Friday, August 14, 2009

My Girlfriend Makes Me Fat!!!

I finally figured out that my obesity is not my fault. I take NO blame for it, whatsoever.

It's entirely Katrina's fault and none of my own doing. I blame her, and her alone.

As you know, I am eating mostly organic, vegetarian or vegan fare at the moment. In an effort to expand my culinary choices, I have become more adventurous in my gastrointestinal consumption.

While at the Farmer's Market last weekend to pick up my composting worms and organic layer mash (chicken feed), I happened upon a mushroom booth. I am a newbie in the field of fungifilia, and I am still fairly limited in the types of mushrooms that I have tried and even more limited in the way that I like them prepared, so I have to be honest when I say that it was the fresh picked huckleberries that they also offered that initially drew me near. While I was standing in line, eyeing the strange looking growths on the table, a man commented to his adult daughter that the 'Hen of the Woods' mushroom that was making me cringe away for fear of contagion, were the variety that they bought the previous weekend.

Out of pure curiosity and nosiness, I asked if he enjoyed the spongeous growth and he affirmed that it was very tasty, indeed.

What the hell? If you're going to be adventurous; then just do it. If I can eat live squid and balut and python, then I can try this. I purchased $5 worth of the smelly things, along with my succulent huckleberries (yum!).

After a week of hemming and hawing, we finally got around to cooking the Hen of the Woods mushrooms and by we, I mean Chef Trina.



Suffice it to say that I was not really looking forward to the meal because I didn't think I would enjoy it that much. It was a super- simple set up: Organic pasta (boiled & drained), fresh minced garlic and onions, mushrooms and a fresh yellow squash from our garden.

Trina sauteed the garlic and onion is a little bit of oil, added the mushrooms and a little bit of balsamic vinegar and red wine, cooked to reduce it. In a separate pan, she cooked the squash in a little bit of butter (not entirely vegan but my favorite way to eat squash). Then she threw the entire mess together and tossed with the pasta. No sauce or anything. She brought me a plate and some shredded cheese and something told me No.

I will eat cheese three times a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. I love cheese more than sex (no offense to anyone special intended, dear). If I became lactose intolerant tomorrow, I would simply open a vein and end it all, because life would no longer be worth living.

Giving up bacon broke my heart, but giving up cheese would kill me, so it came as a huge surprise to both of us that I said nay, nay on the curdled cow.

What followed was, without a doubt, the single best meal that I have ever had, in my entire life. I know that I am prone to grandiose descriptions and histrionics, but after sharing my food with the neighbors and several co-workers, the general consensus was that this meal rocked the block!

It's Friday afternoon as I write this and I am aflutter with excitement for the Farmer's Market tomorrow morning. I intend to by at least $20 worth of these little shit spores, plus $8 for my friend Amie and I know that Nolan neighbor plans to buy some, as well.

As much as this blog has been an advertisement for mushrooms, the reality is that most of the meals that Katrina cooks are of similar quality, and vegan or not, I will be fat for the remainder of my days.

I love to cook and I did 100% of the cooking in our family for a decade because Katrina couldn't boil water without an incendiary incident. I loved inventing recipes and my tuna noodle casserole and guacamole are legendary among friends, so it was surprising when she signed up for a cooking class at a retreat (i.e.- free trip to the Marlboro Ranch six years after we quit smoking). What was more surprising was how quickly she took to it and how intuitive she was with ingredients. To this day, unless she is baking, she rarely measures anything and she has taken every single one of my recipes (much to my chagrin) and improved the hell out of them. Her vegan pasta sauce is my fave (up until now: fungus power!) and I never make chili anymore, because mine just doesn't stack up.

I used to love my own cooking and I preferred my meals over all others, but now I look forward to Katrina's home cooked meals every day. I am on my way to being as big as a house, but that's just something Katrina will have to shoulder her guilt on. I know how hard it must be on her, knowing that she is solely responsible for my condition, yet she soldiers on bravely, never letting on that the terrible guilt of making her partner fat haunts her every waking moment...

She's such a trooper...

Friday, August 7, 2009

Hungry For Change

Food, Inc.

When I say that I don't eat red meat or pork and that I eat organically, most people tilt their heads and peer hard at me.

I guess they are looking for the hidden, dirty dreadlocks, bare feet, unwashed and unshaven body of a "God -Damn Dirty Hippie".

Then again, they may be wondering how someone can not eat steak and bacon and still be so fat.

Either way, I am not your stereotypical tree- hugging, green fiend. Don't get me wrong, I am both a hugger and a fiend, but I have justifiable reasons for my choices. I don't know if many folks take the time to explain to others why they choose this manner of living, so I will attempt to do so for myself now.


There is the standard 'tread lightly' response, which is part of why I choose sustainability. I think that we, short-lived, tiny little creatures are unbelievably arrogant to think that this ENTIRE planet was put here for our sole, gluttonous consumption. We are so small in comparison to the universe and our lives ore really short in the cosmic scheme of time; yet we achieve such massive destruction of our only resources.

We have so utterly lost touch with nature and our food that we cannot even conceive the amount of space, effort and resources it takes to feed this country alone, much less the rest of the civilized world. We somehow think that we can just go to some planetary superstore and buy a newer model planet when this one wears out. Since we have no relationship with our food as it grows, we have no concept of how it got to our table, other than the store.

Did you know that Japan and the U.S. are the two largest consumers of commercial tuna in the world? Did you also know that each country consumes, by itself, more tuna than every other country on Earth (minus the other glutton)?
Did you also know that tuna are voracious carnivores and that they take years to mature to a reasonably harvest able size?


During their lives, tuna consume tons of smaller feed fish that are harvested from open ocean and ferried to the enclosed sea pens of commercial tuna farms. While the farms are a better option in some cases (controlled harvest in an enclosed pen= dolphin safe), the sad fact is that most commercial farms are located in southeast Asia (although several offshore tuna farms are being built by a Japanese tuna company near the California coast), near communities that rely on daily fishing to feed their families.

In the Philippines and Cambodia there are 'pole cities' of floating huts where fishermen and their families' only means of sustenance is the food they catch from the sea. They are so poor that they cannot even afford to live on land, thus they construct their floating homes in shallow water, attached to long bamboo poles that they sink into the sand. They have no electricity or plumbing and they distill sea water for fresh drinking water and they cook their fish in metal pans in the sun with no other fuel.


Commercial fishing fleets that sell feed to tuna farms are literally fishing these communities into starvation. People are dying so that wealthy Japanese and American consumers can have their Charlie the tuna treat. We throw an average of 20-30% of our food away and people are starving because of our gluttony.

This lengthy diatribe brings me to the real point of this blog: There is a new movie out called"Food, Inc.". This documentary exposes the real enemies of our society and it's not the Taliban or Muslims or Peaceniks. It's not those 'damn lazy Mexican stealing all our jobs' (if they are so lazy, then why are they employed instead of you?), or those dangerous Canadians with their radical health care...

They enemy of America is America. This great land was built on the spirit of commerce and our desire to make a better life for ourselves, but there are many Americans who will sacrifice your health, and the health and safety of your children for the sake of a buck.

The most important reason I choose to eat organically is me. I am an American and I decide what goes into my body. It's not freedom if you don't get to choose...



I choose not to put harmful chemicals into my body if I can help it. They world around us is filled with toxins that leach the health and wellness from our bodies every day. I didn't actually believe all of the hocus pocus until I tried it for myself. I gave it six weeks, just to see if I noticed anything different.

Results:
  • I lost fifteen pounds
  • My skin cleared up
  • My hair and skin feel super soft (I can't stop touching myself, people are getting a little nervous around me)
  • I feel terrific. I mean really terrific.
  • I went jogging. Jogging! ME! Did I mention that I went jogging? I twas only four blocks, but still!!!
I also notice that when I don't eat healthy now, I feel like crap. I can still get away with conventional food but I pay for it.

Besides, I don't want to put bio toxins and endocrine disruptors and rampant carcinogens into my body. I want clean living and clean mind and I don't think you can have those things if you are filled with nuclear sludge.

I want my life to be long and healthy and I want a beautiful place to live out the remainder of my days. I want to breathe clean air and sunshine, I want to run through wildflower meadows and I want to eat pure food from my own garden.

I want the next generation to blow dandelions and drink lemonade on a hot summer day. I want them to wade in clean rivers filled with one-headed fish that are safe to catch. I want to see children grow up and change the world in a meaningful, beneficial way. I want a brighter tomorrow for the only place I will ever call home.