photo by me
My sister Miriam has informed me the two most important foods on the planet are salmon and blueberries, and I believe her. Karen and I have tried to make them staples in our diet, but I can’t convince my appetite to appreciate fish as much as meat, and blueberries don’t make my top five in the favorite fruit category. But two healthy foods aren’t going to save me. I think I need an overhaul. I used to get free fast food as a coach, and that ruined me. We came to the realization that we needed to make some food lifestyle changes, such as practically eliminating fast food and cutting down on eating out in general. The lockdown has done wonders for that. Unfortunately, my other goals — much less red meat, more fish, whole grains instead of white flour, low calorie drinks, nuts in small amounts, and, first-last-always, fruits and vegetables – have not been so easy to accomplish for me. Why did God make potato chips taste so good? And who can live without pizza?
Here’s my stumbling block–I’m not much on vegetables. Never was. I can stomach them now, but in my youth I simply could not abide peas. My parents were old school–you sat at the table until your plate was clean, an obvious conflict of interest.. One day my mother noticed an odor coming from the dining room table. The table was spotless–but there was an unrecognizable but unmistakable odor. Finally, she got down on her knees to investigate. Under my place at the table, crammed and smushed into the wood, the crannies, the joints, the cracks, she found peas and peas and peas. My favorite thing about peas is that they are sticky when squished.
On Thanksgiving we had pumpkin pie. I was about ten, and I took a piece, tasted it, hated it. My father informed me I couldn’t leave the table until I finished it. This was blatant injustice–nobody should be forced to finish dessert! I don’t even remember how the stalemate ended, but I know I sat at that table for hours
. And I never tried pumpkin pie again until I was at least 30 years old, when I discovered it was delicious.
I still think I have a shot at the successful diet. The key is fruit. Karen is bringing me around of veggies. And now they say nuts are good. (Costco has some excellent nut choices.) When we were children, my mother would buy us bing cherries in season. But she would never just set them out. No, she would get six bowls and dole them out one at a time. She would eat herself whatever unequal remainder existed. She did the same thing with pistachio nuts. I’d eat my bowl like they might dissolve in there, but one of my sisters was a hoarder. Geez, the smugness inherent in possessing a bowl full of something in the presence of empty bowls!
We had rows of raspberries planted on the hillside in our backyard. During that magical time when they bore fruit, my mother would send one of us out with a small bucket, and we would all have raspberries on our breakfast cereal that morning. Rogue that I was, I can remember sneaking out and laying prone in the raspberry patch (which was visible from Mom’s kitchen window) and plucking berries from the bush to my mouth. No wash, no cereal, no ice cream. Elemental and delicious.
Once at a family reunion, my nephew Ged and I were partaking from a carton of raspberries. “This is my favorite food,” he said. “I never get tired of raspberries.” I smiled at him. “It’s in the genes,” I said.
Costco has a really surprisingly good cauliflower pizza in the frozen section!
Marinade for grilled salmon you will think is meat. 3/4 soy sauce, two tablespoons brown sugar, 1/2 tsp garlic salt, 1/4 cup of peanut oil. Marinate for a couple hours, throw on the grill. yum. You can use this marinade for chicken and Costco has the best frozen halibut. You will think you are eating lobster.