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Copyrights reserved by the author. If you are in doubt, please click on 'Copyrights' and read the details. How the right diet can get you through the worst winter by J. G. Fabiano
Winter brings different things to different people. Some enjoy this time of the year by throwing themselves into winter sports and injuring themselves, to which I say, serves them right. Others enjoy the serenity and warmth of their homes with their families, a good book, a faithful pet and the occasional case of whiskey. I, on the other hand, become emotionally attached to food. This winter I acquired a taste for Popsicles. Not your ordinary kind because my wife, in all her wisdom, managed to get me hooked on a type of Popsicle that has only10 calories in it. I assume she wants me to retain my teeth as long as possible and not degenerate into a body type that looks like a bowling pin. Because these are low calorie Popsicles, in my mind, this means I can eat all I want, anytime I want, which happens to be all the time. This particular obsession started innocently enough. My wife picked up a box of six multiple flavor, low calorie Popsicles from Hannaford's. It was also the beginning of a polar cold wave that engulfed us from Christmas through mid-February. I remember my furnace kicking in on Christmas Eve and do not believe it has shut off since. This made the inside of my house especially dry, thus the necessity of a cold, fruit-flavored ice on a stick to break the dry clammy feeling in my mouth. I loved them. The first box of six Popsicles lasted about six minutes. I then asked my wife if she needed anything at the store? She knew exactly what I had planned and began to dread the day she brought the Popsicles into our home. I ran to the store and bought three 24-pack sugar free Popsicles. One of the boxes didn't make it home unopened. By the time I drove into the driveway I had consumed one grape, two orange, and three cherry flavored Popsicles because cherry is my favorite. From that time on until the present I am rarely seen without a flat wooden stick hanging out of my mouth. The big problem with eating Popsicles all the time is that it does affect the color of your teeth. I am thrilled that grape is not my favorite because purple teeth do not go with anything I have in my closet. Orange and cherry aren't too bad because their color simply makes you look like you have some kind of gum disease. The last time we went shopping I headed immediately for the freezer case only to be shocked by the sight of an empty spot where the Popsicles are supposed to be. I ran over to the frozen foods manager and expressed my concern over the lack of something that I was convinced had kept me alive through this horrendous winter. He told me to relax and walked me over to the giant freezer in the middle of the store. Six cases of my "fix" were stored there waiting to be opened. I would have bought a whole case if I could have convinced my wife that we could store them outside in the backyard. It was surely cold enough and the boxes were not lacking in aesthetic charm. Needless to say I could not convince her to follow my advice so I was restricted to buying all that could fit in our freezer. I could probably have fit a lot more in than my wife would let me but she had this odd idea that we needed food supplies other than Popsicles. Popsicles may be the flavor of this winter but they are not the only food obsession that gets me through the coldest months of the year. I am also an avid popcorn freak, especially those bags you can pop in the microwave. To me there is no more heavenly scent than a bag of popcorn being irradiated in a microwave for the allotted four minutes. I learned long ago that if you ever went over the four-minute mark your house would be contaminated by the smell of burning camel dung for at least the next three days. Another problem I have with popcorn is, after it cooks and its mouth-watering scent fills the room, I become so impatient to get it into my mouth that I grab the bag out of the microwave and open it immediately. This has the effect of instantly steam cleaning all my facial pores but has also left scorch marks on my nose, which my doctor assures me will fade with time. The loss of most of my nose hairs I actually consider a benefit at this time of my life. Any kind of salted snack is another important food source I will abuse during the winter. My wife recently started buying Quaker Quakes rice snack. The texture is that of discs of old cardboard but the taste is quite remarkable. There is more salt in them than rice and I especially love the cheddar cheese flavor. Not that I can taste much of the cheese flavor through the massive amount of salt but my fingers turn orange as I work my way through a bag and this tells me I am getting all the calcium I need for the year. Raisins are another food I get hooked on during every winter. My wife used to buy the little bags in order to satisfy my sweet tooth but that soon became impractical because the garbage pail became engulfed in little yellow packets. She now buys the jumbo-sized cylinder shaped raisin container that promises to last an entire month. For me, that means a day and a half. One of the nice parts about this particular obsession is that it gives me containers to put odd screws and bolts during the summer months. I just hope I never mix up the containers. It is usually mid-February when I reach the height of my obsessions. My teeth and gums are all colors of the rainbow with little black specks of raisin particles so that when I open my mouth it looks like the grille of an old hippie Volkswagen camper van spattered with bugs. My clothes are perpetually spattered with specks of popcorn and rice cakes to the point that I look like I am suffering from an attack of terminal dandruff. And every time I sit on my couch I no longer here the soft squish of escaping air but the crackle of food that did not quite make it into my mouth. Winter brings different things to different people. I become emotionally attached to foods I can't bear to look at when spring arrives. But then again spring brings other food obsessions like ice cream and ball park hot dogs and fried clams and french fries you can eat outside and pretzels and --- man do I love the four seasons. The End
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