Yesterday, I Needed a Brownie
By Christina Laganopoulos
Yesterday, I needed a brownie. I went into the only grocery store near my house - one of those organic healthy places - and I bought the only brownies they had, made of spelt and soy. What kind of monster does that to a brownie?? It's a brownie. By definition it isn't healthy. If you are going to give up the bad things, give them up. Don't ruin them for the rest of us who are experiencing PMS and need the usual chemical-laden, fat-filled chocolate fix!
A friend of mine tried to persuade me that some extreme green $7 bottle of sludge was delicious as well as healthy. I've tasted it. There is no way you can convince me that loving it doesn't take practice. That the first time someone drank it they didn't make a face and think the pink-coloured sludge would have tasted better. I'd bet dollars to donuts (that's deep fried dough) that most people drink it because they think it gives them a cool, west coast, health-loving aura. I suffer no such delusions, and will stick to nice tasting things, which is what I will be drinking when I finally kill everyone in this organic health food store, just because I don't think it is right that someone should be either rich enough or senseless enough to spend $60 on a chicken, 200 grams of vegan potato salad, a small loaf of rice bread and some bananas.
I went to a friend's house for dinner. She hadn't salted a single thing. Nothing had been cooked with oil or butter. Why bother to roast a giant slab of meat in that case? Why not just serve a hunk of tofu? And it wasn't even as if there was someone living with her who was forced to go on this sort of diet because of serious health conditions or a life of living too much like me. People are afraid of salt, when they should be afraid of over-salting and a regular diet of processed foods. Food cooked at home needs a little salt!
If you are what you eat, my roommate is flushing out her personality. She recently bought a $300 cleansing system of pills and liquids that's supposed to remove the parasites from her body. The apartment is strewn with materials that have magnified photos of tapeworms and other parasites on them. She's bought a giant Rubbermaid container full of whole grains. She often eats platefuls of steamed vegetables for dinner, which I find more annoying than the tapeworms. I eat platefuls of steamed vegetables too, but they usually have a cheese sauce over them. Otherwise, they are called side dishes.
In spite of this rant which is beyond my control given the sad brownie situation, I do believe in eating well and the importance of health and a happy environment. I do buy organic items when I can afford to. I buy free range eggs. I don't eat that much meat. I try to exercise. I recycle. But a life without balance is no life for me. And for balance, I like gravy and a glass of scotch.
A friend once told me (over a cheeseburger and beer) that healthy lives were long and boring, and no genius ever came out of them; all great artists lived a life of excess. So I guess I need to decide, when tempted to steer away from a life of balance, which direction I want to indulge excessively in. Next time I am trying to decide between a green salad and something tasty, or whether I should forgo a night out to go to the gym, I will ask myself...
Did Dorothy Parker have a buy-6-get-one-free stamp card at a salad bar restaurant?
Did Van Gogh own a track suit?
Did Hemmingway say "no thanks, I've had enough to drink"?
I didn't think so.