Slim to None (11 page)

With that I dollop about half a cup of sauce on top of my up-til-then-modestly-healthful dinner. Thank goodness there’s that healthy cucumber in it to balance out the fat content.

"Abbie?"

I stare at my plate and practically will a huge forkful of food into my mouth. Filling the void.

"What if he says something I don’t want to hear?"

With that William gets up and comes over to me, pulling me up out of my seat, and into his arms. "Sweetie, what your father did wasn’t aimed at you. He loved you, in his own stupid, selfish way. You know that, don’t you?"

"I don’t know! Why would someone do that to his kid? Why do you think I’m so afraid of committing to owning a child? I’m afraid I won’t be able to tough it out, just like him."

With that, I admit my own folly. Something I hadn’t even admitted to myself.

William looks at me with new eyes. New and confused eyes, maybe from hurt at this revelation, I don’t know. Yet also with understanding, as a parent would while listening to a child speak gibberish. Instead of saying anything, he just holds me tight. His body trembles slightly. It makes me wonder if somewhere deep down inside, he’s crying. Whether for me or for us, I’m not exactly sure.

Greek Chicken Shish Kebabs

2 lbs. Boneless chicken breasts, cut into 2-inch cubes

1 basket cherry tomatoes

1 each orange and yellow bell pepper, cut into 1-inch cubes to skewer

1 zucchini, sliced

1/2 pound white button mushrooms, rinsed, ends sliced off

for the marinade

4 tbl. olive oil

2 tbl. balsamic vinegar

3 cloves minced garlic

1 tsp. oregano

1/2 tsp. cumin seeds (or powder)

1/2 tsp. ground pepper

Serve with Sour Cream Sauce and Grilled Pita Bread (recipes to follow), and brown basmati rice.

Combine ingredients in Ziploc bag, add chicken. Marinate for at least one hour, or up to overnight.

Prepare vegetables. Rub oil on metal skewers so that ingredients do not stick. I skewer chicken separately, then skewer vegetables, drizzling veggies with olive oil.

Grill on medium high grill, for 5 minutes. Turn skewers, grill 5 more minutes.

Transfer skewers to platter.

Have ready 1 package of pita bread, brushed on each side with olive oil. Place pita bread on grill, one minute per side. Transfer to platter.

sour cream sauce

3/4 c. sour cream

3/4 c. plain yogurt

1/4 c. finely chopped onion

1/2 c. coarsely chopped fresh parsley

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper

1/2 tsp. oregano

Combine all ingredients and refrigerate until 1/2 hour before serving, at which point bring to room temperature to serve.

Simmer Discontent on Low until Just Before Boiling Point

Fan mail!" Mortie calls out to me as I step off the elevator for work this morning. "You, my dear, have a fan base!"

He taps me on my head with a small stack of emails some intern no doubt printed out on his behalf. Wow. Fan mail. I mean sure, I’ve had comments before on my reviews, but I somehow have viewed myself as a third party to that. For this, they’re writing in response to my feelings, my emotions. That’s something entirely foreign to me.

I pull out one and begin to read.

Dear Ms. Jennings,

Finally, finally, finally someone gets it. Someone gets me! Never in my life have I seen put into words exactly how I feel about food. I read your column and stuck it right underneath my husband’s nose after re-reading it, just to show him I’m not a freak. This is what it’s all about to me, too. Thank you for understanding me and letting me know I’m not alone.

Yours,

Stef Jancowitz

Queens

So I took a chance and someone loved it! It made sense to another human being! I just knew that someone out there would feel the way I do!

I proceed to read through the rest of the stack of emails, emboldened by each one to resolve to continue to write more on issues about which we tend to never speak, out of embarrassment or whatever. Maybe this really is a good thing after all, me launching this column.

But soon my joy is overshadowed by the black cloud that is Barry Newman. Barry’s smile—or is it a smirk?—is about as wide as the George Washington Bridge span. I think a couple of 18-wheelers could easily careen across it.

"Abbie! How great to see you here this morning!" He’s laying it on as thick as gumbo, which sounds so divine, now that I mention it. I once had a gumbo in Waterproof, Louisiana (population 834) that I swear would bring about world peace if only everyone got to taste a bite. Can’t imagine I’ll be getting back there any time soon to have another bowl of it myself. Maybe that’s why my life is so lacking in peace these days...

"Hello, Newman," I growl at him. I think he gets my drift. Nevertheless, he feels compelled to talk about this wonderful new restaurant he ate at last night that I’d been dying to review: Black Tie Bali, which features Balinese cuisine served by tuxedo-clad waiters and waitresses wearing chiffon ball gowns and white gloves. Would I kid about this? The restaurant is the brainchild of master chef Alain DuFuss—just kidding!—Alain DuLongue, proprietor of several chi-chi Manhattan eateries. His ox tongue in sweet nutmeg sauce is rumored to die for. And to think I could’ve even eaten
that
guilt-free—I am certain that ox tongue contains no carbs.
Plus
it’s not white. I even heard the boiled bananas were amazing—and fat free (though white, darn it!).

"It’s so fun dining surreptitiously, isn’t it, Abbie?" Barry digs in the knife a little deeper. "I mean, here I am, eating the most amazing meals, sampling everything, and no one knows why! It’s like our little secret."

Our
secret? That bastard. I wonder if it was our secret. Or if someone tipped off certain restaurant owners about a certain food critic who was going to be dining at certain restaurants in the near future...

"And the wine!" he’s blathering on. "Do you know the Sonoma Cab I had the other night retails at $800 a bottle?"

He’s buying bottles of wine that cost three times an average monthly car payment? Is he off his rocker? Didn’t Mortie tell him there’s a budgetary limit to the madness, even by Manhattan standards? Huh, well, I’m sure not going to let on. Maybe I can just sit back and watch him crash and burn.

"Oh, and the power.
The power
! Imagine,
I
can single-handedly bring down a restaurant owned by ultra-rich investors. It’s a heady feeling. Isn’t it, Abbie?"

I wonder if he’s noticed yet that I’ve plugged my ears.

"So I’ve given the restaurant review column a new name. I think it fits," he says, holding his hands up, his thumbs and forefingers forming "L’s" as if showcasing a sign. "
The Frenzied Foodie
!"

Yes, indeedy, he is off his rocker. I roll my eyes at him and try to get back to my computer screen, but he’s not done. "I want my readership to know that I’m whipped into a frenzy seeking out the best dining experiences for them."

I nod my head as if in complete agreement. "Barry, you’ve obviously mistaken me for someone who cares. Now if you’ll leave me to my work?"

"Geeze, Abbie. No need to be a spoilsport about things. I can’t help it you’ve gone over the tipping point. I’m just glad I was here to pick up the pieces."

I wad up a ball of paper and whip it at his face. "Tip this, Newman."

Finally he leaves and I count to ten. Then I count to ten again. And again. I think I get to about 988 before I can breathe without fear of a panic attack (or a need for a bite of something). I decide to channel my anger into my writing. I’m sure somewhere someone has said that writing can be therapy. And if food can’t be my therapy, then something’s gotta be.

Neurotic Obsessive or Quixotic Realist?

OrYou Can’t Fight City Hall, Especially if YouCan’t Fit Through the Doorway

Once again, I caved. I couldn’t sustain my dieting nature for twelve measly waking hours. My food compulsion got the best of me, despite myself. So perhaps rather than fighting my nature, I should accept it. Sort of embrace my inner cow.

You know, I wrestle with this fat versus thin concept pretty much all day and all night. Not that I’m fixated or anything, but it is a bit of an obsession. I mean, how can it not be? If you’re one of those thin-by-nature people, well, you’ll never understand. But if you’re like me—and I know there are lots of us out there—-then you know with practically every commercial on TV (except maybe for the cellphone ads), every magazine at the grocery store with a scrumptious dessert on its cover, even songs like that one by Train where they’re talking about fried chicken—food is everywhere.

And for me, merely thinking about food practically makes me gain weight, so at some point I just have to give up sweating about it and give in to the siren call. Ride the horse in the direction it’s going. Play the ball where the monkey drops it, as my friend Jess likes to say.

So I decided to make a list, to bolster my psyche about this embracing-you-inner-cow movement. After all, there must be legitimate pluses to being a bit overweight. So just to get off on the right foot, here are some advantages to toting around some excess poundage:

A FEW GOOD REASONS FOR BEING A LITTLE BIT FAT

1. Your outie becomes an innie with that extra pooch of fat on your stomach


2. Blubber provides greater ease in floating (any whale or polar bear will tell you that!)


3. Extra weight keeps your fat clothes from collecting dust


4. Leaves you better prepared for famine


5. Keeps you warm during those cold winter months


6. Makes you better-appreciate being thin


7. Much easier to pierce your navel with a bit of gut to grab onto


8. Fatter face means you look younger (those hollow gaunt faces betray ones age)


9. You learn the limitations to elastic’s ability to hold things in


10. Greater cushioning for a fall


11. Bigger bod = bigger boobs


12. More padding for riding bicycles


13. Gives you a good excuse to avoid the pool during peak crowded hours


14. Built for comfort, not speed


15. Eliminates having to debate whether to say that bogus obligatory phrase "oh, no, I couldn’t, I’m too full" when the waitress asks if you want dessert


16. Fluffy is an affectionate term of endearment


17. You have a blues song named after you (Fat Bottom Girls)


18. Your stomach makes a comfy pillow for your child


19. Polar bears are cute, and polar bears are fat, therefore fat is cute


20. In Africa, your voluminous size would indicate wealth and stature in society, so somewhere out there it’s good to be fat


21. Living fat=living large, literally

Of course, because of the continual weight-related ying-yang with which I wrestle, I had to torture myself with these following truths as well.

SURE SIGNS THAT YOU HAVE OVERRIDING WEIGHT ISSUES

1. You view food poisoning as a positive thing because of the accompanying (though inevitably brief) weight loss


2. Your first reaction when you find out that you have to have any sort of -ectomy (appendectomy, hysterectomy, kidney-ectomy) is one of good cheer—the loss of an organ at least means a few pounds down on the scale


3. A little part of you secretly hates your best friend for losing two dress sizes


4. You start to strategize how to approach stepping on the scale in order to soften the psychological blow of seeing the registered poundage


5. You figure that eating ice cream out of the carton means the calories don’t count


6. You enviously view liposuction as a Hollywood trade secret


7. You catch sight of your reflection and assume it’s someone else, because you couldn’t be that big


8. You look longingly at pictures of a younger you, wishing you were that thin (even though at that time you’d looked longingly at pictures of a still younger you, wishing you were that thin (even though at that time you’d looked longingly at pictures of a still even younger you, wishing you were that thin (you get my drift; it’s kind of like seeing yourself in a mirrored room—you become increasingly distant and smaller in the infinite reflections)


9. The idea of wearing horizontal stripes is as foreign to you as the notion of sticking to a diet


10. You spy a picture of Kate Hudson in a pair of Levi’s and either a) tape it to your refrigerator as incentive not to eat, or b) say a little prayer that she gets really, really fat with her next pregnancy and stays fat afterward


11. You welcome the idea of travel in a third-world country, knowing that you’ll at least lose weight because you aren’t keen on eating cat or dog, and as an added bonus might even contract a parasite which would mean dramatic weight loss


12. You cling desperately to the theory that your extra pounds are merely "muscle weight" from all that exercising you’ve been doing


13. You map out your strategy before arriving at your doctor’s appointment to avoid having to step on the scale for the nurse


14. The saccharine strains of Barbra Streisand singing "The Way We Were" drift through your mind as you drive past Baskin-Robbins whenever you’re on a diet


15. Most milestones of your life are accompanied by the thought, "Oh, I was thin then," or "Yeah, that’s when I was really fat."


16. Your definition of brave is tucking in your shirt


17. Your wardrobe is limited to varying shades of black (after all, black is slimming)


18. You’ve given up on control top, because after a while, why bother?


19. You’re starting to look like Bea Arthur during her Maude days, wearing long duster jackets that conceal your fat ass


20. Strangers in the grocery store pat your burgeoning tummy and ask you when your baby is due


21. You refuse to consider purchasing new underwear, even if the elastic is disintegrated in yours, because the indignity of seeing your dimpled flesh strain through those delicate fabrics in a dressing room mirror is too damned demoralizing


22. Upon seeing home movies you silently reflect wistfully at how beautiful and slender you looked just hours before delivering your last child.


23. The phrase "such a pretty face" makes you want to slug someone


24. You’ve lost significant amounts of weight for two or more of the following life events: high school graduation, college graduation, family reunions, new boyfriend, your wedding, wedding of anyone at which people who haven’t seen you in a while may be in attendance, high school reunion, college reunion (if only you could have advance warning for funerals)


25. Your family photographs are starting to have a lot of you with your hand blocking the camera lens when it’s pointed in your direction


26. You envy those Indian women who get to wear saris...Nothing clinging about those outfits

I am of two minds when it comes to weight and dieting. The stubborn part of me wants to reject our cultural obsession with thin, which requires a complete denial of all things indulgent. I want to say—and truly believe—that life’s too short to worry about size and shape. That the pleasurable sensory quest of food is worth the downside that accompanies it.

But then the other side of me knows that I’m far happier if I’m thinner and look good in my clothes. I even take better care of myself when I’m thinner—I wear make-up every day, even paint my nails, I don’t schlep around in oversized sweatshirts and sneakers.

But still I wonder if Dr. Atkins had any regrets about spending his entire adult life passing on the banana splits. On his deathbed, was he satisfied that life was over and he had deprived himself of a lifetime of yummy food?

I’ll end the chapter with this freakish thought I had last week, after not splurging all day: "Hey, I did good today. All I had for breakfast was two small bites of a low-carb bar." That was the extent of my gustatory pleasure while enduring my last low-carb diet. Life truly is too short for that, isn’t it?