On My Mind… on Food, France, Fat, & Fashionable Phrases

This morning I stepped on my scale & found myself 2 pounds heavier than I was yesterday. My friend Marcie took me out to my favorite Thai restaurant last night & we ate like maniacs. I know I’ll return to normal in a day or so, but I do get a little neurotic about it. I want to arrive in France skinny so I can really go crazy.

Don’t worry, I’m no anorexic or anything like that. Au contraire. In France I eat bread every day, croissants, baguettes, brioches, pain paysan, pain complét, you name it, smeared with butter, cheese, jam, paté, ham; anything I darn please, because it’s too good to deny myself that pleasure; & for me eating is a great pleasure.

Most people in this country don’t know how to eat; you have to search hard for good food, fresh food, prepared well, while in France it’s in every home. French kids grow up knowing what good food is and that’s why they demand it when they eat out. Our kids grow up eating junk; they suffer from obesity & grow up into unhealthy adults. When they go out they eat & drink garbage.

Okay, I’m generalizing, but it’s true.

Not only don’t we know how to eat in this country we don’t know how to speak either. But what else can be expected of a people who elect an ineloquent, inarticulate, bumbling word-fumbler as their leader? (…who served hamburgers & hotdogs to the Prime minister of France when he came to visit.)

No doubt the French have their little clichés, silly phrases & overused words, but frankly, I’m fed up with my own country where every other word out of people’s mouths these days is “amazing,” and “awesome.” I’m tired of hearing it. I promise if anyone uses those words in front of me I will leave the room. I’m certain the people who say those words in every sentence they utter have never been amazed or awed by anything.

When overused, words lose their meaning. On the food channel, the so-called chefs, most of whom are nothing but culinary entertainers, describe everything they do as “perfect.” What’s wrong with calling something delicious? Or tasty? Or just plain good?

And what about ‘yum?’ I can’t bear to hear ‘yum’ or ‘yummie’ out of the mouth of anyone over the age of 3. And why must everything be caramelized? Is sweet the only flavor we enjoy in this country?

I used to love the Food Channel but now I hate it. The way that whacky fat lady from the south talks makes me sick. It’s painful to listen to her hideous cackle & screech. Both she & Sandra Lee, who looks & acts like a drunken hooker, talk to us as though we were small children. No, small children would be insulted by that kind of condescension. The Food Channel has degenerated to lower than the lowest common denominator.

And why do we need to listen to a female robot telling us we may leave a message at the tone, and that after we’ve left our message we may hang up? Don’t we all know that? Is there anyone who doesn’t? How many times a day do you hear that? Have you learned yet?

And when will NPR finally get rid of Garrison Kieler. Please! How does that man get away with it? Why must we listen to him all week-end long? He’s endless. Just when you think his show is over it’s not. Why does the audience applaud as though he had said something important or meaningful? Who gave him the right to sing?

I think the news announcer on KFI AM radio, Terry Rae Ulmer, should be shot. The woman doesn’t know how to speak & talks like she doesn’t understand a word she’s saying. She sounds like a speeding train wreck. And all the men who talk on that station have such high-pitched, irritating voices if makes dogs howl. And their so-called music, like helicopters colliding, is so hideous there aught to be a law against it. They do it intentionally to make us feel crazy.

I never watch network news. I abhor the chumminess & affectations of the bad actors who chat together on a set, pretending to be real people. What relevance has any of that to anything?

While I’m at it, why are all the cars so big? This is a city; not the country. Do people need to drive trucks & monster SUV’s to the gym & supermarket? I see tiny girls behind the wheels of great big vehicles pulling into spots at the post office. For what? What loads do they carry that they need haul so much tonnage around with them everywhere?

What I love is Shaquille O’Neil’s weekly TV show, Shaq’s Big Challenge, which documents the work he’s doing to fight childhood obesity. Shaq chose six morbidly obese kids in Dade county Florida, and has committed to help them lose weight, get healthy, and change their lives. He is a hero to those kids & to me too.

I choke up when I watch him working with those kids. Nothing condescending or inarticulate about that man. Even when he’s stern with them there is nothing but love in his eyes. The heart does not lie.

Not only does he challenge & motivate the kids on the show, he is actually changing phys-ed requirements in schools, and improving options in cafeterias and vending machines in the whole state of Florida. And this is just the first step in his nationwide quest to conquer childhood obesity. Maybe Shaq should be president.

Whew! I had few things to get off my chest. At least I didn’t yell & scream about my book that still needs to be published…

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