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Posts tagged ‘restaurant eating’

We are feminists (who like to eat and, sometimes, cook)

The tiresome women who insist that feminists oppose love and marriage make me tired. The young women who insist that they’re not feminists make me tired.

Miriam in her studio

In my mind — and it’s been this way since the scales fell from my consciousness in the mid-1970s — real feminists want women and men to have the widest possible range of choices. Children, no children, house-husband, house-wife — as far as I’m concerned all fit within the rubric of feminism (whatever that might be) as long as people engage productively in their world.

Some of the most interesting women I’ve known have been stay-at-home moms. Conversely, some of the most boring, self-involved people (male and female) I’ve met have supposedly great careers. And so it goes.

I don’t know Ann Romney, but I have a Mormon friend without pots of money who works hard every day at home to make her children good citizens of the world. She makes the best bread I’ve ever eaten, taught me to like kale (in a sausage chowder), met her husband when they were both in the Army and jumped out of a plane for the first time when she was pregnant with her oldest. Now that’s a woman, hear her roar!

Just before Easter three of my former newsroom buddies and I met for wine and laughter in Miriam’s painting studio (you can see some of her lovely work behind her or get a better look at Miriamdurkin.com).

Among the 4 of us we’ve had 7 marriages, 9 children and, so far, 9 grandchildren (Three of us had very young marriages in the beliefs that if we didn’t marry right then! we’d never have another chance and that an unmarried woman was a non-person.) We’ve written poetry, written about books, movies, pop music, dance; NASCAR; we’ve edited same. We’ve walked dogs, baked cookies (or not), diapered babies and traveled for fun and for work when those babies were sick (or not).

In 34 years we have never had nothing to discuss!

Then, of course, we went out for supper at The Pewter Rose, a favorite bistro now owned and run by the wife of one of our former newsroom photographers. And what does it tell you that we ALL ordered the same special — a whiskey- and honey-glazed salmon fillet over baby greens with lemon-basil vinaigrette,  goat cheese and candied walnuts ?

My somewhat warm and fuzzy point is, I think!, we need to drop the labels and do what it takes to wake up in the mornings drug-free and looking forward to the day, open to the unexpected and to change. And help others do the same. And strew this life path with good food that somebody has cooked. Like this 384-calorie per serving Cajun shrimp, spinach and grits from the May issue of Woman’s Day magazine.

Shrimp and grits has (have?) become a cliche on Southern menus, but this version is so colorful and healthy that it breathes new life into that fixture. And, p.s., my husband fixed the grits. Perfectly. For more nutritional pop serve with blood orange slices and broiled Roma tomato halves, topped with olive oil, salt, pepper, thyme and a wee bit of brown sugar.

Cajun shrimp, spinach and grits

1 cup quick-cooking grits

2 tablespoons olive oil

1-1/2 pounds large peeled and deveined shrimp

2 teaspoons Cajun or blackening seasoning (low- or no-salt)

1/2 teaspoon salt, divided, and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 cup frozen corn, thawed, or canned whole-kernel corn, rinsed and drained

1 bunch spinach, thick stems discarded

Cook grits according to package directions (thank you, el Patron, as his Salvadoran milkhands used to call him). Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Season shrimp with Cajun seasoning and 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook for 2 minutes. Turn and cook until pink opaque throughout, 1 to 2 minutes more. Remove skillet from heat, add lime juice and toss to coat. Transfer to plate and wipe out skillet with paper towel.

Heat remaining 1 tablespoon oil over medium heat. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until golden, 1 to 2 minutes. Add corn and heat through. Add spinach and 1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper and cook, tossing, for 1 minute. Return shrimp to skillet and toss to combine. If spinach has not wilted, turn off heat and put lid on skillet until it does. Serve over grits, or gree-yuts as it’s pronounced in these parts.

I mistakenly (!) added 2 tablespoons of the Cajun seasoning, and it was not too much. Maybe my seasoning is old and faded, maybe it’s my tastebuds or maybe this dish just needs that “Bam!”

Granddaughter Ashley embodies the joy possible in any good -ism.

Category:

Feminism, healthy cooking, Salad, Shellfish, Simple foods, vegetables

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Out of my comfort zone

I had to pack up my lunchbox and water bottles this week and move to a friend’s home about 70 miles away for some temp work. I was much more anxious than I’d have predicted — kind of like a recovering drunk, I guess, leaving her support group. I wasn’t taking my bike, didn’t really know the walking places, wouldn’t be in my kitchen and wouldn’t have round-the-clock access to livestrong.com and my obsessive calorie-counting.

It’s been interesting. My biggest NSV (non-scale victory) has been coming home mid-week this first Wednesday, snacking all the way home, entering my calories-in and calories-out on the computer and eating nothing else that night. I don’t expect I’ll have lost anything by the end of these two weeks, but maybe I won’t have gained either which, I guess, will be an SD (scale detente).

There are wonderful places to walk around my friend’s condo (and more dogs than I’ve ever seen in one place in my life) and lots of people out at all hours walking. Combined with 15 daily minutes of yoga, that’s good exercise for these 10 work days. (Even with the clearly marked bike lanes everywhere, I’m chicken to ride my bike in city traffic.)

When I lived in Charlotte for 10 years, I was a single mother of two, working my first fulltime job. My friend’s condo is in our old neighborhood and what’s surprising is not how much has changed in the 23 years since I left, but how little. Surrounded by that old environment, I recognize suffocating feelings of loneliness and dependency, wanting nurture. Which translate to wanting to eat. I did fairly well recognizing and managing that until Thursday night when I was tired. Cravings + fatigue = deadly tendency to eat in effort to “feel better.”

In the words of Anthony Bourdain in “Medium Raw” (HarperCollinsPublisher, 2010): “Where was my reward for all this self-denial? Shouldn’t I have been feeling good? If anything, all that relative sobriety pointed up a basic emptiness and dissatisfaction in my life, a hole I’d managed to fill with various chemicals (read: foods) for the better part of twenty-five (read: sixty-six) years.” 
 
My friend shared some of the Kona coffee and pineapple shortbreads she brought back from Hawaii in January, and I managed not to finish the entire box, even though she said they needed to be eaten. I did eat five (250 unnecessary calories) and felt better but not as masterful as I’d have felt if I’d had a glass of skim milk (80) and gone to bed.
 
I can’t pat myself too hard for not finishing the box because — like sex — I’ve kept most of my overeating private through the years. If you don’t see me eat that box of Wheat Thins, I didn’t, and we’ll ascribe my pudge to genes, etc.
 
We ate four suppers out and that was also a challenge because — even though dining out is shared and public — my friends wouldn’t judge or probably even think about my scarfing down a bacon cheeseburger with home-made potato chips and ranch dip.
 
The tricks for me seem to be complex carbs (like carrot sticks or fruit) before I go out and something that will take lots of time to chew while in the restaurant. Something like the wonderful, if over-priced, salad I had Thursday afternoon with two beloved former newsroom buds: Baby greens and lots of them, a lemon-thyme vinaigrette and a balsamic reduction, orange slices, a few candied pecans and three light-as-air goat cheese croutons. That kept me occupied through two Amstel Lights and lots of laughter.

I’ve eaten white beans braised with fresh rosemary and Mediterranean tuna salad (no mayo), black bean and corn cakes with tomatillo salsa, as well as the best salmon cakes and hushpuppies I’ve ever had in a restaurant. Friday He Who Ate Peanut Butter While I Was Gone and I had take-out shrimp tacos and Asian chicken salad from the Cluck ‘n’ Cup in my office building.

On Monday it starts again and I’ll struggle again to find some inner discipline, a structure, to which I can cling while staggering along this healthy eating path. My problem — in an unsalted almond nutshell — is that I’ve always looked outside myself for that structure. To a software program, a weight-loss organization, a diet buddy, a blog….Inside me, I find only cookies and more cravings.

Category:

Exercise, Restaurant eating while dieting, Weight loss

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No fair!

In only 4 days, I got hornswoggled twice by restaurant salads. You’d think I’d have learned the first time when a signature chopped salad amounted to hundreds more calories and fat grams than I figured.

But, nooooooo. Last night He Who Must Be Obeyed and I had a early light supper, meeting halfway between where I’d been working all day and where he was going to work at night. I won’t name the restaurant, but  it’s a national chain with fruit in the name. And they’ve currently got a big advertising push going on TV for their under 500-calorie meals.

So I see a half portion of their grilled chicken salad on the menu with that same piece of fruit next to it. Silly me, I figured the fruit meant it was healthy! Big fat hah! Emphasis on the ‘fat.’

That half salad, I discovered when I put it into my Livestrong.com daily plate has 682 calories and 42 fat grams, not to mention 1340 grams of sodium. How do you do that to a salad?

It was tasty. Nice, fresh romaine lettuce, a bit of grilled chicken and some almond slices I could have read through. The dressing must be made from rendered hog fat, that’s all I can figure. (If you order it without dressing, the calorie count drops to 320 and the fat gram tally, to only 17.)

But I could have eaten a rare, lean steak for less fat, calories and sodium. In fact, I’m headed to the kitchen now to toss about 4 ounces of poached chicken breast with some lovely buttercrunch from the garden and one tablespoon of Ken’s Steakhouse Lite Balsamic Vinaigrette. I expect the calorie count to be about one-third of last night’s.

So, here’s my point, national chains of restaurants. If you can’t make the nutritional content of your recipes as easy to access as McDonald’s where it’s on the back of every paper placemat, don’t count on my business. I need to know calories, fat grams and sodium content. I know you know it and I know you’re not helping the obesity epidemic with diet boobytraps in what should be healthy entrees.

Some municipalities have discussed trying to legislate salt content in restaurant offerings. I don’t care if some things are high in sodium, just let us know which. And, P.S., I dropped another pound this morning (27 so far) so maybe that hog fat has some other beneficial properties!

Category:

good food, healthy cooking, Restaurant eating while dieting, Weight loss

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