Excerpt from The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio by Terry Ryan, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

A cheer erupted from the assembled spectators as Mom rounded the magazine racks and nearly catapulted her teetering mountain of goods into the checkout aisle. "Time's up!" yelled Harvey, bringing his stopwatch down with a mighty click.

It was over.

In all, Mom netted $411.44 worth of food (the equivalent of $3,000 today), a fortune in our eyes.

Later we would learn to hide the imported food from him, but that night Dad inexplicably threw a dozen cans through the open back door into the yard.

We sat around the kitchen table, which was piled high with the rest of the canned delicacies, in silence. When Dad finally went to bed, Bruce turned to Mom. "What was that all about?"

"I don't know," she sighed. "He's been drinking."

"What exactly is caviar?" asked Barb.

"Fish eggs," said Mom.

A long silence engulfed the room. It was self-explanatory. No one was going to eat the caviar.

"Do you know that U.S. Army research has shown a relationship between intelligence and a willingness to eat unfamiliar foods?" Mom said.

Except for Mom, nobody would eat the lobster either -- it was just too different from fish sticks.

Copyright © 2001 by Terry Ryan. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the publisher, Simon & Schuster.