“Help, my mom is poisoning me!”

It seems like only last week she dialed 9-1-1. Oh, wait, it was last week. Instead of our usual Friday night fare of crock-pot meatballs, I served a batch of fried tuna cakes. You’d think I had given her a plate laced with weed killer. Granted, the dinner wasn’t my usual culinary blowout, but we’re in the Lenten season of fasting and sacrifice. Just because Fridays are now meatless, it doesn’t mean depriving my family. I used only the finest gourmet products – boxed coating mix and tuna packed in oil, not water. In fact, I went a little overboard and bought the tuna with the talking fish on the can instead of the brand I normally find in the pet aisle.

“Look at how nutritious this is,” I said, handing Cat the box of meal and pointing to the ingredients “Cracker wheat, dehydrated vegetables, potato flakes and natural molasses flavor – nearly all the food groups in one tuna cake.”

Cat grabbed the box out of my hand and read the label. “Monosodium glutamate, maltodextrin, ferrous sulfate. It’s gotta be here.”

“What?”

“Strychnine. You must’ve picked up a box of rat poison by mistake.”

“Think of all the starving kids in California who don’t have enough fat on them to hold up their pants. And have you noticed how Nicole Richie’s ribs poke out? I bet her mom doesn’t cook her tuna cakes.”

“Send a care package,” Cat said. “Make sure to stick a skull and cross-bone on it.”

“If you don’t eat it now, it’ll be waiting for you in the morning.”

That got her attention. Nothing goes better with Saturday morning cartoons than a plate of leftover, cold, mushy tuna cakes.

“Great idea, mom. Where’d you pick up that brilliant parenting tip – Britney Spears?”

Actually, it was a lesson I learned as a little Contessa on liver night. For some reason, like most parents of their generation, my mother and father considered it a good thing to load up the kids on an animal’s organ whose main function was to filter out toxins. We were probably better off sucking cigarette filters. Parents tried all kinds of trickery to lure their kids into eating liver, like burying it under vegetables and sauces and calling it a casserole surprise. My mom went the fried onion and mushroom soup route. She wasn’t too successful. Gagging kept me from getting past the onions. I told Cat that after an hour sitting at the table staring at dried-out leather draped in limp onions covered with congealing soup, Grandpa Contessa would take the plate and stick it in the refrigerator for breakfast the next day.

“The same Grandpa who sneaked me bowls of ice cream after bedtime made you eat liver? For breakfast? No way.”

Cat wasn’t buying it.

“That’s what happens when dads turn into grandpas,” I explained. “Just wait until The Big Guy has grandkids. Your kids will get to shop online and watch PG-13 movies when they visit.”

Now, she really wasn’t buying it.

“So, if you had liver in the morning what happened to your breakfast?” She was testing me.

“It got shifted to an after-school snack. After a while, a bowl of clumpy grits tastes the same as milk and cookies.”

“Ewww. TMI. Just give me the tuna cakes.”

Thank goodness the walk down memory lane worked. I’d have hated to pull out the Friday night dessert story.

Danielle Schaaf is the co-author of “Don’t Chew Jesus!” and can be contacted at hauteflashcontessa@yahoo.com.