1/5
2010
-
Once you pop…
I’ve been having a really hard time with food today.
I haven’t been eating nonstop or spending too much money or making bad choices.
I’ve been cooking.
And it’s been bad.
I went to Fairway today, recipes in hand, ready to really start cooking for myself. The future meals weren’t anything special or particularly complex, but I was looking forward to buying quality ingredients and giving myself some good choices for dinner.
What happened was that I spent time before, between and after my two jobs to prepare and cook the food that was supposed to feed me a few times this week, only to completely massacre the chicken. In a way that baffles me a bit as to how my mother cooked a balanced dinner for us every night and never, not once, cooked anything badly.
I literally had to walk away from the situation. I left the kitchen, crawling with salmonella, with a pot of water boiling and a pan of half-cooked chicken in a blood brown gravy that I never expected. Not appetizing.
After taking a break to mourn the second death of the bird, I did the dishes and realized I was starving. I hadn’t eaten anything in hours, and I grabbed a pina colada yogurt.
It tasted like cheese.
What I’m saying is that it is hard to cook for myself and make good choices when I can go buy some packaged shit that is scientifically modified to 1. taste good and 2. taste the same every time you eat it.
Consistency is what I lack in my cooking.
Consistency is what I love about eating.
When I’m lonely or sad or bored I can go to the store and know exactly what will taste good, and (jackpot!) the most I ever have to do is turn on the oven.
Now I have to work a little harder. And it’s work to remind myself that I deserve something healthy and substantial to eat every once in a while. I can’t supply myself with the instant gratification that popping a tube of Pringles can.
This is getting frustrating, friends.
