Drink It In

I used to enjoy exercise.

No, really.

Until the arrival of some time-sapping pseudoparasites* I was keen on squash, a regular gym bunny and could often be seen cycling hither and yon, sometimes via thither.

Then, things of a procreative nature occurred*.

Suddenly your gym membership lapses and you don't renew it, your cobwebbed bike gets put in the garage and gradually retreats further behind the mower and miscellaneous boxes of gardening and DIY detritus, and Ol' Thunder the squash racquet gets mounted on red velvet in a glass case and hung above the ornate fireplace in the main hall, alongside the swords of your ancestors, the blood-stained notches on it's handle the only clue to your past conquests.

And you get porky.

Despite your being permanently tired, parenthood comes with the irritating side effect of apparently using up no calories whatsoever.

I am now usually awake for about 18 hours in every twenty-four, so one might presume I'd have time to get super productive. Time not just to clean, feed and entertain tiny humans*, but also to enjoy myself, maybe play a bit of sport, socialise with people so they don't forget who I am, maybe finish my spoon.

But no.

Those long hours of wakefulness are like the most volatile of substances, sublimating into the ether like dry ice in a pop video from 1985. The minutes gurgle rapidly and unstoppably down the temporal plughole of reality whilst the tadpole of life swims against the current of fate in the bath of futility, desperately hoping to avoid the dragonfly larva of destiny.

You have to schedule in a poo and a cup of tea three days ahead.

Regular exercise is not an option at the moment, which leads to the dilemma of how does one lose some of that excess chunk?

The ugly spectre of Dieting rears it's skeletal head and winks a sunken eyelid at me.

Which is a shame because I like food even more than I like exercise.

So, if I must, how to go about it? Do I want to join Weight Watchers? No, because it sounds like a specialist porn site for chubby chasers. Do I want to count calories? No, because that sounds more boring than the history of plywood. Do I want to be organised about it? No, because that would involve being organised about it.

Food would be more easy to avoid if it looked like evil sci-fi characters. One dunk of a Dorito in some guacamole and Shazam! :

Jabba the Dip stares at you accusingly, as if telling you that this was how he started.

In general, I just need to cut down on some stuff. Be a bit more aware of unhealthy things I'm choffing and not choff them quite so much. With this in mind I poured myself a lager, sat down and had a think about what to give up.

Chocolate? I eat a couple of bars a week. Dips like Jabba up there? More of an occasional treat than a bad habit. Puddings? Not that many. Takeaways? Had my first curry in three and a half weeks a few days ago, so not much help there. I took a swig of Kronenburg to help me concentrate.

Ah . . .

Lager is quite calorific. My favourite beer is currently Poacher's Choice, which sends both my taste buds and my liver into little shivery tremors of joy. I presume the liver tremors are joy anyway. This beer is fairly hefty both in terms of booze content and calories.

I suppose I could . . . cut . . . down . . .

Oof! No no no. Let's not go down such avenues of desperation, I thought. Draining my glass, I decided it was time to get some help, and referred the subject on to the wife, who is wise in the way of food. She was in her cushion room, making fans and doilies, possibly.

"No exercises. Too fat. Make better." I explained.

She nodded, always approving of brevity in explanations. She got the gist, realising that I might conceivably benefit from losing weight, but without doing exercise, so what could I possibly give up to facilitate such a transformation.

Don't say beer, I thought at her.

"Well," she said, looking at a small cheese and tomato sandwich I was predating for my lunch. "You do actually eat fairly healthily."

"I do." I agreed, thinking don't say beer, don't say beer.

"So we need to look at something you maybe do have a bit too much of, don't we?"

"S'pose." I concurred magnanimously. Don't say beer. Do NOT say beer. Beer in this context is not what I want to hear.

"You could perhaps cut down on . . ."

Doritos? Mars bars? Lettuce. Oh sweet baby Moses let it be lettuce.

"B . . ."

Burgers? Boursin? Bite sized Shredded Wheat?

." . .Be . . ."

Beans? Benecol? Beastiality? Wait, none of them are fattening.

" . . . Bee . . ."

Beetroot? Bee vomit? That's honey? I could give up honey I suppose. As long as it's not . . .

" . . . Beer?"

Oh cock.

I gave her my most vitriolic of glares, and she asked if I needed some Preparation H, so I flounced off as she retreated back into the cushion room, shaking her head.

The trouble is, she's right.

So, the iron rod of reason smacks down onto the simpleton's forehead of resistance, ensuring the contra-coup injury of realisation results in the persistent vegetative state of acquiescence.

I have to cut down on beer.

There is no sad faced emoticon sad faced enough to depict how sad faced the emoticon I want to put here is but, take my word for it, it's pretty sad faced.

I reluctantly agree and come to the conclusion that, if beer's not there, I probably won't drink it, so I'm not buying any for the house.

The beer cupboard can go back to being called the fridge.

Despite my sacrifices and my general spurning of all things hedonisitc, I am not, as many people have wondered, an ascetic monk. Beer has been with me for a long time. It stands to reason that I'm going to need something to reduce the separation anxiety. With this firmly in mind, I went to the supermarket and examined alternatives.

Happily, they had exactly the thing to take my mind off beer:

Whisky!

As long as I have a decent bottle of single malt in the house, I shall not want for more calorific beverages, so this is practically a new diet plan all on it's own.

I might market it and call it the Proprietary Innovative Sure Slim Ethanolic Diversionary technique for weight loss.

It has a catchy acronym so I should make a killing.



* Children.

Dinner do that

I chuffing love dinner.

Surprising, I know.

Food's great isn't it? I'm a big fan of curries, but pretty much anything bad for you is high on my list of favourite comestibles. Batter is particularly irritating for being bad for you because it's so nice. Look at the Scottish. They really know how to batter stuff. In a gastronomic way, not a violent wa . . . well, actually in every sense of the word. Fish, bananas, mars bars, creme eggs - there's no foodstuff that can't be battered to make it desirable as a tasty treat.

"Monkey giblets?"
"Ew! Gross! Are you insane? Monkey giblets! Ew!"
"They're battered."
"Maybe just the one then."

Someone once did a survey at my work asking, if you could only have one type of dinner every day for the rest of your life, what would it be? Most people at my workplace opted for the Sunday Roast, which is a respectable choice. Some went for burgers and others for something called a bucket of chicken, which sounds about as appetising as a sack of tuna melt.

I like tuna melt.

Just not in a sack.

When I was asked what single meal I'd be willing to have everyday for the rest of my life, I opted for a banquet, which apparently went against the spirit of the survey, if not the rules. This didn't stop me wanting it, and a few others then said they wanted to change to the 'banquet-a-day' plan as well, so I felt vindicated.

Of course, when it comes to stuffing your face with lovely food, one must show a modicum of restraint, or you will end up in an early, wide grave.

This is a pity, because our whole species has become efficient at obtaining food. We're the top predator on the planet, which is pretty good going for an omnivore with rubbish claws, little teeth and sweet, sweet flesh (apparently). We're also one of the few critters that can farm, thus giving us the ability (along with some ants and termites) of producing high quantities of rich food in a relatively small, local space. Were also opportunists, so it's built into our very genome to gorge ourselves when food is plentiful, because tomorrow it might not be. That's why humans are getting chunkier, as those scarce times become fewer and fewer.

Until our population outstrips these resources, most of us aren't going to have to do too much work to get hold of our dinner. And that won't happen for at least a couple of years. Yay!

Sadly, we can't (or at least shouldn't) have six huge meals a day, lest we become one of those people who must wash themselves using a hose and a pallet truck.

Imagine if you could though? I'd go for full fat fry up breakfast, then a pastry rich brunch followed by cake and doughnuts for elevenses. Lunch would be the aforementioned roast dinner, maybe beef. Mid-afternoon repast would by a standard barbecue, maybe a spit-roasted chicken for evening dinner and a late-evening curry to round off the day.

And an apple, for balance. One of my 5-a-week.

Nothing particularly fancy there. I could totally do that.

Oh, that's right. The dying early thing. Best not then.

I try and have a decent breakfast, a small lunch and a fairly sizable evening dinner. I slip (regularly), but the intent is there, and that's the main thing. Well, actually, achieving is the main thing, but that's just so hard and makes me feel sad when I don't achieve, so Ill pretend that intent is the main thing. Ooh, I'm full of intent me.

I suppose it's like saying "It's the thought that counts" which is utter crap, because people get upset when you tell them you thought about visiting them for their eighty-fifth birthday, but in the end decided it was too much effort to drive all the way to the hospital, and anyway, surely it'll be crowded around the bed with all that traction they use in fractured hips, but it's the thought that counts, eh Nan? I said it's the thought that . . . ooh, your pips are going . . . thanks for ringing . . . yes, maybe next year . . .

Occasionally, I purchase a sandwich when I can't be arsed to make my own lunch, and deliberately choose something with a ham, cheese and salad motif, as these are less likely than sausage and bacon rolls to give me that funny little popping sensation in my chest that I so dislike.

It's boring, but this is a picture of my sandwich, purchased and eaten at work just yesterday:

Don't forget to tell all your friends you read a blog with a picture of a sandwich on it. I can imagine their rush to check if it's true.

The point is, the above sandwich is a perfectly acceptable mid-day snack, and should be fairly healthy as it's got ham, cheese and, importantly, salad in it. It's one of the few times I eat salad, so I'm proud of myself for choosing it.

Swam the channel? Pfft. I had a salad sandwich.

Unfortunately, when I opened it, it became obvious that this sandwich had been made by a bloke on the sandwich assembly line, rather than a woman. See:

If a female had made it, there would be a large salad to cheese and ham ratio, and the salad would consist of a few varieties of plants, because that's what women want when they have a salad. They want a salad.

However, to a bloke, a salad is a bit of garden that they have to eat because they're grown-ups, and that's what grown-ups do. They eat salad. However, deep down, we all know that no-one really wants to eat salad, as it's not meat or cheese.

Other than raise my eyes at the lack of greenery, this didn't particularly bother me. I'd made the effort to eat the salad, and if the salad wasn't there to be intented on, then that was hardly my fault was it? Unfortunately, there was a far more sinister problem that became apparent as I ate it. The male sandwichsmith had neglected to do the other obvious thing when nominalising the salad constituent of my butty; he had failed to increase the meat and cheese component.

Now that was just unforgivable, and I ate it with a scowl that I thought would transfer bad karma into the atmosphere which would lead to the person responsible finding only a vegetable lasagne in his fridge when he got home that night. Either that or be struck by meningitis, which is a bit extreme considering the nature of his offence but karma can be a bitch like that.

Actually, the scowl just made me look like I'd got indigestion.

Right, I'm off to batter a pie.

A Large Arthropod and a Load of Bivalves

Continuing in a food stylee, I was privileged to scoff my way through a large arthropod and a load of bivalves the other day, and it got me thinking about cultural attitudes to food. The lobster I've had sitting in the freezer for months finally had an airing with some bread, butter and Helman's, and it was flipping delicious, like all the good bits of crab in one longer critter. The moules avec frites (mussels and chips, I reckon) were a spur of the moment thing whilst at the fish counter in Sainsbury's.

I have, in my wanderings, experienced the joys of locusts and guinea pigs (much to the wife's dismay, as she's very fond of locusts), and when I tell people this I get a mixture of disgust and curiosity. Locusts have a sort of prawny flavour and less crunch than you might think, and guinea pig tastes like rat. Nice, porkesque rat mind. From this, I concluded that I am adventurous and broad-minded in my eating habits, and rarley go for the sausage and egg option when holidaying in foreign climes, almost always trying the local fayre. How else would I have discovered the greatness of tapas.

However, I found my limits a few years ago, when I used to visit some african immigrants whilst working in London, which is a large town in southern England with a big stream running through it. And a museum. Anyway, they had to import great big bags the size of dustbin liners full of gigantic wood-boring beetles because they considered them a delicacy that you just couldn't get in the UK, not even in Waitrose. I was duly offered some as a thank you present for some work done, and declined with a barely repressed shudder. I'm not proud of it, and it was after that I made sure I ate some locusts when the opportunity arose.

So why is eating beetles repulsive and lobsters not? It's not as though beetles are better looking. I mean, take a ganzy at this thing I ate just yesterday:

It looks like a gigantic headlouse. It was also full of eggs which is apparently lucky and very tasty, even if it did look like . . . well, some sort of crustacean's eggs. And mussels? They look lie pebbles until you open them, and then they look like something out of an obstetrics manual.

What about our staples? Fruit I can understand, as it's advertised by the plant for the eating thereof. And meat, perfectly natural to attack, kill, heat and eat other species. But who was the first person to think of milking other animals for sustenance; was it a culinary adventurer who carefully noted how healthy baby mammals were on nothing more than what they obtained from their mother's teat, or was it a pervert who happened to come across a useful byproduct whilst fiddling with a mountain goat? And surely the bravest person in the world was whoever first ate an oyster.

I should remember that I live in a country who's national dish is tandoori chicken, and depsite the stereotype, I have never found a wider range of good quality, international foods than in the UK.

And despite what you might think of the individual mussel's fizzog, you can't help but admire the combination of french fries and white wine with a healthily sauced pan of the things, can you?



Mmm . . . food in general . . .