Have Food Issues, Will Travel

You know how when you go into the monkey house at the zoo, and the smell of the place assaults your unsuspecting nostrils and you can’t help but gasp and exclaim “Wow, it smells AWFUL in here!” to anyone in earshot? And then you’re all like “Hey, look! Baby gorillas!” and you find yourself enjoying watching the chimps frolic on their jungle gym and laugh as the cranky old orangutan flips the bird to the crowd with a big, gummy grin, and after a while it doesn’t smell so bad because you’ve gotten used to it and you don’t even notice it anymore until someone new walks into the building and you hear them gasp and say “Wow, it smells AWFUL in here!”

Turns out I was living in the monkey house.

It didn’t occur to me just how much life I’d been missing out on in the last several years until I started actually living again. All of a sudden I felt free to actually DO things, amazing and exciting things like running out to the store on a whim, or going to a movie on a weeknight, or having a leisurely Saturday night dinner with a friend, or going to sleep before 10 PM. And—if I wanted to get REALLY kooky—maybe even a romantic weekend trip to someplace exotic and fabulous.

Like, say, St. Louis.

Ok, so maybe it isn’t exactly synonymous with romance, but it was the destination of my first weekend getaway with Tim last November. I could tell you that we settled on that city because the prospect of a ride up to the top of the Gateway Arch and the promise of two free beers at the end of the Budweiser Brewery tour was just too tempting to resist. Or maybe because we both love long car rides that are unencumbered by a bunch of pesky scenery, but you wouldn’t believe me. Of course if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, the real reason we chose to go there won’t surprise you at all. We decided to spend the weekend in St. Louis because it was the closest metropolitan area to this:



Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston, MO.  The birthplace of many an eventual heart attack, I'm sure.



Several years ago, I saw Lambert’s Cafe featured on a Food Network special about the country’s best places to “pig out”. Famous for it’s gigantic portions of down home specialties, side dishes served family style by roaming restaurant staff, and their world famous “throwed rolls” (which are served to you from across the room via jump-shot, and if you want one you have to catch it midair—totally worth the burned fingertips!), a visit to Lambert’s went on my personal bucket list. When I mentioned to Tim that I’d always wanted to eat there, being a foodie himself (and a fan of car trips in general) he was all in. We decided to make a weekend of it, and thus found ourselves spending a three wonderful days driving across Missouri, drinking free blueberry beer, roaming the charming shops of St. Charles, viewing the city from 630 feet above the river, and driving two hours to the thriving metropolis of Sikeston where I was served this slab of chicken fried steak & mashed potatoes smothered in cream gravy in a 12 inch stainless steel skillet (a meal which I believe legally qualifies as a suicide attempt in every state except Missouri).

It was a long way to travel for dinner, but you know what? It was totally worth it. We had a fantastic time, and look forward to going back someday. It won’t likely be any time soon, though. Partially because we value our cardiac health, and partially because there are lots of other restaurants in the world that we’d like to visit.

The idea of foodie-tourism is something that’s always appealed to me (surprise!), and I’ve had a running list of places I’d like to eat someday that’s been growing for years. I blame cable TV, which is the food-addict equivalent of internet porn. If Guy Fieri features a particularly interesting Diner, Dive or Drive-In, it goes on my list. If Adam Richman from Man v. Food eats sandwich on french bread loaded with grilled pastrami, cheese, cole slaw and french fries (ON the sandwich! OMG!), then you can bet that someday I’ll find an excuse to get to Pittsburgh and try one.

There is a piece of conventional weight-loss wisdom that says we should strive not to have food be an “event” in our lives. If we remove the mystique surrounding special occasion meals and diminish the excitement of an anticipated treat, we can begin to view food only as the fuel our body needs to function, and nothing more. We can train ourselves to believe that Thanksgiving is about family, not oodles of food as far as the eye can see. July 4th is about the celebration of our freedom, not eating the world’s best lemon bars. Vacation is about seeing new sights and experiencing the culture of unfamiliar areas, and not about catching a hot roll with your bare hands before slathering it in sorghum & butter and devouring it.

I disagree.

Well, not totally. I believe that my food-crazy is part of who I am, and I am never going to eliminate it from my life. But I also believe that I can train myself to channel it in a way that makes my life easier to live on a day-to-day basis. For me, the problem isn’t that I put special food events on a pedestal, it’s that I put EVERY food event on one. There are days that I look forward to having a stick of string cheese with the same anticipatory glee that the thought of dumplings and kraut once a year at Thanksgiving induces. I have daydreamed all afternoon about the tater-tot casserole that we’ll be having for dinner with the same kind of palm-rubbing glee that a piece of my sister in-law’s chocolate cake incites in me a week out from a birthday party. Maybe the trick is to make everyday food unimportant, and to let the special event foods keep their mystique. If I can work each day to see food as fuel, then I honor my body by keeping it healthy and fit enough to really enjoy those moments when food is allowed to take center stage.

So that’s what I’m trying to do. Tonight I fuel my body with grilled chicken & brown rice & veggies. Tomorrow I fill the tank with steel cut oats, fresh strawberries, and low calorie popcorn. And the day after that I will cheerfully dine on low fat cottage cheese, steamed brussels sprouts, and baked tilapia--because I know that, someday, there’s a 22 inch loaded chili dog in Phoenix that’s got my name all over it…

Simple Pleasures...

We had a terribly boring dinner last night. Seriously, while edible, it was also bland--the kind of meal that you can barely even remember well enough the next day to describe it in any detail, appetizing or otherwise. In retrospect, the only adjective that perfectly describes it is B-O-R-I-N-G. And maybe the (non)word “Meh”. And the very fact that it was so unremarkable is what makes it noteworthy enough to tell you all about it.

Every so often I am seized by the realization that, as a citizen of a country that is a study in excess, I need to take steps to simplify my own little corner of this gimme-gimme world. Generally this manifests itself in two distinct ways:

1. I go stomping through the house armed with a hefty bag and an attitude and pick up the assorted flotsam that’s found it’s way into my cupboards, closets and various flat surfaces. If it can be pitched, I pitch it. If it can be donated, I bag it up. If I need it, it’s granted a reprieve and put away for future use. At the end of this exercise I torture myself by dwelling on just how much good will (read: hot fudge sundaes) I could have bought with the cash we spent on yesterdays essentials that somehow became today’s trash. Then I get over myself, enjoy all the pretty order, and get back to the business of accumulation.

2. I get out a pad and pen and take a detailed inventory of everything in my cupboards, pantry, fridge & freezer (and my super secret stash of goodies in the Rubbermaid tub out in the garage. Shhhh. Tell NO ONE.) and vow that until we’ve gone through all the food we already have in the house, we’re not buying any more.

This is not particularly a hardship, mind you. At least not at first. I have a somewhat liberal view of what constitutes a ‘staple’ food, and so am rarely without the fixins for an impromptu feast on hand at any given moment. Drop by my house unexpectedly for dinner and it’s a good bet that I can probably whip you up something tasty enough that you’ll be glad you stopped by. I thank my Sam’s Club membership and all that time I spent in culinary school for my propensity never to be without all the basics of a damn fine meal. But those same things, combined with a food issue or two that I happen to possess, also means that I often find myself with more than enough on hand to feed us for weeks at a time, and I’m seized by the need to use it all up before accumulating more.

So after purging my kitchen of what has passed it’s prime (like, say, a cake mix that expired in January 2007 or a long ignored box of hamburger helper that I remember having before we moved into the new house in December 2006) and armed with a detailed list of what’s on hand, I set about using it up in creative and delicious ways. The first week or two is pretty much status quo as the old favorites make their way through the rotation. As fresh produce supplies are dwindling (thank you Debbie Meyer’s Green Bags! Can’t live without ‘em) the menu gets a bit subdued as bags of frozen veggies are hauled out to round out unremarkable meals. It’s also about this time when you start serving up all those things that someone pleaded with you to buy only to realize that maybe the fact that they are sold by the gross should have been a hint as to the adjective that best described them (I’m refering to YOU son, and the horrible mini-taco appetizer fiasco. Yes, I know they taste like unwashed feet, but they were 12.99 so I’d develop a taste for toes if I were you).

When the cupboards and appliances start to get noticeably bare, the fare becomes hit and miss as tends to happen with forced creativity (Hmm. What can I make with pork chops, frozen ravioli and sugar free tapioca pudding mix?) until I’m eventually facing down an ancient can of sugar free cherry pie filling and an unopened box of frozen spicy black bean veggie burgers and dreading the possibilities. That’s when it’s time to make list and head out to start accumulating all the things we’ll finally be eating when the whole cycle repeats itself in a few months. Ahh. The Circle of Life.

We’re well into phase two at the moment, and after the last onion had been chopped two days ago and there was nary a can of condensed soup in sight, last night’s dinner of steamed rice, frozen green beans and grilled marinated chicken breasts made it’s way to the table. It was a fine dinner. A serviceable dinner. A sensible dinner. A simple dinner. A dinner that most people would happily consume without a second thought. It just wasn’t a typical dinner. Not for me, anyway.

There are people in this world who view food simply as fuel. A necessary part of their day to be consumed and converted to the energy they need to live their lives. I’m not one of those people. Food isn’t incidental in my life, it’s not a pleasant diversion—it’s an event, a sensory experience, an fascination and a thousand other things it probably shouldn’t be…but it is. I’m convinced that while I will likely never be cured of my obsession with food, part of learning to manage my obesity is in learning to make food less important in my life.

As I prepared last night’s dinner, I found myself ruminating on the ways it could have been better. A handful of fresh chopped parsley, chicken broth, some caramelized onion and a teaspoon of chopped almonds would have turned that steamed rice into a damn fine pilaf. A sprinkle of parmesan would have livened up those beans, and a peanut-sesame marinade whipped up on the fly would have made that plain old chicken breast delectable. But, alas, my rapidly improving Old Mother Hubbard impression wouldn’t allow for those kinds of tweaks. And so I sat down with a sigh to my boring meal…and you know what?

It wasn’t half bad.

I enjoyed the food, the company, and finished the meal with a satisfied tummy—and palate, surprisingly enough. I wasn’t tempted to lick my plate, I didn’t find myself coveting what needed to be boxed up for lunch tomorrow. It wasn’t an event, it wasn’t a sensation, it was just a meal. Sometimes food is just food.

Who knew?

Lather, rinse, repeat...

I’ve been a little stressed lately. Ok, a lot stressed. But while the atypical shenanigans afoot in my life lately might be making my head spin like the Tasmanian devil, you’d likely only notice this if you looked very, very closely—and only when I didn’t know you were looking. While I might be fairly well known for having a penchant for the dramatic in some (read: many) situations and will fight ferociously for the well being of those I love (or hell, who I barely know if I detect the faint whiff of injustice in the air), I tend to hold my emotions pretty close the vest when something is bothering me. This has always been my M.O. according to the people who raised me. My father tells me that even as a very young child trying to get me to divulge what may or may not be bothering me was a lot like performing dental work on an unwilling patient, like say a raccoon. With rabies.

There is, however, one relatively reliable barometer of my mental status at any given time. If you want to know if I’ve got a lot on my plate, then just look to see how much I’ve got on my plate.

I admire those people who, when the going gets tough, fall squarely into the “tough get going” category. When there’s a crisis to be tackled at work or in the life of someone I love, I am totally one of them. But in my own life, when the going gets tough—the tough go to Long John Silvers. Or at least they did last night.

I didn’t set out to engage in fried fish therapy, mind you. In between drop off and pick up duties I actually intended to stop for a few things at the store and then hit the gym. Instead I wolfed down up a #7 seafood lovers platter with a side of clams and then took a nap (which is pretty much the same thing, right?). I could tell you that I felt bad about it at the time, but it would be a lie. Despite the fact that I’m not really even a fan of Long John Silvers (seriously, I think they should cut out the middle man and just replace all their dining room seating with toilets), every bite I took of that meal had exactly the effect I desired, each mouthful dulled the rising panic within me and left me calm and sleepy and tired enough to forget about everything that drove me to eat it in the first place. It was a familiar feeling.

Looking back over my life and at how my weight has fluctuated through the years, it’s not terribly difficult to see a pattern emerge. When harmony reigns, the balance in my life is reflected in my eating patterns and my resolve is strong and sure. But when that balance is thrown off kilter, the ground feels less sure beneath my feet and I find myself stumbling around trying to regain my footing while old habits seep out of the cracks in the foundation that seemed so strong just moments ago. I find myself reaching for food and the comfort it brings, the hazy calm that settles over me with each bite, with each swallow, with each sigh of relief that comes when the gaping hole inside of me has been filled up for the moment. Never mind that it won’t last, or that the low that follows will spin me farther into despair. All that matters right then is that temporary comfort is better than the alternative.

When the fog lifts, it occurs to me that the first step to restoring balance in my life is often taking control of my weight, and restoring my power over food usually snowballs into giving me the energy to deal with the things that threw off my balance in the first place. When I look back to see what lessons I can take with me for the next time things go haywire, it frustrates me because the line between cause and effect is blurry. Balance equals control, chaos upsets control, loss of control makes chaos worse, rock bottom chaos leads to regaining control, control facilitates balance (lather, rinse, repeat). The chicken versus eggishness of it all makes my head hurt.

So when I woke up at 5 AM with a headache, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. Neither was that familiar feeling of self loathing it brought with it. I spent some time kicking myself for what I’d done, mentally listing and re-listing my sins and calculating the damage, thinking about how long it had been since I’d done something like that. As I lay there in the dark I asked myself if this was as low as I needed to go, if I was ready to be in control again. Turns out I was. So I got up, brushed my teeth, put on my sweatpants and went to the gym.

I feel good. The darkness is lifting, and what I couldn’t face last night doesn’t seem as scary today. I feel in control, like I’m ready to find balance again.

Lather, rinse…