I didn’t write down the date I started my first Whole Life Challenge, but I’m pretty sure it was in mid-January of 2014. I had lost some weight on Weight Watchers a few years earlier and had gained a lot of it back. This completely freaked me out, because largely, I was eating a Weight Watchers-condoned diet. I talked to my internist and my gynecologist about it and they both just nodded their heads. “Women your age…”
I know it’s harder to lose weight now than it was when I was 30, but I know plenty of Women My Age who are slim and fit, so that wasn’t totally making sense for me.
However many of those women are hungry all the time. That’s not an option for me, as I’m too cranky when I’m hungry. So I talked to this woman in town who does a one-on-one nutrition/exercise/lifestyle thing with you and texts you all the time to make sure you’re toeing the line. What she said to me made a lot of sense – we talked about hormones and how our bodies don’t have what they need to run efficiently – and I was all ready to sign up with her, plunk down a big chunk of change that I really didn't have, because I considered it my only hope.
Then, my friend Sharon posted something on Facebook about the Whole Life Challenge. I knew she’d lost some weight on it in the past and I was slightly intrigued – but only slightly, because really anything with the word “challenge” in it is a complete turn off to me. I find it challenging to make dinner every day and take a shower. That's enough challenge for me.
I hemmed and hawed for a few days and then the start date came and went. I wanted to kick myself. It cost $49 to join this 8-week challenge and I blew it off because…I don't even know why I blew it off. I guess because I thought I would fail.
A day or two later, I had an uncharacteristic moment of clarity and decided I’d try it, quit if I hated it and, if it didn’t work, suck it up and plunk down the money to do the more expensive one-on-one program. I joined the challenge, joined my friend’s team and then completely – and I mean completely – changed the way I eat.
The Whole Life Challenge is an 8 week challenge that you participate in or “play” online. You’re asked to pick a level to play at (I play at the intermediate level) and you get a list of food that you can no longer eat. You’re asked to exercise every day for at least 10 minutes, and that exercise is anything you choose – whatever YOU consider exercise. I walk or do yoga or play tennis. None of it is particularly rigorous, but my body is in motion for a sustained period of time every day. You’re asked to stretch for 10 minutes every day and you’re asked to take a supplement of some kind every day. A supplement is anything you choose to improve your innards. I added a daily acidophilus pill because I’d recently read that our immune systems start with a healthy gut. I used to take acidophilus only when I was on antibiotics or if my stomach felt “off,” but apparently taking it every day is really good for you, so I committed to that.
Finally, you’re asked to take on a “lifestyle” challenge. When I did it the first time, this would be a week-long activity that you’d be told about via email. One was: Ten minutes per day of meditation. Another was: Read a book for pleasure for 10 minutes every day. Another was: Get 7 hours of sleep every 24 hours. These were all pretty simple, but not always easy.
Finally, you were invited to share a little message with the group everyday on the message board. The message board consists of your teammates and the message has a minimum and maximum character count. They’re short. This paragraph would not fit in the message slot. Every five times you post a message you get some extra points.
Points are amassed by being “compliant.” If you do your exercise, you get points for it that day. If you do not eat any foods you shouldn’t be eating, you get points for that. Every day you amass points for your team, based on how you did with all your little challenges on that day. Most people did not get a perfect score every day and many people did not get a perfect score most days. Meaning: people have vacations, or parties, or are too busy to get to the gym – they all just do the best they can.
I had hoped to lose 5 pounds. At the end of 8 weeks, I’d lost about 8 pounds and a few inches around my middle. I lost one full chin. My “skinny jeans” fit again. But the most profound thing was how much better I felt. I had way more energy, right from the beginning. Like, after a week, I felt 10 years younger. (Maybe not 10, but at least 7.)
I have found this way of eating so energizing that I simply kept going after the first 8-week stint. I went from 150 to 135 pounds and a size 10 to a size 6. My skin is clear and my mood is usually pretty upbeat. I’m never hungry. I don’t feel deprived. I don’t find it difficult. But that’s just me. You have to find a thing that suits you – and this happens to suit me.
I’ve told a lot of people about this experience – what it was like to Give Up Sugar (hard and ugly), how I lost inches long before I lost pounds, how drinking the water they require was one of the biggest challenges and ultimately changed my life.
I have a lot to say about this challenge and now a ton of people I know are doing it along with me. I am blogging about some of the specifics because I don’t have time to talk or text with each individual person.
I will share with you my perspective on How Invisible You Can Be (a question I get a lot), about What To Eat At A Restaurant (another popular terror), How To Get Through Cravings, What To Eat At Home, etc. I will try not to go on and on as I did here, and also try to keep the number of posts brief, because I know these posts end up in people’s mailboxes. If you’re not interested in this, I apologize in advance. If you haven’t signed up but are intrigued, I’ll post a link at the end here.
Not surprisingly, there’s a TON of information and resources on the website, far more exhaustive than what I will provide. But until y’all feel comfortable, we can just ease into this together.
xoxo
The Whole Life Challenge website
NEXT BLOG POST ON WLC
Saturday, September 6, 2014
Saturday, June 28, 2014
I Love Eighth Grade Boys
The following is running on Huffington Post -- you can comment or share it directly from the site by clicking here.
When I used to work with kids on their writing, my favorites were always the eighth grade boys. They didn't even pretend to like to write. "I'm a terrible writer," each would say. Even though that was rarely ever true.
Eighth grade boys would sit at my dining room table and do almost anything to avoid writing. They'd stretch their long limbs. They'd take apart pens. They'd wage bets. One boy always wanted to bet on word meanings. He knew he could kill extra time by offering to get the dictionary from the next room and then feign difficulty looking it up.
Eighth grade boys often make words up, using a logic and understanding of language that was never evident in their horrendous seventh grade selves.
Is there anyone more hubrant than an eighth grade boy?
That's the type of sentence they'd write.
“Hubrant?" I'd say.
"Yeah. It means: a person who has a lot of hubris."
Not even, "I think it means..." During this small moment of their lives, eighth grade boys are absolutely sure about everything.
I love eighth grade boys. (Although not in a creepy way.)
Because they are at once impossibly full of themselves and catastrophically insecure. Because you can finally start to see the young men they'll eventually become. Because they're quick and irreverent. But mostly because they are usually very, very funny.
A friend once forwarded me this email, written by her eighth grade son to his science teacher:
"Here is my frankly extraordinary project. Filled not only with fantastic revelations of elements but also how, in an ecclesiastical way, [they] correlate to our humble beginnings as stated in the Judeo-Christian book of prayer. This is an epiphany I realized only after trawling though thousands of gigabytes of information as well as after participating in a confirmation retreat, which explains the slight tardiness. But the quality obviously makes up for the time. Did Italy ask Michelangelo, "Why haven't you finished the Sistine Chapel? I told you to do it Monday!" This is because Italy knew that with quality comes deep soul searching that cannot be bound by social or time constraints. So considering this project is pretty much the scientific equivalent of the Sistine Chapel and it was emailed to you by the correct date, I think that it is superfluous for you to read it and much more economical and health conscious just to give me 100 percent. I say health conscious because I am worried about the long-term effects when this paper on Boron trifluoride blows your mind. Furthermore, I have a clay model of Boron trifluoride that you will see on your desk before first period starts. And if you consider the diagram technically late, remember that in Italy it would basically be the day before, so in Italy, the home country, this paper is on time."
His mother pointed out, "It's full of inaccuracies, such as the fact that Italy is ahead of us time-wise, not behind us, and Michelangelo was constantly pestered to get the Sistine chapel done. Luckily his teacher seems to have a sense of humor."
Eighth grade boys can see most of what's ludicrous about the world and when they put those notions through their middle school meat grinder of a brain, brilliance comes out the other end.
One boy used to come in and plunk down a five-page literary analysis that was due the following day.
"Is this bad?" he'd say as he pushed his paper toward me across the dark oak table.
I'd pick it up and start to read.
"Is it bad?" he'd ask again.
"I'm not even through the first paragraph."
"I know, but is it bad?"
And then, a moment later, he'd grab the pages back from me, flip to the end and announce, "I feel a bit of genius coming on," as he'd start to scribble a new conclusion.
The other night I was trying to finalize the title of the book I was editing, helping the author choose between three decent options. I decided to take it to my son and his friends, curious how a roomful of eighth grade boys would approach the decision. I briefly explained the idea and content of the book, what it was apparently about and what it was more deeply about. Then I gave them the title choices, explaining that one title (the author's favorite) also already happened to be the title of a different book.
"That doesn't seem to matter though," I told them.
"You're saying it's okay to give the book a title that's already being used by another book?" asked one eighth grade boy.
"Yes, different books can have the same title," I said.
"Then I would just call the book Harry Potter," he said.
What must it be like inside that eighth-grade head?
I imagine it as that magical middle school moment of being the biggest ... the oldest ... the top of the heap, when your wit and intellect suddenly converge and you become one part boy and three parts awesome. Maybe the sweetness is due to how fleeting that moment is. How, once you step out of middle school, you land in that vat of social and academic muck called high school, a stew that you need to wade through for years before finding your balance again. Maybe it's because you don't see that pure, unadulterated self-possession in young men until after they've survived something -- something worse than middle school, that is.
My son graduated eighth grade last night, and although I feel completely done with middle school, I'm a little sad. Because there truly is no one as hubrant as an eighth grade boy.
When I used to work with kids on their writing, my favorites were always the eighth grade boys. They didn't even pretend to like to write. "I'm a terrible writer," each would say. Even though that was rarely ever true.
Eighth grade boys would sit at my dining room table and do almost anything to avoid writing. They'd stretch their long limbs. They'd take apart pens. They'd wage bets. One boy always wanted to bet on word meanings. He knew he could kill extra time by offering to get the dictionary from the next room and then feign difficulty looking it up.
Eighth grade boys often make words up, using a logic and understanding of language that was never evident in their horrendous seventh grade selves.
Is there anyone more hubrant than an eighth grade boy?
That's the type of sentence they'd write.
“Hubrant?" I'd say.
"Yeah. It means: a person who has a lot of hubris."
Not even, "I think it means..." During this small moment of their lives, eighth grade boys are absolutely sure about everything.
I love eighth grade boys. (Although not in a creepy way.)
Because they are at once impossibly full of themselves and catastrophically insecure. Because you can finally start to see the young men they'll eventually become. Because they're quick and irreverent. But mostly because they are usually very, very funny.
A friend once forwarded me this email, written by her eighth grade son to his science teacher:
"Here is my frankly extraordinary project. Filled not only with fantastic revelations of elements but also how, in an ecclesiastical way, [they] correlate to our humble beginnings as stated in the Judeo-Christian book of prayer. This is an epiphany I realized only after trawling though thousands of gigabytes of information as well as after participating in a confirmation retreat, which explains the slight tardiness. But the quality obviously makes up for the time. Did Italy ask Michelangelo, "Why haven't you finished the Sistine Chapel? I told you to do it Monday!" This is because Italy knew that with quality comes deep soul searching that cannot be bound by social or time constraints. So considering this project is pretty much the scientific equivalent of the Sistine Chapel and it was emailed to you by the correct date, I think that it is superfluous for you to read it and much more economical and health conscious just to give me 100 percent. I say health conscious because I am worried about the long-term effects when this paper on Boron trifluoride blows your mind. Furthermore, I have a clay model of Boron trifluoride that you will see on your desk before first period starts. And if you consider the diagram technically late, remember that in Italy it would basically be the day before, so in Italy, the home country, this paper is on time."
His mother pointed out, "It's full of inaccuracies, such as the fact that Italy is ahead of us time-wise, not behind us, and Michelangelo was constantly pestered to get the Sistine chapel done. Luckily his teacher seems to have a sense of humor."
Eighth grade boys can see most of what's ludicrous about the world and when they put those notions through their middle school meat grinder of a brain, brilliance comes out the other end.
One boy used to come in and plunk down a five-page literary analysis that was due the following day.
"Is this bad?" he'd say as he pushed his paper toward me across the dark oak table.
I'd pick it up and start to read.
"Is it bad?" he'd ask again.
"I'm not even through the first paragraph."
"I know, but is it bad?"
And then, a moment later, he'd grab the pages back from me, flip to the end and announce, "I feel a bit of genius coming on," as he'd start to scribble a new conclusion.
The other night I was trying to finalize the title of the book I was editing, helping the author choose between three decent options. I decided to take it to my son and his friends, curious how a roomful of eighth grade boys would approach the decision. I briefly explained the idea and content of the book, what it was apparently about and what it was more deeply about. Then I gave them the title choices, explaining that one title (the author's favorite) also already happened to be the title of a different book.
"That doesn't seem to matter though," I told them.
"You're saying it's okay to give the book a title that's already being used by another book?" asked one eighth grade boy.
"Yes, different books can have the same title," I said.
"Then I would just call the book Harry Potter," he said.
What must it be like inside that eighth-grade head?
I imagine it as that magical middle school moment of being the biggest ... the oldest ... the top of the heap, when your wit and intellect suddenly converge and you become one part boy and three parts awesome. Maybe the sweetness is due to how fleeting that moment is. How, once you step out of middle school, you land in that vat of social and academic muck called high school, a stew that you need to wade through for years before finding your balance again. Maybe it's because you don't see that pure, unadulterated self-possession in young men until after they've survived something -- something worse than middle school, that is.
My son graduated eighth grade last night, and although I feel completely done with middle school, I'm a little sad. Because there truly is no one as hubrant as an eighth grade boy.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
The Best Night of The Year
Last
night was our town’s high school graduation. After the ceremony the kids
get on buses and are driven throughout the town for maybe an hour
before they are shepherded away to a secret location to spend all night
together. My neighbors throw a lawn party for the event and when night
falls and the buses pass by, a hundred of us line the streets banging on
pots and pans, standing on top of parked
cars screaming and clapping and waving to the newly minted high school
graduates. Sometimes someone hauls a drum set to the curb. One boy plays
the bagpipes. The procession is led by a flashing police car and fire
truck and lasts no more than 10 minutes, but the joy is palpable and
it’s incredibly moving. And while it was happening I was thinking that I
would give anything – anything -- to be celebrated like that just one
time in my life.
I turned to my friend and said, “Maybe we should have this kind of procession for women who’ve been married 20 years. We could all pile into buses, be driven through town and people could cheer for us.” Not because 20 years of marriage is especially hard, but, like high school, it’s a long haul and often fraught with bullshit. Then, tired and depleted, we would all spend an unspeakably long time together at some gaming arcade. The sun would come up and we’d be ferried back home, never so happy to crawl back into our own beds.
I turned to my friend and said, “Maybe we should have this kind of procession for women who’ve been married 20 years. We could all pile into buses, be driven through town and people could cheer for us.” Not because 20 years of marriage is especially hard, but, like high school, it’s a long haul and often fraught with bullshit. Then, tired and depleted, we would all spend an unspeakably long time together at some gaming arcade. The sun would come up and we’d be ferried back home, never so happy to crawl back into our own beds.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Next Stop: Dorm Sheets
New piece on Huffington Post:
So. Your kid got into a college. Or maybe a few colleges. And the decision has been made. You think you can sit back and relax now because that year of stress and arguments, all those months of waiting, they're all behind you, right? Um, not so fast. No sooner will you send in that acceptance deposit than you will start to receive offers for items that will make your child's college life the dream come true you've been hoping for. And the most insidious of these offers will be for dorm gear. If direct marketing dollars are any barometer of importance, you will quickly start to feel that there's nothing in your life more urgent than purchasing dorm sheets.
My son's school sent us a brochure -- ok, many brochures -- about "packages" they offer for the dorm. Sheets, towels, blankets, a hamper. A little light that clips onto a headboard. The brochure guarantees everything will fit his particular dorm furniture. It says the package can be sent directly to his room, there when he arrives at school. It says I can save hundreds of dollars buying it all this way. Who wouldn't want to do this? It's such a great deal! They even throw in a memory foam mattress topper!
No, don't get the package sent to the school! You need to wash all the sheets and towels first. Plus, the memory foam needs to be opened up so it can "breathe" a bit. Of course. I knew that.
The brochure provides no actual details about the sheets. Only colors. You can't tell how they feel or what they're made of. But if I buy it from a regular store, how will I know I'm getting all the right stuff? What if he needs under-bed storage? A clip-on bed fan? A mini-fridge? A microwave? Who knew that buying sheets for college would be more stressful than the application process itself?
I asked about the dorm package on Facebook and got 63 responses.
Do the package.
Don't do the package.
It's a bargain and convenient.
It's a rip-off.
The package is for losers.
The package sheets are fine.
They pill.
They're stiff.
They fall apart.
They're perfect.
I would never send my child to school with "package" sheets.
Try Garnet Hill; they have 100 percent cottons in extra long.
Garnet Hill? I don't even buy sheets for myself from Garnet Hill.
ME: Do you want the package sheets or should we go shopping for sheets?
HIM: I don't care.
ME: The package sheets are probably some kind of poly/cotton blend.
HIM: Whatever.
ME: They say we have to order really soon if we want our choice of patterns.
HIM: Ok.
ME: So, should we order?
HIM: I don't care.
ME: But they're your sheets. It's your bed.
HIM: Mom, just do it however you want.
I know. I know. I know. They're just sheets. Why, then, does it feel like they're so much more?
When I went to college, I took sheets from our linen closet and stuffed them in a milk crate. Actually, now that I think of it, I totally bought new sheets. I can still picture them: ivory with pale blue and orange paisley, a little brown detail. I remember the brown because the second set of sheets were solid brown and I sometimes paired the brown pillowcase with the paisley one since they complemented each other. I can't believe I remember my college sheets. It's settled. This is too special. No package.
ME: Do you want one set of sheets or two? If you bring only one set, you have to wash, dry and put them back on the bed all in the same day. If you bring two sets, you can take one set off, put the new set on and then wash the first set when it's convenient.
HIM: Wait...you need to wash sheets?
Don't buy the memory foam anywhere but Target or it won't fit properly.
I just got one somewhere else.
Can you return it? It's going to be too short.
But it will just be short down where his feet are, right? His feet don't need memory foam, do they?
Ok. But don't say I didn't warn you.
Of course we all managed to get through college without memory foam mattress toppers. But when I google dorm beds, it looks like the mattresses haven't been replaced since the eighties.
ME: Honey, pick out the sheets you like. They need to be extra long.
HIM: I like these.
ME: Those?! Those are 400 thread count! After the year you just put me through, you don't deserve 400 thread count. Two hundred, tops.
From mid-August to mid-September, my Facebook feed is littered with parents' pictures of their kids' decorated dorm rooms, each one looking like a page straight out of a catalog. One friend confided that her son's room looked too much like a prison cell and she might find a local designer to put together some window treatments.
I'm feeling guilty about the thread count.
He doesn't care about the thread count.
But what if he gets sick and he doesn't feel cozy?
He'll be so happy just being on his own, he'd be fine sleeping on a rock.
But what if there's a bellyache, a fever, a day when a bed must be crawled back into -- a pillow hugged, a blanket pulled up and over a head? Don't those days deserve the best and softest sheets money can buy? If anyone told me 18 years ago, while my son was still wrapped in his first tiny flannel blankie, that I would someday give his college sheets more than three minutes of consideration, I would have deemed them insane. Yet, here I am, having spent three months on it. Is that to obscure the fact that maybe I haven't prepared him enough to go out into the world on his own? Or simply because I'm terrified about what will fill my brain once his day-to-day care is out of my control?
Is buying sheets my last chance to mother him? No, don't answer that.
To share or comment on HuffPo, click here
So. Your kid got into a college. Or maybe a few colleges. And the decision has been made. You think you can sit back and relax now because that year of stress and arguments, all those months of waiting, they're all behind you, right? Um, not so fast. No sooner will you send in that acceptance deposit than you will start to receive offers for items that will make your child's college life the dream come true you've been hoping for. And the most insidious of these offers will be for dorm gear. If direct marketing dollars are any barometer of importance, you will quickly start to feel that there's nothing in your life more urgent than purchasing dorm sheets.
My son's school sent us a brochure -- ok, many brochures -- about "packages" they offer for the dorm. Sheets, towels, blankets, a hamper. A little light that clips onto a headboard. The brochure guarantees everything will fit his particular dorm furniture. It says the package can be sent directly to his room, there when he arrives at school. It says I can save hundreds of dollars buying it all this way. Who wouldn't want to do this? It's such a great deal! They even throw in a memory foam mattress topper!
No, don't get the package sent to the school! You need to wash all the sheets and towels first. Plus, the memory foam needs to be opened up so it can "breathe" a bit. Of course. I knew that.
The brochure provides no actual details about the sheets. Only colors. You can't tell how they feel or what they're made of. But if I buy it from a regular store, how will I know I'm getting all the right stuff? What if he needs under-bed storage? A clip-on bed fan? A mini-fridge? A microwave? Who knew that buying sheets for college would be more stressful than the application process itself?
I asked about the dorm package on Facebook and got 63 responses.
Do the package.
Don't do the package.
It's a bargain and convenient.
It's a rip-off.
The package is for losers.
The package sheets are fine.
They pill.
They're stiff.
They fall apart.
They're perfect.
I would never send my child to school with "package" sheets.
Try Garnet Hill; they have 100 percent cottons in extra long.
Garnet Hill? I don't even buy sheets for myself from Garnet Hill.
ME: Do you want the package sheets or should we go shopping for sheets?
HIM: I don't care.
ME: The package sheets are probably some kind of poly/cotton blend.
HIM: Whatever.
ME: They say we have to order really soon if we want our choice of patterns.
HIM: Ok.
ME: So, should we order?
HIM: I don't care.
ME: But they're your sheets. It's your bed.
HIM: Mom, just do it however you want.
I know. I know. I know. They're just sheets. Why, then, does it feel like they're so much more?
When I went to college, I took sheets from our linen closet and stuffed them in a milk crate. Actually, now that I think of it, I totally bought new sheets. I can still picture them: ivory with pale blue and orange paisley, a little brown detail. I remember the brown because the second set of sheets were solid brown and I sometimes paired the brown pillowcase with the paisley one since they complemented each other. I can't believe I remember my college sheets. It's settled. This is too special. No package.
ME: Do you want one set of sheets or two? If you bring only one set, you have to wash, dry and put them back on the bed all in the same day. If you bring two sets, you can take one set off, put the new set on and then wash the first set when it's convenient.
HIM: Wait...you need to wash sheets?
Don't buy the memory foam anywhere but Target or it won't fit properly.
I just got one somewhere else.
Can you return it? It's going to be too short.
But it will just be short down where his feet are, right? His feet don't need memory foam, do they?
Ok. But don't say I didn't warn you.
Of course we all managed to get through college without memory foam mattress toppers. But when I google dorm beds, it looks like the mattresses haven't been replaced since the eighties.
ME: Honey, pick out the sheets you like. They need to be extra long.
HIM: I like these.
ME: Those?! Those are 400 thread count! After the year you just put me through, you don't deserve 400 thread count. Two hundred, tops.
From mid-August to mid-September, my Facebook feed is littered with parents' pictures of their kids' decorated dorm rooms, each one looking like a page straight out of a catalog. One friend confided that her son's room looked too much like a prison cell and she might find a local designer to put together some window treatments.
I'm feeling guilty about the thread count.
He doesn't care about the thread count.
But what if he gets sick and he doesn't feel cozy?
He'll be so happy just being on his own, he'd be fine sleeping on a rock.
But what if there's a bellyache, a fever, a day when a bed must be crawled back into -- a pillow hugged, a blanket pulled up and over a head? Don't those days deserve the best and softest sheets money can buy? If anyone told me 18 years ago, while my son was still wrapped in his first tiny flannel blankie, that I would someday give his college sheets more than three minutes of consideration, I would have deemed them insane. Yet, here I am, having spent three months on it. Is that to obscure the fact that maybe I haven't prepared him enough to go out into the world on his own? Or simply because I'm terrified about what will fill my brain once his day-to-day care is out of my control?
Is buying sheets my last chance to mother him? No, don't answer that.
To share or comment on HuffPo, click here
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Dead After 50
New essay on Huffington Post!
Last Thursday night, I texted a friend: "What should I wear to a Dead show? No tie dye available," and got back, "Tank top, no bra."
"I'm afraid that ship has sailed," I wrote.
I'd been invited to see Bob Weir play. I mostly listen to NPR these days, but the concert was only a mile from my house. I haven't seen the Grateful Dead in decades, but really, how much could have changed?
READ MORE HERE
Last Thursday night, I texted a friend: "What should I wear to a Dead show? No tie dye available," and got back, "Tank top, no bra."
"I'm afraid that ship has sailed," I wrote.
I'd been invited to see Bob Weir play. I mostly listen to NPR these days, but the concert was only a mile from my house. I haven't seen the Grateful Dead in decades, but really, how much could have changed?
READ MORE HERE
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Food Is Not My Friend (or "Happy New Year!")
The ground turkey was about to expire. That’s really the only reason I started making a Mexican casserole. Later, when it was all assembled and about to go into the oven, I sent a text message to a friend: “Right now I’m cooking something that no one in my family will eat, including me, and I’m becoming more depressed with each passing moment.”
This is not the type of message one should be texting on New Year’s Eve.
My youngest son is a picky eater, loathe to try new things even at 14. Still, I thought I might have a shot with this – packed as it was with tortillas and cheese – but at the last minute I added black beans, which I knew would extinguish any possibility.
My husband, I just learned, also now avoids black beans, but even if he didn’t, the casserole contained salsa, which is made of tomatoes, which are verboten for his blood type, as he is an Eat Right For Your Blood Type zealot. Whether you buy into that premise or not, I’ve watched him go from eczema laden to eczema free after giving up a few key foods, so I don’t scoff. Much.
The fact is, all four of us have different blood types and our natural predilections bear the theory out: there are very few single meals all of us enjoy. I think Shrimp Scampi might be the only one. Still, my older son would probably have eaten the cheesy casserole, even with his latent dairy allergy, but he was away for the week and I was sure I’d have thrown the casserole away by the time he returned.
There’s no real good reason for me not to eat this casserole as it contains a few of my most coveted foods (cheese and tortillas), except that I feel like I’ve become really fat over the last few days and indulging in my favorites does not easily fit into the rules of abstemiousness that I so tenaciously cling to.
“Do you want to try my Mexican casserole before you go out?” I asked my 14-year-old. He looked at me as if I’d suggested he drink gasoline. “I think you might like it.” (I had little to lose by pressing.)
He countered with a firm, “No.”
I could have made something entirely different with the ground turkey, something with marinara sauce that I would have spooned over quinoa pasta and not hated myself for eating, but instead I chose this casserole and I’m still not sure why. Even as I opened the oven door to pop it in, I was chastising myself for wasting perfectly good food, envisioning, as I was, scraping the whole thing into the garbage the next morning.
After the casserole cooked, cooled and had been refrigerated, I dropped my 14-year-old off at a New Year’s Eve party and my husband and I went to a dinner party nearby where I ate a virtuous (cheeseless) vegetable-only dinner and scurried off to the living room alone when dessert was served. At half past midnight, my son sent word that he was heading back to our house with some friends and my husband left our party to meet them there. I got into an engaging conversation on my way out the door and ended up staying for another hour.
When I pulled back into our driveway it was 1:45 a.m. Before I even got out of the car, I received a text message from my son: “Where are you?”
I hurried into the house, reading into his question some sort of peril, but found him and his friends in the TV room playing a video game, not a peril in sight. “Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Yes. We’re really hungry. Can you make us food?”
“It’s two in the morning,” I said, a statement that was not only inarguable but also fully conveyed my lack of enthusiasm for meal preparation. “Plus, I don’t even know what we have in the house to eat…”
And then I remembered the casserole.
I addressed my son’s friends directly. “Say, do any of you guys want some Mexican casserole?” I was about to launch into a small sales pitch but there was no need. Their eyes had already widened and I could detect salivary glands coming to attention. I heated it up and watched our three guests devour it. “This is really good,” one of the boys said to my son. “Why don’t you want any?”
My son and I exchanged glances, both of us acknowledging that I was claiming a sort of quiet victory, although one that would ultimately amount to nothing in my ongoing family feeding travails. Still, I took it as a good omen for the start of a new year.
This is not the type of message one should be texting on New Year’s Eve.
My youngest son is a picky eater, loathe to try new things even at 14. Still, I thought I might have a shot with this – packed as it was with tortillas and cheese – but at the last minute I added black beans, which I knew would extinguish any possibility.
My husband, I just learned, also now avoids black beans, but even if he didn’t, the casserole contained salsa, which is made of tomatoes, which are verboten for his blood type, as he is an Eat Right For Your Blood Type zealot. Whether you buy into that premise or not, I’ve watched him go from eczema laden to eczema free after giving up a few key foods, so I don’t scoff. Much.
The fact is, all four of us have different blood types and our natural predilections bear the theory out: there are very few single meals all of us enjoy. I think Shrimp Scampi might be the only one. Still, my older son would probably have eaten the cheesy casserole, even with his latent dairy allergy, but he was away for the week and I was sure I’d have thrown the casserole away by the time he returned.
There’s no real good reason for me not to eat this casserole as it contains a few of my most coveted foods (cheese and tortillas), except that I feel like I’ve become really fat over the last few days and indulging in my favorites does not easily fit into the rules of abstemiousness that I so tenaciously cling to.
“Do you want to try my Mexican casserole before you go out?” I asked my 14-year-old. He looked at me as if I’d suggested he drink gasoline. “I think you might like it.” (I had little to lose by pressing.)
He countered with a firm, “No.”
I could have made something entirely different with the ground turkey, something with marinara sauce that I would have spooned over quinoa pasta and not hated myself for eating, but instead I chose this casserole and I’m still not sure why. Even as I opened the oven door to pop it in, I was chastising myself for wasting perfectly good food, envisioning, as I was, scraping the whole thing into the garbage the next morning.
After the casserole cooked, cooled and had been refrigerated, I dropped my 14-year-old off at a New Year’s Eve party and my husband and I went to a dinner party nearby where I ate a virtuous (cheeseless) vegetable-only dinner and scurried off to the living room alone when dessert was served. At half past midnight, my son sent word that he was heading back to our house with some friends and my husband left our party to meet them there. I got into an engaging conversation on my way out the door and ended up staying for another hour.
When I pulled back into our driveway it was 1:45 a.m. Before I even got out of the car, I received a text message from my son: “Where are you?”
I hurried into the house, reading into his question some sort of peril, but found him and his friends in the TV room playing a video game, not a peril in sight. “Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Yes. We’re really hungry. Can you make us food?”
“It’s two in the morning,” I said, a statement that was not only inarguable but also fully conveyed my lack of enthusiasm for meal preparation. “Plus, I don’t even know what we have in the house to eat…”
And then I remembered the casserole.
I addressed my son’s friends directly. “Say, do any of you guys want some Mexican casserole?” I was about to launch into a small sales pitch but there was no need. Their eyes had already widened and I could detect salivary glands coming to attention. I heated it up and watched our three guests devour it. “This is really good,” one of the boys said to my son. “Why don’t you want any?”
My son and I exchanged glances, both of us acknowledging that I was claiming a sort of quiet victory, although one that would ultimately amount to nothing in my ongoing family feeding travails. Still, I took it as a good omen for the start of a new year.
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