growing up, i survived on 50's fare: stouffer's, pot roast & boiled potatoes, upside down pineapple cake with maraschinos. first words? "chocolate chip mint clown cone please." favorite after-school snack: rolled-up swiss cheese dunked in hellmann's (note to self: check cholesterol).
of course, there were times when i ate fruit. i don't recall when, but i'm sure i did. wait! i drank a can of mott's apple juice with my daily brown-bagged lunch. surprisingly, it wasn't until college that my culinary choices caught up with me. when i met domino's acquaintence, i gained the cliche freshman 15 (ok, 20). madison, wi's sub-zero temps did nothing to spark my abs and me to visit the campus gym. i didn't even know there was a campus gym until my childhood friend carolyn visited and with carrot juice in hand asked, "want to take an aerobics class?" clearly, i declined politely then sat in my dorm lounge watching my food science class on closed-circuit tv.
carolyn's house next door was a hub of health, no wonder i logged half the '80s there. every morning, i'd hop the chain-link fence, led by wafts of burnt toast (her family loved to scorch then scrape it). in the spacious, sun-soaked breakfast room, i'd find my seat at the giant, round, white marble table in the middle of which was a wooden lazy susan that spun like the wheel of fortune, offering a beautiful line-up of wholesome cereals. stop. granola!
as i cleanse, i crave clean, like a whole organic tomato eaten like a red delicious. when i asked carolyn recently if she had the recipe for her family's soulful tomato vegetable soup infused with whole peppercorn, she was blown away that i even remembered it. funny how a seemingly small detail of one's life is another's most precious.
best-tasting morsel? daisy and her newfound appreciation for foods plucked from the earth or a tree, not an assembly line. her plate is fast-morphing from beige to red, orange and yellow. she begs me to buy pomegranites and savors strawberries (disclaimer: i promised dais that once she gained a bit more weight per her dietician, she may eat - gulp - her dream meal: a lunchable).
is it hot in here?
like all good-for-you's, it's a balance. hellooo chocolate-covered blueberries! a carnivore at heart, i imagine that, rarely, i will still steal a slice of mignon (i accept all peter luger invites). it's about naming and honoring our values. and, of course, perspective. like when daisy recently recalled a french class skit:
dais: i was the last one picked to use the phone.
me: how did you feel about that?
dais: it's fine. it's a phone, it's not a nobel prize.
