Pickles & Dimes

Yesterday we went to my aunt’s for Easter. We were the last to arrive, even though we were a half hour early. As we straggled in carrying our deviled eggs and Easter baskets, my aunt greeted us with, “Would you like to try some goat?”

At first I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly, and my brain speedily cycled through other alphabetically possible variations: boat, coat, moat, tote, vote? Then I saw her holding out a giant ladle filled with some grayish meat: goat.

After Jason (who is a very picky eater) and I (ditto) exchanged startled glances, we shrugged and said, “Sure.”

My other aunt began dishing up alarmingly huge hunks of meat into a bowl with some au jus. My brother received his bowl and asked nervously, “Do you…uh…have a piece that’s…uh…smaller?”

As my aunt explained that her boyfriend from Kenya prepared the meat, I sniffed it cautiously. It smelled OK, and it looked OK. Plus, I once ate a night crawler during a family version of “Fear Factor,” so what the heck, right?

Then I tasted it. And as everyone else said things like, “Tastes like beef!” or “That’s GOOD!” I thought, “This tastes exactly like GOAT.” It was very goat-y. I’m not sure if it was the meat or the juice, but as I chewed, the image of a filthy goat with a dirt-matted tail entered my mind. Blech.

But the ham was delicious.

Like every other person on the planet, Jason and I pledged to eat better this year. For both of us, that means smaller portions; for me, it also means less Mt. Dew and keeping a food journal.

I told Jason I wasn’t going to keep the food journal for very long, just long enough to get an idea of what I’m eating so I can make changes. He smirked and made The Face, you know, the face that says, “She’s giving up already.”

I’m not giving up. I just want the constant, CNN-style food thought ticker to permanently disappear from my head.

Counting calories blows. It is all-consuming. My thought process is ALL FOOD, ALL THE TIME. Everything has calories. EV-ER-Y-THING. That teeny cup of applesauce? 110 calories. That packet of sugar I put on my oatmeal? 15 calories. My morning vitamin? 20 calories. (Jason: “If you just swallow the normal vitamins like a regular person instead of getting the chocolate chewable ones, it’d be 0 calories.” Me: “NEVER.”)

I told myself that I wasn’t going to cut out certain types of food entirely; I was just going to consumer fewer amounts of them at lesser intervals.

But I can’t help but be discouraged when I see the caloric content of my favorite foods. For now, I’m taking baby steps. Refusing to walk by the receptionist’s candy dish; having a smaller portion of dinner so I can reward myself with a mini Mt. Dew (the day I give that up for good is the day I am dead); drinking glass after glass of boring, tasteless, boring, crappy water. I parcel out snacks in doable increments: If I make it until 2:00, I can have a snack…

I know it will get easier; that after a few weeks, eating better will become a habit; things will become less of a temptation and getting up early to work out will possibly become, god help me, enjoyable.

I can do it. I know it.

(By the way, that deep breath I just took? 50 calories.)

Per Tessie’s request, and following in the hallowed footsteps of Ree from The Pioneer Woman Cooks and Caroline and Brett from Partners in Dine, here’s a step-by-step photo essay on how to make chicken saltimbocca. (Special thanks to Jason, who took the awesome photos and didn’t crowd me in the kitchen until I got so nervous I botched the results.)

(more…)

For the record, I am not a wine drinker. Jason & I own a nice little wine rack that sits on our kitchen counter and houses several dusty bottles of wine that we’ve optimistically purchased over the years. Our choices are not based on wine reviews or our knowledge of which wine features a delightful, smoky-apple flavor, but rather which wine has the funniest label and/or name. (Fat Bastard, anyone?)

So this will not be a wine review. Rather, it will be a recommendation for pairing foods with the two drinks I’m most intimately familiar with: Coke and Mt. Dew.

The way I see it, Coke is the merlot to Mt. Dew’s chardonnay. And they each taste better when paired with certain foods.

For example, Coca-Cola’s heavy flavor is better suited toward meatier foods such as cheeseburgers, spaghetti with bacon, tacos and pizza.

Mt. Dew’s light, citrusy flavor perfectly complements chicken alfredo, pork chops, mini corn dogs, alligator nuggets and lobster.

However, you may drink either beverage when eating chicken saltimbocca, because that recipe is totally awesome and even drinking iodine would not detract from its deliciousness.

Additionally, more research is needed to determine which drink is a better companion to Spam. This will require more hours in the lab and additional funding in order to make a proper diagnosis.