I've decided I have a love/hate relationship with food.
I love it when my belly has something in it, especially when it was hot and filling and makes me want to lie down and take a nap. Apparently, that doesn't happen often enough.
Mostly, I hate food. Years ago, I was single. Three years between the time I had to try to decide my food options with other's food preferences attached. At that time, my grocery list was so very simple. V8 juice for breakfast, for lunch I took mixed nuts and dried snack meat, frozen fried chicken and frozen green veggies preferably brussel sprouts but sometimes they were not available and then it would be broccoli or perhaps green beans for dinners, popcorn before bed or general snacking. I would go and stock up on this stuff every couple of weeks and that would get me through Monday to Friday. On the weekends, I would do maybe a canned soup, craved garbanzo beans, occasionally corned beef hash, perhaps ate out at least once over the weekend, particular favorite was a prime rib cafe a few miles from home on a Friday or Saturday because it meant leftovers on Sunday.
My diet plan was easy, few decisions to make and never did I have to think out 'What's for dinner?' because it was the same everyday.
Diabetes is nasty hard on a food plan with limited budget. My personal diet is compounded with other variables too. A food aversion to eggs. Any eggs. I can't stand the smell of them and cannot eat anything if I can identify eggs in the contents. I have a hiatal hernia and it is very uncomfortable with anything dairy, so that also rules out milk, cheese, ice cream, etc. I try to avoid anything spicy, because it upsets my stomach and with the constant worry about stomach stuff it's just easier to stay away from them. My inability to cook also limits my creative food ideas but I think the worst part is that I don't have an appetite. I cannot tell that I'm ever hungry and often just forget to eat. If I wasn't watching a clock all the time, I would probably forget all together.
With all that in mind, now, imagine being married to the grandson of a restaurateur. That smokes. So, food has to taste good, but the poor guy can't taste anything. And there must be a variety, because he gets burned out from eating the same thing too often. Where as I don't care what I eat, it's all just food. Again. So much time spent making it and in just a few minutes, it's gone.
It takes longer for us to decide what we are having for dinner than to make it AND eat it.
I have never been a menu person. Yep, I don't get Martha Stewart. So, I feel shame when I say this: On my refrigerator is a magnetic dry erase board of all the dinner options we currently have. Since we just went grocery shopping last weekend, there are enough dinners listed for two weeks or more.
Last week, the last few days before the paycheck came, the board was empty. The last time we'd gone shopping we failed to actually think up some dinner options, so those few days we kept wandering into the kitchen and not finding anything, like little lost cows that can't find the barn. An endless cycle of wandering in and out of the kitchen all day long.
Right now, in my office is a food barrel for the local food drive to stock up the food bank. My company allows us to offer a discount to tenants that contribute to the food bank. I went to the food bank a couple of times the last time I was unemployed. Watching what is being donated and remembering what it was like to go myself, I am feeling really bad about having a full list of dinner options right now.
There are times when I want to put the whole list in the barrel and get some fried chicken and brussel sprouts. So simple. Easy on the blood sugar. Uncomplicated decision making. Ah, those were the days.
No comments:
Post a Comment