People wonder what the hell I’m doing over here on occasion (my husband usually wonders what the hell I’m doing. ever. It’s the female mystery, guys. Embrace the madness).
Am I food porn peddler, a burly chick standing on the street corner, thrusting open my ankle length cloak whispering, “Hey you. Yeah. You. Want to buy a cauliflower?” Am I just some person who gets my kicks from writing about, oh I don’t know, stuff of no consequence, (Consequence is greatly overrated, you know) or do I have some grand purpose in this whole shebang, the whole schmear of the Universe?
I sometimes consider (because I really don’t want to do my taxes) about motivation and what spurns me to action (it’s not paying my taxes), and what follows is certainly a part of its thrall, while not being the entirety (because we women are complex creatures who bloat monthly and pay our taxes) of my excitement.
In short, this whole life, this worthwhile venture and investment in cooking, nourishment and in sharing this lifestyle is something I want. And what’s more, this is why I do what I do, at least in some small regard:
So why food? Why this? Why?
Well it’s simple, to be honest.
I want anyone–everyone who looks at your plate of food–at my plate of food– to look at me and at you with a look of disbelief and say, “You’re a low carb dieter? Really?” followed by, “And that’s healthy?” and “You lose weight eating that? You can have that?”
And I want you to smile and say YES!
But more than that, I want kids and spouses to embrace our lifestyles because they see we’re not doomed to sob over frou frou cuts of lettuce, garbanzo beans and pork chops for perpetuity.
And I want them to be so excited about your food they want to plan and prepare those meals with you.
I want them to see me enjoy this pizza. You enjoy the lasagna. The cheesecake. The doughnut. The taco bowl. A life without gluten and a life full of flavor, color and fun.
And I want them to beg you to make the dish for them again.
I want people who have never before considered a lower processed carbohydrate lifestyle to doubt. I want people to doubt that low carb eating is eggs and bacon, sad slabs of beef and green, wilting salads. I want people to doubt that every calorie counted is for the greater good so long as the bulk comes from processed grains and sugars. I want people to doubt everything they thought they knew about eating and nutrition based on what we’ve been told to believe.
And I want them to taste a slice of sugar free, gluten free cheesecake and wonder why they’d ever had anything else.
I want people to want to taste our food and experience the joy we savor every meal of every day.
And I want them to feel how full and rich this lifestyle is.
I want vegetable haters around the country and the world to lavish over a meal prepared with a cauliflower or zucchini dough and say, “Wow! I never knew you could do this.”
And when you invite them for dinner, I want them to say to you, “Can I have the recipe?”
I want the father of the gluten intolerant little girl in Kansas to have hope that lasagna doesn’t have to come from a box of seminola noodles or be forever off limits.
And for him to know he has the keys to her favorite dish in his own back yard, farmer’s market or produce aisle.
I want for you to be healthy, but more than that, I want you to be excited about your food and thrilled to put the fork into your mouth and to proudly taste the flavors on your plates– Because if you’re not looking forward to every single meal, something is wrong.
And I want you to see that a lifestyle isn’t austere and full of wanting and wishing; it’s full of life and vibrancy. The kind you want to embrace every moment of every day for the rest of your life.
It’s not those brief intervals of time you spend wishing you were somewhere else with someone else eating something else. It’s taking control of those moments you embrace and changing them from brief intervals to a life of happiness and longevity.
And by golly, if I we annoy the hell out of each other in the process, let’s see that it happens for years to come. For decades. For a long, happy, delicious life. Because we all deserve that.
What do I want?
I want everything. I want it all, baby. I want to have my cheesecake and eat it too. I want to share my excitement about this lifestyle with everyone who will listen, those moments on moments of sheer joy and pleasure.
Whether or not you pick up a even a piece of inspiration for your next family dinner, or a lifetime of cooking pleasure to come, I want to be a part of it, no matter how small it is. I want to be a part of your family, because you’re certainly a part of mine.
And I want you to want that, too.
So if you ever doubt what we’re doing here, whether it’s enough to want to change minds and conceptions and palates, embracing the full complexities of a dish and of life, all while nourish a world starving for nutrition and hope for more from our food supply, it’s worth the ‘why’. Sure, maybe we’re preaching to the choir a little bit from time to time, but maybe that choir is growing, too, for your efforts, for my efforts, and together those voices are beautiful.
I want that ever expanding music to spread. And I want you to want that, too.
And at the end of the day, it’s ok to have a message that doesn’t need to be shouted by an activist or presented in scientific principles to an audience who can calculate pi to the thousandth place. An entire philosophy can truly be tasted in a plate of food prepared with love. And sometimes it whispers with even greater success when it’s served with a side of bacon. Or a piece of cauliflower.
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