It's all about choices, isn't it?
This week I have found myself bogged down with choices that I have to make, many against my nature. Church, school and food are all out to get me.
I love food. A lifetime of not being able to eat most of it has cultivated a fascination with all kinds of food and their preparation. Couple that with a very 'go with the flow' nature, a generous dash of laziness, an antipathy towards planning of any kind (including slowly and carefully reading recipes) and a love of doing things differently and you have an inspired, but rather slipshod, chef roaming my kitchen. I have long maintained that the whole reason God gave me my food problem was because He'd run out of will power to give out and if I was free to eat what I liked, I would be the size of a small country with chronic acne, among other assorted medical problems. I came off light, really. My only regret, if I were pressed, is that I didn't take home economics and go to culinary school. I just didn't know back then.
Food Network runs by the hour over here, and the pile of recipe books I have collected can be used to stand on to change a light bulb. At one point I actually worked as a baker and pastry chef, helping to supply cakes, puddings and biscuits to supermarkets and restaurants across the Algarve. All with minimal tasting!
Once I set up home, my adherence to my diet gradually slipped. It got to the point (for many years) where I consciously kept a low fat diet, but didn't really worry about going over occasionally (read often). And it was fine. I will never be super skinny, but also, I will never be fat. I am curvy (that's how we will be referring to me, no opinions allowed). I have fat knees, but c'est la vie. I would carry on just fine until along would come the stomach cramps and I would have to spend the day at home. Then I would be 'good' for a few days and keep the fat to a minimum. When I was a child, I would fast for 24 hours, unsurprisingly, once out of my mother's clutches, that went by the wayside.
Everything went to pot when I fell pregnant with my son. I couldn't eat anything. Although I never got any kind of restructure from the specialists (I was blissfully unaware of the dangers my condition provoked during pregnancy), I hated all food. Especially chicken. Unfortunately we were scraping the bottom of the barrel financially at the time and I spent a lot of time in Iceland, by far the cheapest option open to us. I craved chocolate and burgers. I kid you not. In the end an executive decision was made and I started eating what I wanted to eat, on the basis that starving wasn't helping anyone. Interestingly, I did not suffer any symptoms of overdoing my diet during the entire pregnancy.
My daughter was better. That pregnancy, although far from fun, was a lot less miserable. I kept more or less to my diet, but did suffer symptoms. Not too bad though.
Then we came out to Portugal and our diet changed radically. Here the food is seasonal to a much greater extent. The chicken and the pork is on a totally different level of gorgeousness. Ready meals are hard to find and expensive. A lot of things taken for granted in the UK are just not available. Everything is cooked on the barbeque or in the oven for three hours. There are two types of potato and six types of orange. Everything is fresh. Even the cuts of meat are different, reflecting the different ways of cooking employed. I just forgot about the diet and dove right in. I noticed a pattern emerging, I would get the cramps and associated symptoms just before my time of the month (This is due to hormone levels affecting tryglicerides in the blood. Or something). It was never debilitating, though, so I carried on.
This, barring a set of incidents that deserve their own post, brings us to the now. I have discussed in the first post what is driving my sudden return to the fold. And I hate it. It's really not that bad and I will get used to it, but for now, I hate it. I have an excel spreadsheet tracking my fat, protein, carbohydrate and kJ of energy intake per day. There are graphs. I am learning things, though. The biggest problem I face is keeping the energy up, as moaned about multiple times already, and taste. TASTE! I miss it. You know what adds a lot of the taste to meals? The fat. The oil, the dressing, the fattier meats, the butter on top. I like a wet meal, sauce of some kind, or a dip, are essential. Difficult to thicken anything up without dairy. I am trying to find methods and recipes that are low in fat to start with rather than converting traditional meals, and they are out there, but they take preparation. Marinades, I am discovering, are a helpful tool. I am not an organised, planned person and if I come home hungry all the things that take two minutes are not good news for me. Sandwiches have to be monitored. Frozen fish fillets are not great, and I hate chicken breast, unless it has been hidden in a good casserole, pie or marinade. Fishfingers are awesome, but the mash leaves a bit to be desired without dairy and dry boiled potatoes? No.
Hehe, maybe I am as picky as my daughter. It's all about choices and am I choosing to balk at the gate? If I choose to put some effort in then I will feel better and always have something to eat to hand. I'd better get off to the supermarket then. And just so you know, I think I've nailed the church problem and I have a plan that I revealed to the kids this morning to get the schools off our backs. You never know, Miss lazy, unplanned and above all, forgetful might actually be able to pull it off! Stay tuned.
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