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08 May 2011
What did you eat on Mother's Day?→[More:]Our conception of "mothering" often has a basis in food, so I'm wondering: what have you eaten today? With your mother, to honor her, in your status as mother, or in defiance of the whole thing?
I had five cookies for breakfast, zucchini quiche for lunch, and bulgogi for dinner. The dinner part was with my mother.
A few years ago, while still in college, I ended up at a Japanese restaurant with three male friends on Mother's Day. At the end of the meal, the waiter brought out a dish of green tea ice cream, and placed it in front of me as he wished me a Happy Mother's Day.
Breakfast was a leftover cold piece of fried chicken, some Diet Coke and a cigarette. I like to push the boundaries on those "It doesn't matter what you have for breakfast, it's still good for you in the long run" people.
Lunch I went to the Mongolian BBQ place with my folks. Had a self-made stir fry that included all kinds of greatness. And tons of chili-garlic. Mmmm, chili-garlic.
Dinner is about to be a homemade salad with some leftover chipotle-lime marinated grilled chicken.
Well, I'm nowhere near my mother geographically, but I did talk to her on the phone. She didn't go out to eat on Mother's Day because it's always so crowded, so my brother had planned to make lasagna. However, the cheese he planned to use turned out to be questionable, so he made tacos instead.
Grilled burgers and homemade ice cream at MIL's. MIL herself is on a diet, though. She tried to eat a nutri-system burger, which smelled like burnt wheat bran; she gave up and had a turkey burger instead. I think she got a lot more enjoyment mileage out of that.
This morning I had coffee. Lunch was a hot dog, coleslaw, watermelon, and chips. When I got home I was starving and had two hard-boiled eggs and some tortilla chips and salsa. I also had some peanut butter. I made Linguine with Shrimp Scampi for dinner. My husband works on Sundays so we weren't going out to dinner. He got home around dinner time and helped me cook.
For Breakfast, my husband made for me: corned beef hash, an egg, toast, and coffee.
After meeting, I had some more coffee (decaf this time so as not to cause a freak out), a muffin and some cheese cubes and carrot sticks.
Late lunch was some mac-and-cheese. It was homemade, not from a box, but it was not that great. Not cheesy enough, I don't think.
For dinner, we had planned to go out, but my 3 year old has had late nights the last couple of days, and in the interest of an early bedtime, we decided to order some chinese takeout. My husband ordered the whole restaurant, it seemed. We barely made a dent in it.
Tomorrow I am going to need eight green salads to balance all the heavy greasy cheesy fried stuff I had today.
Brunch: managed to find a restaurant that was not packed to the gills with mothers and children, but then they were rude to us and messed up my order and took forever so I won't be back. I had poached eggs with hollandaise on english muffins and some greens on the side.
Linner: Went to a bbq and when I walked in the hostess was finishing up frosting cupcakes so I ate the rest of the cream cheese frosting from the bowl with my finger. Then I also had some salad, some grilled zucchini, some plantain chips, a veggie burger, and a cupcake.
My mother's dead, and I have no kids of my own, but I honored myself by making an awesomely huge bowl of gnocchi with tomato sauce, because my gluten-free fiance was out for the day so I got to eat ALL THE WHEAT without guilt.
Today was a good day to leave all the windows open and let the sun breeze in, a good day for keeping quiet, for thinking about my mom.
At around noon I went into the kitchen and took stock, figured out what I'd be making, and laid out my ingredients: half a box of cut ziti, a few cloves of garlic, an onion, several shallots, about fifteen brown "baby bella" mushrooms, a bag of fresh spinach, rosemary, oregano, salt, pepper, olive oil. I grabbed a few bowls from the cabinet, and the cutting board, and my new sharp kitchen knife, and I cleared my mind and set to work.
When I was a kid I used to sit in the kitchen and watch my mom cook dinner. We would listen to public radio together, a lot of All Things Considered, of course, but what we lliked best were the old radio serial reruns, especially Johnny Dollar. I'd sometimes help, fetching a cookbook from the shelf or a pan from deep in one of the cabinets under the kitchen counter.
She was the kind of cook who got ingredients out on the fly, as needed, and left a big pile of dishes when she was finished. When I was little the box of corn starch always had her greasy hand-prints on it from reaching for it in the middle of kneading or chopping. As I got bigger and taller and could reach things I'd be the one grabbing the flour from above the stove, or running to the basement for a jar of pickles or a bag of frozen peas. All the boxes and containers stayed much cleaner on my watch.
I guess when people grow up they tend in all sorts of ways to be just like their parents, or just the opposite; it can be conscious or unconscious, but it's always there: I holler and love and tap my fingers to the music like my mom did, but I gather and prepare all my ingredients before I cook, and I wash the dishes as I finish cooking with them so there's little to do after dinner.
I diced the garlic and onions and chopped up the scallions and sliced the mushrooms, rinsed the spinach, ground the spices, and started boiling water for the pasta.
My mom always made the same sauce for pasta, and always the same shape noodles: spaghetti-8. I can remember having linguine a couple of times, but I remember them more as failed experiments, moments that proved it was sauce for spaghetti, not linguine. Hers was an all-day tomato-based meat sauce she learned growing up in Englewood, New Jersey, from her best friend's Italian mom. The recipe is standard, the secret ingredients were energy and time, and a bay leaf.
She made big batches of sauce and froze it in containers, labeled with the date and number of servings on them. About a week before she died she made her last batch of spaghetti sauce and froze it in containers for two, with a couple of three-portion containers in case someone visited. That batch of sauce lasted several months; she provided for my dad and me, and then my dad alone. I've never savored food or felt a bigger lump in my throat than I did eating those gifts.
I recently bought a nice new sautee pan, and I put it over a pretty low flame, and started the garlic in some olive oil. As soon as the edges became brown, I added the diced onions, and then, when they were a little glassy but still opaque, I folded in the mushrooms and covered the pan. The water boiled; I added pasta, noted the time, and washed the garlic and onion bowls and the knife and cutting board.
Mushrooms always take a little longer than I expect; they have a lot of liquid in them. I usually cover and uncover them a few times, to steam them down and then cook away the liquid, when they were much reduced and brown and smelling rich and earthy, I added the spices and the shallots and tossed them a little longer before adding the spinach, which I had to cram in under the lid. Meanwhile, the ziti finished cooking, so I drained it and tossed a little olive oil in and held it to the side.
When I think of my mom I think of her eyes and her hands. She wore glasses with bifocals and then trifocals and would tilt her head depending on which lens she was using, and sometimes her eyes would appear really big from the prism. They were deepset and smiling, and tired and open and a lot like mine, full of love, taking everything in, observing and cataloging her whole world. When she slept her eyes relaxed along with her face and she was really pretty.
She had big bony hands with long fingers and a surprisingly delicate, hesitant touch. We would sit on the couch and listen to music after dinner, she often wore a white sweater, I'd lean my face against her soft arm and watch her fingers' unconscious tapping to the rhythm of the music. Her finger tapping had a light peculiarity to it -- most people, when they tap, bring their fingers down with the beat and hold them down for a split second: the emphasis is on the beat as the end of a span of time -- she would tap with the beat and immediately lift her fingers up, like the beat was a start: from one beat we spring up to find the next.
Eventually the spinach cooked down and I added the pasta, along with salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. I put half in a container for the fridge and half in a bowl for lunch, washed the pan and cooking utensils, and sat down by the open window to eat. It was delicious, and I thought to myself as I ate that my mom would think it was delicious too, and that beyond feeling just happy and satisfied with the meal, she'd see there were no dishes to be done, and she'd be proud.
My breakfast was a small round steak with gently scorched onions (very hot non-stick skillet, no oil), toast and coffee. That was the only appetite I had.
I was served a goat cheese and caramelized onion omelet in bed, which was sort of hilarious because my breakfast was immediately besieged by four hungry cats with boundary issues. It's pretty much impossible to defend my food while I'm lying down.
I skipped lunch as I always do whenever I have more than coffee for breakfast but had nummy smoke cured wild boar ham for dinner.
We went to a woodfired pizza place and had woodfire roasted barramundi fillet with mussels in a cream sauce on smashed potatoes and veg with roasted fennel. One of the best fish meals of all time, in my mothers opinion, and I agree.
Then we had a slice of white chocolate cheesecake with baci ice-cream between us.
I swear, I nearly needed a wheelbarrow to get me back to the car.
This is totally fraught and maybe bunnies have some advice on this.
I have hereditary high cholesterol and high blood pressure. I just had my annual blood work, and despite being off red meat, eggs and butter for over a year (with a handful of exceptions on holidays), my numbers are unchanged. I have been counting calories for five months, and have lost two pounds. I exercise. My BMI is around 24. I am not a tiny person in rosy health.
The chain restaurants, they make me so angry. There is just nothing reasonable to eat at some of them. I check the nutritionals before I go. I don't go unless I have to - like yesterday. MIL picked the restaurant. One of the worst ones. Italian. Leaving out how the whole experience with service and everything was messed up - I had a dry salad w/vinegar and ordered eggplant parm that I only found out wasn't prepared correctly because they sent us home with an extra serving of whatever calorie bombs we ordered. So I ate fried eggplant patty on a green salad.
Here is where you might be able to help me: Because I know what the calorie counts are at these places, it kills me to see family members or co-workers order just the worst things when they have health problems and/or weight problems. I don't want to be the food police, but I also don't like to lie, so when my MIL says what she's getting and asks me "that can't be that bad, can it?" What do I say? I said "you might as well get what you want and enjoy it until you're full" or something stupid - it implied that it wasn't good ON MOTHER'S DAY. But the info is out there for anyone to find! Why don't people look or pay attention? I have a co-worker who will get a McDonalds meal and say "at least I didn't get dessert, right?" I can't be polite! I finally said, "I am not going to affirm your food choices for you." That's terrible - I know! Even the skinny folks, my work friend was getting something out of the vending machine. I was just looking at him - neutrally, I thought, and he said "I know, I know" and I said "I'm not the food police" and he said "you look like you are" - I said I was just jealous, which is probably true too.
I hate the food industry, but I hate myself more for ruining peoples meals! What do I do! These are situations where I can't suggest another venue - the kind of situations where majority rules or guest of honor picks.
I especially hate myself for this because I myself have other poor lifestyle habits that negatively impact myself.
rainbaby, I really don't think your responses sound out of line, and I say this as a pretty firm believer in intuitive eating and Health At Any Size. (Which is to say, I'm sensitive to people making judgements of me or others based on my/their/our fatness, or judging my food choices. I'm not yet great at eradicating those judgements in my own head.)
Unspurred, unasked-for remarks are one thing. Being asked to comment on someone else's food choices is different, and I sympathize with your unwillingness to appease their guilt.
But keep in mind that most people most likely aren't actually asking for information, even if it sounds like it; like so much communication, the content isn't as important as the tone. I'd bet that in most cases, they are deprecating their choices and tacitly asking you not to judge them. In your shoes I might develop a repertoire of more neutral responses. The first half of the remark to your mother is great: "Get what you want!"
Stating outright that you're not going to validate someone's choices is strong but fair. Unless it's said with a very light tone, it sounds more like boundary-drawing than conversation. And that's okay, because sometimes it's important to draw boundaries! I just thought it was worth pointing out.
With your mother, to honor her, in your status as mother, or in defiance of the whole thing?
We don't do Mother's Day, but this weekend was my mother's birthday. Since she's having back trouble, I offered to throw her a big cocktail party or a dinner party at her house. She chose dinner and requested veal piccata, spinach salad, and no nuts in anything. (And I did not even make my "ew, veal?" face. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM.) I added crispy cheese polenta with pan-roasted tomatoes, asparagus, sourdough rolls, and made the salad with apples, dried cranberries, and orange-lemon-curry dressing. A guest brought a birthday cake.
But that was Friday. On Saturday, Mom had overnight guests --- who brought in Sunday breakfast, bless their hearts. I stayed home and ate completely unmemorable food. No, really, I don't remember at all. I know there were some mushrooms in something, and some corn tortillas to wrap around it. At midnight or so, I had a grape spritzer with vodka. That was memorable, I guess.
Thanks Elsa and danf. Elsa, you are right, she and I have set boundaries around the subject with a few exchanges. We are friendly, so I'll count that as a success.
danf - I do that with friends at a local restaurant or at a party, no problem. It's a combination of the anger at the chains, and being with people (family/co-workers) whose company I don't necessarily always enjoy!
It's a combination of the anger at the chains, and being with people (family/co-workers) whose company I don't necessarily always enjoy!
I get that. When I end up at a chain restaurant, it's usually already a potentially tense situation: dining with extended family or old-but-distant friends, people whose lifestyles, politics, and worldview are substantially different from my own. It must be doubly complicating and exponentially frustrating when your dietary restrictions don't allow you to order directly from the menu or even to cobble together a meal you can eat happily.
SO HAPPY that my in-laws decided they like the locally owned pretend-British pub. It's still hard for their son to order a vegetarian meal there, but for us it's more pleasant than going to the Olive Garden.
Hugh, I read your post about your mom last night. It is beautiful.
rainbaby, you might want to read Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. Also, Why We Get Fat by the same author. Both are somewhat controversial. You can judge for yourself.
Nutrition wise, in my opinion, it's better to give up "carbs" rather than animal products. A lot of people think differently and I respect that. There are healthy vegans, healthy Paleo people, healthy people that eat a mix of grains and animal products. There is not any right way and I would never judge or become dogmatic about one eating approach. I think all would agree that too many refined carbs are never helpful. It is believed that refined sugar causes stress and inflammation to arteries.
High total cholesterol, and abnormal levels of some of the other particles in in the lipid panel, are not precursors for heart disease. If you're engaging in habits that cause damage to the arterial walls, like smoking, your chances increase. Ditto if you have high blood pressure, or have diabetes, or prior history. Take my advice about cholesterol with a grain of salt. Do you your own research and you'll probably find a lot of stuff that confirms my speech.
About other people and their food choices: I would not care and I would not say a word. Most people know they are not eating optimally at every meal. It's difficult for a person to remain on a conventional diet (a lot of diets women (sexist) go on are some sort of low-cal cereal, salad with not enough protein or fat, fruit, low-cal cereal bars, dinner of lean protein or soy protein without enough fat, veggies and salad with low-fat,high sugar dressing, or a boxed Lean Cuisine lasagna or something similar). Most couldn't stay on this for any length of time because they are constantly hungry. Physiology will win out every time. We're brainwashed to think that animal fat and protein are harmful so we go on these diets than do not fill our needs. The person doesn't fail, the diet does. If I were at the Italian restaurant I would order a steak, green veggies, and salad with high-fat dressing like Cesar without any carbs or oil and vinegar. Red meat is not the enemy but I respect people who believe it is. If I were sitting with you I might think your eggplant parm was a terrible choice because there's not enough protein, it's covered in bread crumbs, and it was probably fried in a vegetable oil other than olive or coconut. I wouldn't judge because I love Eggplant Parmesan and I don't care what people eat.
People aren't fat because they lack self-discipline or education. There are many emotional and physiological issues at play. People that judge the overweight and obese as weak-willed or ill-informed are seriously misguided. Nutrition education and consumer awareness has been proven not to work in a lot of cases. This doesn't mean I think it should be eliminated. Information is a good thing. We may have the information but it doesn't mean we're going to change our ways. Generally speaking, I think food chains have every right to sell whatever they want to sell within reason and I'm not angry at them in the least. Most food items on a food chain menu are like cigarettes. We know they're harmful. Ultimately, I think it's every American's right to be stupid. This doesn't mean I don't think the government shouldn't do something about it. Not through restrictive measures but with information.
disclaimer: not a nutritionist or doctor. My BMI is in the "overweight" category. My lipid panel is perfect but I wouldn't get shaken up if it weren't. My BP is normal. I think I'm in pretty good cardiovascular shape. I don't smoke and I rarely drink because I have a compulsive personality type and I can't stop at just one drink. I get enough sleep (8-10 hours per night). I can run (jog) for a pretty long time without stopping. I'm pretty strong. I eat refined carbs even though I think they are terrible for the body. I drink a lot of Diet Coke. I realize this is pretty simplistic advice and you're probably heard it all before.
Have you ever had wine at the Olive Garden that was drinkable?
Good god, it never occurred to me to drink wine at an Olive Garden. I know they have it, but it honestly NEVER ENTERED MY MIND to order it... though it would make those potentially-tense meals a little more relaxed.
True story: just last night, I said to The Fella "I secretly love Olive Garden. Not even secretly: I love Olive Garden. I'm a snob about it, but I love it. I'm pretty sure they wash their salad greens in a solution of salt and crack*."
I only go there under duress because my small city has DOZENS of fabulous locally owned restaurants, many of which support other local businesses and embrace sustainable practices, and which serve fabulous food within walking distance of my home. I don't really understand why anyone would go to Olive Garden when these places are closer, tastier, faster, cheaper, and better for the local economy. But when we're inevitably summoned to Olive Garden, I happily eat mounds of crack* salad and mystery-oil breadsticks.
*Yes, I know it's not nice to make light of addiction. But I am a bad person. Surely you knew that already.
Thanks, Lori. I did eat that way for a few years. My weight went down, but my blood pressure and cholesterol levels went up. On my doctor's advice, I stopped eating like that. I think it definately works for some people. I do avoid refined carbs as much as possible. I usually eat three to four times my recommended fiber for the day. I know Eggplant Parm is a terrible choice. That's my point - there were no good choices! No fish or chicken that wasn't breaded or sauced to death.
No fish or chicken that wasn't breaded or sauced to death.
In an traditional restaurant, you could ask for plain broiled fish or some other simple dish. Even if it's off-menu, almost any chef in a kitchen stocked with ingredients could provide it.
... but I wouldn't be certain that's the case in chain restaurant kitchens, where most dishes are sauced and branded and pre-processed. How frustrating for you!
I have read about some Paleo and Atkins people's (or people that forgo grains) numbers going up. Some say not to worry, others do. It's very confusing.
Sorry if my post was rambling and preachy. Sometimes I can't help myself.
I too love Olive Garden salad. Outback salad is my favorite.
Let me just plug Michael Pollan's book In Defense Of Food. He takes a little different tack than Taubes in terms of what makes a healthy diet. Both Pollan and Taubes have written good articles on the nytimes.com site that are good overviews of their books. Of course the nytimes is behind a pay wall now, but its pretty easy to get around, as we've discussed here before.
rainbaby, good luck with your health, whatever choices you decide to make.
I came here to say something similar to what LoriFLA said, but I see it's already been said. I personally lost a LOT of weight, doing similar sorts of things, eating plenty of fat and protein (yes even saturated fat) and few refined carbs or sugar -- about 60 lbs since last January. I'm finally well into the normal BMI range and have never felt (or looked, from what people tell me) healthier. Obviously, everyone is different. I know lots of people who seem to do just great on diets high on refined carbs and the like. I do want to say however that high cholesterol numbers in and of themselves should not be cause for great alarm. Even if there is a link between cholesterol and heart disease (which is debatable), the fact that this is only a correlation means that we really don't know why it's there -- is it just playing the role of a repairman, perhaps undoing some damage already done? The jury is still out. Personally, of course, I know where my bets are placed, but everyone has to come their own conclusions.
It sounded to me like rainbaby was looking for input on the conversations around food (rather than advice about the food itself) and that she offered info about her particular dietary restrictions just to put those conversations into context.
Not that there's anything wrong with a more general discussion of dietary practices! But if I'm reading her right, that's not what rainbaby was asking.
Elsa is right. I am extremely informed about my personal dietary choices.
I thank you all for sharing, but for me anyway, none of it is new information, and since it didn't start out to be a nutrition thread, I kinda feel like I've ruined it.
rainbaby, I think you can just go with a shrug and a "you're an adult, you get to pick want you want to eat" type of comment. I too loathe being put into a position where I feel like expected to absolve other people's bad decisions, because you just can't win.
I too loathe being put into a position where I feel like expected to absolve other people's bad decisions
Word! I don't get it a lot with food, I get it a lot with people flaking out on helping at church. I refuse to play, I'm not going to feel bad for holding people to the things they said they were going to do.
I would never call you a dumbass, LoriFLA! Everything you said sounded very sensible for someone looking for that advice --- and very nonjudgmental, too, which is crucial.
(I didn't respond earlier because I was out running errands, which ended with me suddenly getting wildly hungry, so I'm sitting here wolfing down a crazy trio of salads from market's food bar and wishing I could put my whole head in the bowl.)
Word! I don't get it a lot with food, I get it a lot with people flaking out on helping at church.
I get it from family members who love to shop. I don't know whether I contribute to that by being unconsciously judgmental or whether they just notice that I try to conserve and re-use and buy used and decide that I judge them secretly. I think it's usually a more of reflection on them than on me.
I got distracted before I could post! I had:
Coffee in bed.
From-scratch waffles with strawberries (made by me, the resident mother).
California roll and vegetable spring roll (made by Fresh Market)
Cappuccino frozen yogurt with chocolate-covered sunflower seeds (for free! because I procreated!)
Grilled pizza with pepperoni, dried tomatoes and olives (made by me)
An indeterminate number of beers.
Pretty good, all in all.
Yeah my grandma grew up on a dairy farm in the czech republic and ate butter and chocolate spread on bread for breakfast every day. I would like that, but I don't think it is a healthy idea.
That advice is often rendered more like "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food," and generalized to mean anyone from Grandma's generation. Even if your actual grandmother would have freaked out to see yogurt or hummus or lo mein or sourdough on her table, some of her contemporaries wouldn't.
But even that advice doesn't cut out all or even most of the stuff that Pollan objects to. I own a 1937 cookbook that is a stealth promotion for Crisco. Every single recipe (including the chocolate souffle) contains a heaping helping of shortening. Granny (or at least Granny's generation) would certainly have recognized it as food, but it's one of the ubiquitous modern foodstuffs that Pollan warns readers about.
(Me, I tend to think it's okay so long as I don't make a steady diet of the stuff.)
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