Helping my parents move
May 16th, 2012 § 3 Comments
Friends,
In the past week, I’ve moved my parents from one town to the next. A lifetime of stuff packed in classy things like trash bags and dresser drawers and Staples boxes.
All of these pictures to show you just how much of my mother’s exquisite decorating we had packed up in our arms, shuffling up and down two flights of stairs. When all was said and done, I’d only called her a hoarder twice.
Long story short, we were without internet, showers, and civility for a few days. I’m sorry to have been out of touch.
Let’s reconnect now that my arms have stopped throbbing.
Love,
Andie
Perfect 5 Minute Marinade
May 8th, 2012 § 22 Comments
Could not be easier. Combine equal parts of these three ingredients and slather the mixture onto beef, chicken, or pork. Marinate for at least 1 hour before cooking.
1/4 cup barbecue sauce + 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce + 1/4 cup brown sugar
Andrew Scrivani Hosts Photography Workshops in San Francisco May 19 & 20
May 7th, 2012 § 9 Comments
Friends,
If you live in or near San Francisco, or if you’ve always wanted to visit the Bay Area, this is the time. One of my very favorite friends, Andrew Scrivani- food photographer for the New York Times, is leading two photography workshops on the weekend of May 19 and 20.
Tell me you’ll be there.
I die.
Andrew and I met last year at one of his workshops, so I can assure you that both he and his photography lessons are incredible. His photography, all moody and nuanced, is simply the best I’ve ever seen in the world of food. No pictures make me salivate quite so viciously, make me hungry as immediately, as Andrew’s do. In fact, I think I’ve roped him into photographing my upcoming cookbook.
I die again.
very, very dead at this point.
Details about the 5/19 & 5/20 Workshops in San Francisco, California:
In this 6-hour workshop, Andrew will be covering the basics of food photography such as composition, lighting, propping, and food styling. Class size is limited, so you will have the opportunity to work with Andrew both in small groups and one-on-one.
Start the morning learning about Andrew and his craft (lecture and Q&A); then spend the rest of the morning and afternoon practicing your photography skills with Andrew in a “photography set” environment (plated dishes provided by Contigo, the beautiful host restaurant). Finish the day with a group review and critique session.
This is an amazing opportunity to learn from and practice with one of the best in the field! Register below.
When
Workshop 1: Saturday, May 19, 10am-4pm
Workshop 2: Sunday, May 20, 10am- 4pm
Where
Contigo Spanish and Catalan restaurant
1320 Castro Street in Noe Valley
Cost
$250 per person (per day), including lunch.
REGISTER HERE
About Andrew:
Andrew Scrivani is a New York based freelance commercial and editorial photographer, food stylist, writer and blogger. He has been photographing for the New York Times Dining Section since 2002 as well as the Recipes for Health column by Martha Rose Shulman on The New York Times on the Web Fitness and Nutrition section since 2008. He most recently completed the photography for ABC TV’s The Chew Cookbook and the Crazy Sexy Kitchen cookbook by health and wellness guru Kris Carr. Andrew will also be the featured photographer for Eating Well Magazine’s 10 Best issue due on newsstands this July. You can read his columns on Food & Photography at The New York Times Diner’s Journal blog and his own personal blog makingSundaySauce. In August, Andrew will be leading a 3-hour hands-on photography and styling workshop with Allrecipes’ FoodWishes Chef John Mitzewich at the International Food Blogger Conference. Andrew frequently speaks and teaches nationally on Food Photography and Styling, which is a natural extension of his life before photography, as a high school teacher and coach.
Follow Andrew on Twitter @AndrewScrivani
Find him on Facebook!
All photos belong to Andrew Scrivani
What Does 1800 Calories Look Like?
May 6th, 2012 § 19 Comments
Breakfast
1 bagel 300 (preferably whole grain, but whichever you love most)
3 tablespoons full fat cream cheese 100
2 cups fresh fruit 100
500 calories
Lunch
Loaded lunch salad- see this post
400 calories
Snack
Apple (or any fist-sized piece of fruit)
100 calories
Dinner
Vegan Black Bean Burger on a whole wheat bun with toppings 400
(toppings include: lettuce, tomato, onion, ketchup, mustard, pickles)
2 cups cooked vegetables (grilled, roasted, steamed) or salad 100
500 calories
Dessert
2 pieces biscotti 300
Chamomile tea
300 calories
What Does 1200 Calories Look Like?
May 3rd, 2012 § 25 Comments
Breakfast
1 cup whole grain cereal 100-140
1 cup lowfat milk 100
1 banana 70-100
300 calories
Lunch
Loaded lunch salad- How to Make a Delicious 400 Calorie Salad
400 calories
Dinner
3 ounces Simple Poached Salmon with Pesto and Feta
2 cups cooked vegetables or roasted broccoli
300 calories
Dessert
1 scoop frozen yogurt on a small cake or sugar cone
200 calories
Friends, don’t ever eat below 1200 calories. Or I should say- please don’t. This is the lowest calorie budget I will post because anything less compromises health and happiness.
I found your emails…
May 2nd, 2012 § 12 Comments
Friends that feel and act like my family,
This morning I went to my dark place- my email spam folder- and therein found hundreds of emails from you. Naturally, I was shocked. How did y-? Who put these there-? None of it made sense. The only conclusion I’ve come to is:
Gmail hates you. Just generally not a fan of you. Perhaps all of Google, too; I can’t be sure. I’ll try to tell them to consider your good qualities, but you know how stubborn they can be…
I’m now attempting to read each and every one of them, but I’m also attempting to do a lot of things, and you know how I can be…
Expect my Email from a Reader series to resume shortly.
Yours,
Reading Under the Influence in Massachusetts
P.S. Thank you for all of your incredible kindness on my last few posts. I am in love with you.
What Does 1500 Calories Look Like?
May 1st, 2012 § 26 Comments
Breakfast
1 egg + 2 egg whites, fried 100
1 small corn tortilla 50
2 tablespoons guacamole 50
2 tablespoons fresh salsa 10
2 cups fresh fruit 100
300 calories
Lunch
Loaded lunchtime salad- see How to Make a Delicious 400 Calorie Salad
400 calories
Eat it everyday.
Snack
Apple
100 calories
For me, there is no 100 calorie portion of anything that proves as filling, as sweetly satisfying as an apple.
Dinner
4 ounces Butter Roasted Chicken with Rosemary and Sage 200
2 heaping cups sauteed zucchini and summer squash 150-200
350 calories
I eat an enormous side of vegetables at dinnertime. It’s the best way to feel fuller while still eating what you love, what you crave. This post explains a lot of my vegetable eccentricity. I like dinner to be slow and satisfying, but ultimately, I know dessert is just around the corner.
Dessert
8 oz decaf latte or cappuccino 100
1 chocolate cookie or brownie 200
300 calories
Sipping a hot drink is soothing. It’s also a way to slowly savor a treat because of the length of time it takes to finish it. I always try to pair a sweet treat with a hot tea or coffee. Something about the slowness and the completeness of eating and drinking makes the treat that much more special.
Here, the protein in the milk will help to slow the absorption of the all the sugar in your dessert, keeping your blood sugar from spiking and crashing so violently.
A Different Way to Think about Losing Weight
May 1st, 2012 § 102 Comments
Sometimes I wonder if we would be better off in the world of weight loss if the diet companies, the magazines, the TV shows, and so on…all stopped telling us how easy dropping pounds can be if you do x, y, and z, and instead- they told us how hard it will be.
Because here is weight loss in a nutshell:
A. Eat less.
Find a calorie range for you that you can eat daily that 1.) Does not make you want to die, and 2.) Allows for a reasonable energy deficit (meaning, you will consume moderately less than you are burning just by living and exercising.) Find out how much your body burns in its normal everyday state without effort (google: BMR and punch in your stats for this number) then consider eating 250 calories less than that per day. If you also try to burn an additional 250 calories through exercise each day, you will be eating at a deficit of 500 calories daily- this kind of deficit leads to 1 pound of weight loss in a week’s time (1lb= 3500 calories, so 7 days of burning 500 calories creates 1lb of loss).
B. Move more.
Which essentially means: move more. By move I mean move, in any way your body likes. And by more, I mean more, as in- more than you currently do.
This, friends, is straightforward. Tried and true.
But when I browse magazines and bookshelves at Barnes and Noble, I naturally find myself drawn to the health sections. There, I see headings with words like easy, simple, and fast. Three words which weight loss will never be. I see meals plans that promise ‘no deprivation,’ ‘still indulge!,’ and ‘never feel hungry.’ I see promises and assurances about losing weight that only make me, someone who has lost half of herself, think:
It’s honestly none of those things. It’s never easy, simple, or fast. Deprivation, that resentful feeling of not being able to indulge, and hunger pangs- they exist. Not always, but yes, sometimes.
I’ll speak personally so that I don’t make too many assumptions about others’ weight loss journeys. When I began losing weight, I was motivated by fear- fear that I’d just continue to get bigger and bigger until I reached a place where bigger eclipsed biggest- a place I was sure I didn’t want to see. I felt I had no choice but to start losing. I also felt motivated to change my life for all of the beautiful joys of thinness that I was sure would come when the weight left me. For the good and bad, I was at least motivated.
At first, I was enthusiastic. Like anything that challenges me, I wanted badly to win. To win at weight loss as fiercely I might want to win at, say, everything.*
*Obsessive compulsive for the win.
My teeth gritted. I narrowed my eyes toward some self-determined finish line, and I just took off in a mad dash without considering whether or not I’d run out of fuel halfway or whether the finish line was even as close as it appeared. I am near-sighted, after all. And thankfully, the first leg of the journey involved weeks of losing double digits in pounds since I’d been so big to start. This time was a-word-similar-to-fun-but-not-actually-enjoyable;-More-like-meh,-ok. I felt energetic and inspired. Newness will do that to me.
But then, after I’d been at it for a while, I started to slow. In progress, in patience. The vigilance, the exercise- they wore on me. Newness evaporated like the morning fog and I began to feel bored with the whole process. I shuddered when reality reminded me , “Um, well gosh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but… you’re going to have to keep at this for another eight months. Give or take forever.”
It felt as though I’d been bowling on bumper lanes for a month- knocking pins down, considering myself a boss at the whole game- when all of a sudden the bumpers retreated and I was left with the real deal- hard grooved gutters and all. This isn’t nearly as fun, I’d think. I’m not knocking ‘em down like I did before.
What happened next, just after I silently called myself a quitter, a loser, all manner of bad names, was a simple enough thought:
Oh, it’s just going to suck for a while.
Yes, that.
Just that. A heady dose of reality.
It was a revelation. Because for once, I realized that weight loss wouldn’t be like taking up running as a new hobby, and it certainly wouldn’t come with a map or course directions. It would be like a marathon, where miles 10-20 just purely, uncompromisingly
suck.
Once I said this to myself, much of the journey seemed clearer. I recognized the distance, the real strength that I’d have to maintain. I recognized that I probably wouldn’t like it. But I knew, as we tend to with arduous journeys, that it would end well.
Now, it’s worth recognizing that weight loss did not (for me) and does not (for you) mean only salads and steamed vegetables and boiled chicken. My own process and the one I embrace here involves treats and moderation and mindfully eating brownies. It wasn’t hell that I walked through to get to thinness. There were joyous moments of feeling incredible physically. There was tremendous pride and confidence. Small goals met and marveled at.
The good news is that there are ways to lose weight and not feel hungry- hopefully we all find this to be our way; there are ways to lose weight where you have a small dessert each night; there are ways to lose weight where you’re not sweating on a treadmill like you’re in the desert sun. There absolutely exists a path to a happy weight that doesn’t feel dark and scary and cold. There are, there were, ways.
But there were times, dozens upon dozens, when I wanted a box of glazed donuts. When I wanted to sit in my bed and eat and eat and eat to my favorite TV shows. When I wanted to attempt eating a whole cake, whether or not my stomach wanted to do it with me. When I didn’t want anything to do with willpower or her cousin moderation. When I didn’t want one scoop of ice cream when I knew Ben & Jerry offered pints.
There’s just no denying the hard parts. The 4:30pms when you’re midway between lunch and dinner and no amount of fruit will ever satisfy like a cupcake. The mornings when you’re setting the pace on the treadmill and your legs feel leaden, your whole body a heavy mess. The look of your now-empty dinner plate and the wanting of another full one to replace it. The times just before bed when you can’t sleep because your mind is running the aisles of a supermarket grabbing Oreos and Lucky Charms in a fever. The times in the coffee shop that you smell a just-baked blueberry muffin and you sigh realizing, unfortunately, that you can’t eat three, hot, with butter. The times when sheet cake is splayed in front of you and you know that ‘just a sliver’ won’t cut it.
These are the trying times. These are the minutes, the hours, when you need to brace yourself and just ride it out. They are the ones that make up your character. Because, really- how you act when times are just peachy is nothing compared to how you act when times are rotten. The peachy times don’t say as much, anyway, about your strength or your determination. These moments where you feel your weakest, when you’re absolutely certain that you’d rather give up than keep going- they’re going to come.
And they
will
be
hard.
Like,
really
[really]
hard.
Not every day will breeze by. Not every day will your hunger and fullness remain the same. Not every day will something stress you out so much that you want fudge to fix it.
But there will be those times. And I find it helpful to know this. I find it helpful to know the risks, the challenges that might come up along the way. Because then, I’ll know to steel my resolve. I’ll know that we all fight through them. That it’s just part of the journey.
Perhaps if all who wrote about health and weight loss acknowledged that it would be hard as hell, we’d have a more realistic approach. We wouldn’t sprint out of the gate because we’d not want to run out of steam midway. We wouldn’t get used to starving ourselves on 800 calories a day because we’d know it couldn’t last. We wouldn’t swear off food groups because we’d realize that life feels less full when we take things away.
I wonder if we went into the journey knowing the side effects, the hardships and hurdles- if we wouldn’t feel a bit more prepared. More apprehensive, maybe, but prepared. I wonder if we’d be kinder to ourselves and others, knowing that it’s difficult, it’s long, and it can feel unforgiving. I wonder if we’d respect small triumphs- whatever they may be- knowing that they don’t come along every week, every month. I wonder if we’d be able to make good choices now, knowing that it could be harder or impossible to make them later and maybe we just have to do the best we can, while we can. I wonder if we’d feel less overwhelmed by the nagging desire to quit trying, knowing that motivation comes and goes like the tide.
The point of my recognizing the difficulty, is that it makes us wiser going into it and wiser coming out of it. And it makes us human. Normal, whatever that is.
Magazines, celebrities, all the outlets that tell us how easy it can be- they empower us, but they also make us feel alone, ashamed when it doesn’t end up feeling easy the whole way through. Weight loss plans that promise to be leave you feeling full and never deprived don’t account for the Saturday night dinner dates with your friends who just love to order three fried appetizers before entrees and dessert.
If it were ever easy, we’d be there by now. We wouldn’t start and stop and start again. We’d be content and living on easy street.
I’d liken it to this: If you decide to have a baby and no one tells you that yes, parenthood- while a life-altering miracle- is trying at times, then when you get to those moments where you feel drained and down, you’ll not know what to make of yourself for having those feelings. Am I a bad parent? Am I cut out for this? Am I doing this all wrong?
If there was no struggle, no strain, we wouldn’t feel so accomplished at the end. We couldn’t be so proud. It’d feel less special. So there’s merit to pointing out the hard parts. Weight loss will come with equal parts struggle and strength. And each will change along the way. You’ll know that it doesn’t stay hard forever. You’ll also know to buckle down when those hard parts come, sure that relief always follows. You’ll know that I felt it too, and that it gets better.
What Does 2000 Calories Look Like?
April 29th, 2012 § 33 Comments
Breakfast
1/2 cup dry old fashioned rolled oats + 1 thinly sliced banana- both cooked in 1 cup lowfat milk +1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon peanut butter
400 calories
Lunch
Loaded lunch Salad- see How to Make a Delicious 400 Calorie Salad
400 calories
Snack
3/4 cup plain lowfat yogurt 100
1 cup fresh fruit 70
1/4 cup granola 100
2 teaspoons jam or honey 30
300 calories
Dinner
Slow Cooker Pulled Pork on a whole grain bun 400
2-3 cups cooked vegetables or salad 100
500 calories
Dessert
2 Chewiest Chocolate Chip Cookies 300
1 cup lowfat milk 100
400 calories
The Weight Loss Dilemma: An Amendment
April 26th, 2012 § 157 Comments
After I published this post, I received the following comment:
“I’m confused…you say you put yourself in the first category of food purist- but your eating Laughing cow (fake), sweetener (fake) and wheat (still processed). I’m not saying these can’t be enjoyed…but I would hardly put you in camp one. Show a real block of cheese, plain water with lime and grains that’s aren’t processed and then you have ‘real’ food.”
This is an excellent, excellent point. For the comment writer, thank you; this is an important discussion.
Here’s my response:
I think you are absolutely right. Laughing Cow cheese and sugar-free drink mix don’t quite constitute ‘real’ food. And I love them regardless. I don’t belong in Camp 1 any longer- I should make that clear between me and you. I can’t call myself a true food purist because, to be honest, it conflicts with my personal disdain for elitism. But before I go on- please know that I’m not implying that you or anyone who considers herself a truly clean eater is a snob in any way. In fact, I deeply admire those who eat mainly whole foods. I am also not in the slightest bit a better individual for any of what I’ll share below.
Hear me out.
I cringe at snobbery, at the very hint of placing one’s preference/choice above that of another’s. With wine, with chocolate, with food, with fashion- I have likes and dislikes, but they’re not better than yours. They’re not worse than yours. Taste is taste. I completely understand having high standards, having strong moral and ethical ideologies, and indulging your personal preferences. It’s what makes the world fun- differences in opinion and choice. What we choose to put in or on or around our bodies is entirely personal, a manner of self expression and values. It’s incredibly gross for me to judge anyone for having preferences one way or the other.
In fact, the only area I suspect my friends would call me snobbish or elitist, even, is in where I live- the city, the town, the building. I’m a surrounding snob. I need clean, polished, and, well, pretty around me. I’ve been known to pay a premium to rent apartments in affluent neighborhoods in the cities I’ve lived in during the past five or so years. And while I don’t want to judge anyone for living in a less-than-pristine area (it’s just impossible for many), I deeply care about my environment. It has to do with living in low income housing in a wealthy town growing up. It has to do with not having my own bedroom for some of that time and wanting badly to lie to friends who came over and wanted me to show them my room. It has to do with feeling poor. And truly, it is my own neuroses that keeps me wanting to live in desirable places. It’s a manifestation of my own adolescent insecurities. I get that.
But the snobbery ends there. I’ll drink wine from a box, wash my face with dish soap, buy generic everything, consider cheap chocolate divine, eat lots of things that are dyed and preserved and chemically. I work in and around food. I’m exposed to some of the finest things the human palate can experience. I’m also a part of a community, professionally and socially, that embraces a Michael Pollan sensibility about food- “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” It’s a real farmers market-loving/from farm to table kind of crowd.
Two of my best friends are food snobs- Lori and Camille. I love them dearly, and not in spite of their foodie high maintenance. I actually adore that picky, particular part of them. It’s part of what makes them intense and passionate and bold. And it’s not that they want to sit on high horses and look down at the masses eating McDonald’s, it’s that they genuinely prefer a gourmet meal. The thought of fast food alone will send shivers down each of their spines. I can’t tell you the number of times I tried to get Camille to do a late night Burger King run. Sister was vehemently against it.
And really, I get it. Most of snobbishness comes from caring- about yourself, the environment, others’ perceptions of you, etc. It makes sense in so many ways- wanting to eat ethically, buying clothing that was not made in factories overseas where workers were likely treated poorly, respecting the quality of fine wines and music and film. It’s important to eat and live well.
About two years ago, I would have considered myself the ultimate food snob. I’d gotten a few years into my weight maintenance, and I was wildly passionate about only eating real, whole foods. I was in love with health and nutrition and eating cleanly. I felt I was respecting my body, but beyond that- I shuddered at any hint of artificial anything in my food. I had this internal battle between always wanting to live up to the healthy citizen I’d become by nourishing with only the good stuff, and also realizing that I
just love fried donuts
I love Double Stuf (that’s the correct spelling, just so you know) Oreos
frosting made entirely of Crisco
Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls
American cheese
every last candy bar
Burger King
Taco Bell
I’m hungry just making this list.
It required a reworking of lifestyle to get to a place where I wasn’t fighting myself. Nowadays, I eat almost immaculately clean in the eyes of everyone I know. Friends, family- they’d probably describe me as the healthiest, most vegetable-friendly individual they know. My mother gasps at my organic tofu, lentils, the sheer volume of my vegetable intake, all that jazz. But she also knows that I need a basket filled with Cadbury everything on Easter, every year. And that I will eat said basket. She knows to send me a box with 78 chocolate Mallo Cups when I live across the country and I’m without access to such delicacies. She mails me an entire double-layer cake to celebrate any success.
Because I genuinely cannot live too cleanly or too dirty for long. I have to stay somewhere in the middle.
The beauty of everything is balance. Part of what I love about the place I’ve arrived at now, after losing 135lbs and then working to keep it off since 2006- is the middle ground between wholesome and ‘holy sh** that’s bad for me!’.
There is no denying the power, the virtue, the absolute perfection in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds, nuts, etc. They’re essential; they are wellness in tangible forms. These things occupy nearly all of my eating- see here for more about my view on an 80/20 life. I don’t need to write about their perfection; you know this. Every magazine, every healthy living blog- they’re incredibly helpful in teaching about nutrition.
I want to do and be and eat a little of everything. I want to go out and drink too much and dance with my friends. And then I want to wake up, drink water and walk for miles while talking to those same friends. I want to eat pepperoni pizza alongside a salad double the size. I want to spend too much money on frivolity one week and then cut back the next. I want to stay up late for three nights straight obsessively reading the ‘50 Shades of Grey’ trilogy, and then try for a 9pm bedtime the following three. I want to eat everything from Laughing Cow cheese wedges to lima beans.
Now, a valid argument here would be the suggestion that, for health- for ultimate wellness- one should understand that the chemicals, the preservatives and fillers put into the fake foods- they’re to be avoided. Our bodies aren’t meant to process junk. The additives could be poisonous, cancer-causing, all manner of negative. For this argument I say: Eat mostly well, then. If you can eat entirely clean, entirely pure and rainbowed in fruit and veg- honest to goodness- do that. It’s the very best.
Some of us are more vibrant, just better when we cut out the less-than-healthy stuff. Some of us might not like the same convenience store carbs that I do- Butterfingers and Hostess mini powdered donuts, for example. Lots of people might not even have to bat an eye at turning down grocery store cake because either they don’t love it or they don’t love that it’s trans fat-laden and unnaturally hot pink and yellow.
I’ll always want to eat trans fat frosting and orange dyed Reese’s pieces. I probably will always think Diet Coke tastes good, especially at the movies in some 42oz monstrosity. I will enjoy the taste of powdery sugar-free lemonade mix added to my bottle of water over the taste of plain water alone. It’s not about giving those things up. It’s about balancing them with goodness. And it’s not to say that these processed, packaged treats I mention here are part of my life everyday. They’re part of my once every week, maybe my few times a month. Spaced and special because of their timing.
My only fear with those who write about health and wellness in a strictly pure-foods way, is that it comes across as a gospel and because of that- self righteous, unattractive, and strict. I’d hate to think that people out there, reading with good intentions and a desire to eat better, might think that the only way to get to a good place physically is by adopting a whole foods only lifestyle. It feels defeating to think that your eating must be perfect. It’s not an either/or; we don’t have to live on one end of the spectrum or the other. It’s not that you’re healthy or you’re not. It’s not clean eating versus crap eating. It’s both, that is- only if you want both.
It is true that the less sugar I eat, the less of it I crave. It’s true that the better I eat, the better I feel physically. It’s true that I’m so very happy to eat my body weight in produce each and every day. But it’s also true that in six years of eating well and being at a healthy weight, I still haven’t lost my lust for the foods I ate growing up- the ones with twelve hundred ingredients and not a one that’s wholesome.
The reason I’ve been able to keep a level head about my body and what goes into it is because I’m all-inclusive. And perhaps that doesn’t work for everyone. Perhaps it shouldn’t work for everyone, either.
I tend to think of all the crazy amounts of vegetables that I eat as giving me enough antioxidants and superpowers to fight against any of the Hostess products I consume. I picture roasted broccoli pushing peanut butter cups through my digestive system like an unwanted guest. Because even if my body doesn’t love the occasional pint of high fructose corn syrup, my mind does. And she needs obliging, too.
An important note: Please know that there is nothing wrong with eating as cleanly as one can. (If you do and if you strive to- I applaud you.) There is similarly nothing wrong with having Skinny Cow ice cream bars in your freezer beside organic frozen vegetables. (Tell me you have Cool Whip?) There’s nothing wrong with any of it and my bottom line remains: Judging others’ eating styles and deeming food choices as inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’ only leaves us feeling and looking ignorant and unenlightened.
The point of this post, as always, is to let you know that there’s middle ground. And also that I don’t want this blog to exclude anyone who’s hungry. My table serves Kit Kats and kale chips in varying amounts.
