Thursday, August 21, 2008

Vacation Gleanings, Diet Observations and Faux Turkey

Short men with short legs shouldn't wear long (below the knee) shorts. They look like dwarves. Not a good fashion statement.

One morning at our Chicago hotel, someone abandonned a $6.00 bowl of fresh fruit. Totally untouched. Delicious blackberries, et. al, with juicy watermelon chunks. I wanted to whisk it off to my room and scarf it down. What a shame.

Devon Avenue in Chicago, the longest street in the world. Starts in Pakistan, ends in Israel.

Chicago, like many other cities, has two seasons. Winter and road construction.

Tonight we're having a South Beach Diet chicken salad. SBD has some delicious recipes, although of course sometimes I make a few substitutions in the interest of taste.

The non-fat half-and-half is a weird concoction of chemicals--better living through chemistry I guess. Why don't they call low-fat cheese no-taste cheese, in the interest of truth in marketing. Actually, the Laughing Cow brand (La Vache qui Rit) does taste like, well, cheese. It's good on celery, just like the diet recommends. Whenever the stores have in on special, they sell out the first day, which tells you that many folks must be following the diet. As diets go, it's do-able.

Lots of people do, but I never could hack weight watchers. Counting all those points was a full time job, and they were such lipophobes. 72 points for a pat of butter. Not quite that bad, but almost.

And then there was good old Dr. Atkins, with peaches and cream and pork rinds instead of potato chips.

When we lived in Wellesley the stores didn't even have pork rinds. Wellesley women are thin by nature, driving those big SUVs to soccer practice, and whatever must burn calories. You can stroll through the entire Roche Bros. store and amid all that food and temptation, not see one fat woman. They are all buying that disgusting sliced turkey that has some sixth-cousin relationship to turkey or meat but mostly related to nitrates, saline and flavor enhancers. Yuck.

O.K., ask me how I feel about deli turkey. Do you ever seen skin? Bones? Anything resembling a real turkey? Ask yourself what you're eating.

Better yet, buy a turkey breast--the kind with bones, damn it, and rub it with canola oil, salt, pepper and some seasonings and roast it until the timer pops up. Carve and eat and put the rest in the fridge for turkey sandwiches.

Real people eat real food.

Grapeshot

No comments:

Post a Comment

Your comments are always welcome!