A CURE FOR FUSSY EATERS IN THE FAMILY

Luky
YEARS AGO I ACQUIRED THE TASTE FOR THE HUMOUR OF THE LATE P G WODEHOUSE.

I have just reread his Jeeves omnibus with considerable enjoyment and smiled at the anti-hero, wealthy Bertie Wooster, who is as silly as he is good-natured.

He is a bachelor of good health, has plenty of money and employs a valet, Jeeves, who has all the intelligence he himself lacks.
  On the face of it Bertie has no problems.
  You know what Pip Freedman calls a bachelor:"The wisest man on earth, because he looks before he leaps, and then he doesn't leap at all."
  
Yet Bertie is dogged by bad luck on account of his succession of scrape-prone friends who rely on his good nature and Jeeves's good sense to get them out of hot water.
  Having finished the book, I thought to myself: Doesn't that just go to show that the problems we create for ourselves are far more difficult than real problems?

There was a time when we were very broke, a long time in fact.
  I think it may have been the happiest time of my life - I know the days when the end of the month came had a charm second to few other pleasures I can recall.

One day my neighbour and I were having a chat over the fence and she was in a terrible state.
  "I hate cooking!" she complained. "My husband and children are so jolly fussy.
  John doesn't eat steak, Jane doesn't like chops, Joan refuses to eat chicken and my husband won't take pork."

I looked at her with a sense of wonderment, my mind going off on its own.
  At that time I could do wonders with a pound of mince, an onion and a couple of tomatoes, and my family devoured everything I put before them.
  In fact if the dog wanted some, he had to look snappy.

My neighbour was finished talking and was looking at me appealingly, but I could hardly tell her what I thought, which roughly summarized was as follows:
  "First you take John, Jane and Joan and give them a good talking to.
  Secondly, you serve them a plat of mealiemeal with a teaspoonful of unsweetened condensed milk.
  Then you make a parcel of the steak, chops and chicken to give to the homeless service, leaving only enough for a mixed grill for your husband, who's entitled to turn down the pork, since it doesn't agree with everyone's constitution, and he who pays the piper calls the tune."