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

Cat Blog Day

Thisbe on the desktop.


Ah, the cats, those rascals! Annie escaped from the confines of the house many times, because one of the guests just couldn't remember to shut the door properly. Annie is an escape artist. She sneaks outside and eats grass and contemplates nature for a while. Then someone catches her and hauls her back indoors.

Thisbe is still refusing the high-priced cat food from the vet that she chomped down until the latest bag. Something is obviously different. Annie didn't like it either but has given up the nose-in-the-air business and is scarfing it eagerly. So now in addition to the vet's high-priced kibble, we buy Fancy Feast which has a fancy price. Only the flavors "in gravy" will do.

Thisbe made peace, kind of, with our small guest and did not charge under the bed on sight, even allowed herself to be petted sometimes.

Guest is now gone and Thisbe is out and about the house, begging for catnip, begging for moist food at noon. Ha! Ha! Lots of luck Thisbe. We think you look great with your new waistline and you seem a little more playful, too, not having all that lard to lug around.

Maybe this is why people lose considerable weight on those diets where you have to buy the food. Let's face it. How good could frozen dinners really taste? So the dieters eat less and less and of course lose weight. When the folks where I formerly worked brought the diet meals in for lunch, I would also ask, "how is that?"

The answer was invariable, "it's O.K.," which meant it was edible and would stave off hunger, but that was all. It's O.K. Never a compliment. Reading the ingredients alone was a horror show. Meat Product?

Once I ate Weight Watchers macaroni and cheese and it tasted like it had soap in it. Was nowhere near O.K. Gross is more like it.

Many kids who grew up in households with convenience and prepared foods that are half-chemicals have no palate and would not know real food if they ate it. Pathetic and sad. Once I read answers that people now grown had given when asked, "what, if anything, do you still hold against your parents?" and one man answered, "they never served butter. They never told me about butter."

So don't be one of those parents who hand out the frozen pizza and chicken fingers. Cook real food. Make your kids help. Start the day with fresh fruit and whole grains and scrambled eggs with chives.

That was a pretty long rant. Will rant for pay. Will rant for free. Will rant for any reason.

Grapeshot

My Post-Holiday Gift to You: Maple Pecan Cookies

Maple Pecan Cookies

These are lip-smackin' good! From the Penzey's Spice catalog. www.penzeys.com.

For god's sake don't substitute margarine or faux vanila or any other abomination that the poster has suggested. Use real maple syrup. Live authentically. Remember that trans fats kill over 100,000 people every year.

http://www.recipezaar.com/203402

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