Cookbooks

Over the last few weeks, I've been thinking about vegetarianism again, mainly thanks to my vegan/vegetarian friends and the inspiration from Thirty-Day-Vegetarian Zack Reeves. So, I stopped by Hastings this afternoon and picked up three cookbooks.

The Rationale:

1) Ever since my braces, I can't eat or enjoy meat very much anyway. Hard to chew. *Practical

2) My weight refuses to budge. Granted, addition of Nutella and subtraction of Zumba, thanks to a nonstop writing and research schedule, has not been helpful. But I sense a disturbing upward trend in my body's ability to hang on to weight, letting me know things will only get more difficult. *Wellness

3) I've been exhausted and sick so many times this semester. Cleaning up my eating habits might be a step in the right direction. I want to experiment with quinoa and other difficult-to-pronounce grains. I plan to buy local bread and eat lots of fruits and vegetables. And Nutella. *Wellness

4) My income is so tight, and meat is so expensive... *Financial

5) I will practice vegetarianism as a protest against the time I was told that quitting vegetarianism was one of the criteria I must do in order for my then-husband to come back to me. (Because vegetarianism is Buddhist and anti-Christian, so I was informed). I'm feeling pretty pissy about that whole deal today. I was a vegan from 1992-1996. *Personal

6) I feel freaked out by the complexity of food. In trying to eat more simply, I think this will ease my overwhelming confusion when I buy food. Buying food, for me, is incredibly stressful and overwhelming. So I avoid it and eat bad things out of the freezer. *Environment

There you have it. So shall it be.

On Being Hungry Since December

Why, who makes much of a miracle? -Walt Whitman
I've done it again- not eaten breakfast until 10am. By then, I've picked up the house, walked to the bus stop, ridden the bus for twenty minutes, and walked across campus. By then, I am literally shaking. By then, I am starving. I am starving all the time. I've had braces on my teeth since December of 2010 and I've been hungry since then. I dream about food, I think about food, I cry when I watch Food Network. I want someone to make me a thick soup with chunks of beef and potato and red wine and transparent onions...I want to bite into a fried chicken leg so the grease pops out and runs down my chin and I have to mop my face with those cheap, fast-food, one-ply napkins. I want to eat a bag of pistachios until I get sick, I want my hands tinged pink with the red-stained shells. My mouth fills with saliva when I think about a roast cooked the way I like it- rare inside but burnt and crispy on both ends. A plate of yellow corn chips topped with jalapenos. A gala apple- crispy and juicy and bursting with sound when I bite into it.

I eat mainly soft foods: a lot of banana protein shakes, scrambled eggs, yogurt, cheese, noodles. I can usually eat a salad (but rarely raw vegetables) and, less often, a cheese sandwich. What I'm missing is the experience of chewing and enjoying. Everything I eat is accompanied by the sensation of pain. I drink a lot of meals instead of eating them, and I'm missing the realness of food- the texture and feel of it in my mouth. Enjoying the sensation of chewing slowly and feeling flavors explode- the roughness or crispness of food against my teeth. A thick, yeasty, crusty piece of bread! A sticky caramel! What a little miracle, to be able to eat without pain!

I looked and looked this morning for my book of poems about food. Couldn't find it. I'm thinking of a fabulous poem from the point of view of a small child in a high chair--ignored and hungry. A line that was something about waiting for someone to make soup. Something like --"Waiting for somebody- anybody- to come home. Waiting for one person hungry enough to come home."

I'm reduced to two-dimensional eating. Food without substance or shape or meaning - food that keeps me alive but not fulfilled.