Stories

I was going to be one of those mothers who never allowed their children to watch anything on television, aside from the occasional educational program about stars, or baby possums, or how All People Are Good. It was an idyllic, wholesome vision that was completely shattered around the time I discovered that the only way I could take a shower or make a phone call was to put the baby in front of Teletubbies for 15 or 20 minutes.

The shattered bits were ground into a fine powder with the arrival of my stepdaughter, who could, at the age of 7, recite the entire plot of every episode of “Rugrats” with barely a pause for inhalation. We were a TV family. The only saving grace was that Sam really, genuinely hated most little kids’ shows (particularly Barney) and preferred to watch videos in which two dynamic types named Dave and Judy rode helicopters, trains and fire engines. But I digress.

It is the consummate, diet-related cliché: “you can stop drinking, or smoking, but you can’t just stop eating.” You can, of course, stop eating; Ghandi used that strategy to magnificent effect. As a method of reaching a healthy weight, however, it’s frowned upon. What you have to do to lose weight is not to stop eating, but to stop eating the way you used to eat. I’m doing it, and it’s working, but it complicates the hell out of my life as a cook.

I’ve struggled with weight all my life, losing and re-gaining the same 30+ pounds several times. I established a pathetic pattern worthy of a medieval tapestry: the large woman stops eating (anything, carbs, second helpings and fast food), exercises (incorrectly, so intensely that she gets shin splints, until she abhors the sight of her Nikes) and becomes smaller. She buys tinier clothes, and basks in the admiration of all of the people who want to know her “secret.” She gets busy, stressed, cocky and inattentive and starts to eat like she used to, she becomes larger again, and in the final tableau she is folding her smaller clothes and putting them in bags to donate to Goodwill, and then pulling the larger versions from the back of the closet where she saved them for the inevitable.

Recommended by Matt Armendariz:

The Sriracha Cookbook – I would love to take a moment to review The Sriracha Cookbook that arrived last January. It’s a fantastic cookbook, and if you’re crazy for the flavors of that certain chili sauce then you really need the book. Really. It’s wonderful. Get it and make the Piquant Pulled Pork right away. You won't regret it. 

Sara Foster's Southern Kitchen is filled with traditional Southern favorites as seen through Sara’s kitchen. It’s a book that you can’t help but get hungry from just looking at it as it’s packed with Southern favorites that I want to eat this very second. All the classics are there with contemporary twists like Shrimp Jabalaya, fried chicken, brisket and spare ribs. Now can you see why I’m all about this book? Sara’s familiar tone in writing really makes you feel as if you’re there and have known her for years, which I love. I also love her glossary of Southern pantry essentials, should you need a brush up. But the thing about Sara’s Southern Kitchen that really makes me hungry is the food photography from Peter Frank Edwards. The food is gorgeous, real, and captured in such a way that it truly feels as if you’re just sitting down to enjoy a meal with Sara and the family.

Did you ever think, when you were younger and the creaks of closing doors hadn’t yet become thunderous, that you and all of your friends were going to do great things?  Because now it seems like circumstance has threatened, in the friendships it didn’t destroy altogether,  that idea of mutually assured success.  Three years removed from the rapidly fading end of college, the majority of my peers sport psychic bruises gotten at the hands of a world we’ve learned isn’t vested in our personal triumph.  The few people who know what they want to do have discovered their chosen professions aren’t guided by the principles of meritocracy.  It’s ostensible chaos, and, after fifteen years of structured, teleological environments, it breeds doubt—doubt that like a giant black maw eats away at the confidence of those glowing assessments you made back in the ninth grade.  When the maw isn’t satisfied—its appetite is only whetted by the feast on your friends—the jaws of uncertainty turn inward and you begin questioning whether that secret self-conviction you’ve always harbored, the belief you would add to the world in a distinct and remarkable way, was ever really justified.

But there are methods for sating such an ugly beast.  I’ve discovered one is you feed it at the restaurant where my friend pulls from the oven pizzas that, prior to glorious consumable conception, spent thousands of hours parbaking in his head.