own for dinner; decided I didn't want carry-out and would figure out something when I got home. 

 The solution was in the freezer, a Hungry-Man dinner!

 It wasn't an extraordinary decision and I didn't give it another thought until yesterday afternoon when I needed a topic for Sunday's blog. I pulled up the Holiday Insights website where I noticed that September 10 was National TV Dinner Day. That was the day I put the frozen dinner in the oven.

As a kid, I didn't have a lot of TV dinners. Mom worked from home as a seamstress and dress maker and prepared two meals a day when dad was working and I was in school. Since meals were prepared, we rarely ate in front of the television.

During my 6th and 7th grade years, I ate early because I was on the B-team basketball squad and our practice started around 4:30 or 5, so I ate right after school. One thing that made this arrangement possible was that we lived on the same block of the school, so I could walk back and forth to school.

The last six months of college I had my own studio apartment, but I didn't fill the freezer with frozen foods. I'm sure I ate a few along the way, but primarily I lived on meals of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, spaghetti, and hamburgers. It wasn't gourmet by any means, but I didn't go hungry, man.

After the boys came along and we lived in Augusta, Wisconsin, we lived a block and a half from the town's grocery store. When my wife was busy or away, my go to with the boys was taking them on a walk to the I.G.A. store where we chose our own TV dinners, and, if we didn't have anything at home, something for dessert. 

That may have been influenced by my dad, who was less proficient in the kitchen than I was, who sometimes burned a burger or thought tamales were a good choice (not in my opinion).

The story behind TV dinners is fascinating Swanson started a line of frozen dinners in 1953 but it wasn't until they undersold turkey for Thanksgiving and used that as the entree with cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes, and peas. At $0.98 they sold 10 million dinners their first year!

They cost a bit more than that now, but on occasion, a trip down memory lane to the couch and a TV tray is just fine with me.