diet – Stories That Are All True

Which food, when you eat it, instantly transports you to childhood?

Diet Coke.

Diet Coke is my least favorite diet on the market, but I’ll still drink it like water if it’s available because it was my mother’s favorite. She flirted with Dr Pepper, but Diet Coke was her one true love. One year, Lindsay got us Diet Coke sweatshirts and we wore them to the cemetery to sit with mom and take a picture. It sounds weird, but the things you do when your parents die are all unique to you. You’ll have your own weird things.

For instance, maybe your mom baked.

My mother made my birthday cakes every year and she made a point to go all out on the decorations. From the pictures, I remember Holly Hobby when I was either one or two. Others included Mickey Mouse, Peter Pan, and a Milky Way cake that she somehow messed up that made it even more delicious than it would have been otherwise and because it was a mistake, I couldn’t recreate it if I tried. Guess you had to be there.

I wouldn’t say that my mother was a cook, because she didn’t enjoy it the way I do. She didn’t take pleasure in looking at recipes or finding new ways to use flavor. I think if there’s anything I miss about our future, it’s all the things I would have liked to do rather than the things that already happened. She was only 65 years old when she died. She had retired the last May, and died October 2nd. So, she basically died before the shock of not having to go to work every day even wore off.

So, anything I would have been able to teach her after she retired regarding what I’d learned in my makeshift culinary school (my ex-wife and all the other chefs who “raised me”) became a one way communication after that date. I still tell her all that stuff, she’s just challenged to reply. I talk to her when I’m cooking the most, because that’s our traditional time to talk.

I’d be doing my homework at the bar that looked into the kitchen while she was prepping the food. So, now I am both prepping the food and doing my homework (writing) in my head. It’s not the system for teaching my mother to cook that I would have preferred, but it works. She’s getting better every day. Turnabout is fair play. She has always and continues to remember to teach me to use English when I forget. It’s efficient. Just because she can’t talk back doesn’t mean she’s not here. She very much talks back. It’s just responses I’ve made up in my head based on my 40-ish years around her. I cannot remember how old I was, really.

I don’t remember anything about that year. From October to October was a complete blur. I leaned on Supergrover a lot back then, because I didn’t want to be seen in public in pain. So, I wrote about my pain instead. I internalized all of it, and yet I didn’t keep it inside my own echo chamber, either. I just grieved very, very quietly. Grief for my mother had to come in stages, because it took seeing her in her casket for me to believe that she was really dead.

I had just talked to her for two and a half hours two days ago, so it just didn’t seem possible logically (it absolutely was possible very logically, I was just a grieving child.). We also didn’t really have an on the ground relationship. We visited each other a few times a year except for the few times I lived in Houston as an adult, which was not a lot in comparison to how old I am now. I wouldn’t even take back my most current move to have more time with her if I could, because more time with her wasn’t necessarily better. We found our groove by not living in the same city. She liked talking on the phone and hearing about my life. I am not sure she liked coming to my house. I think my partners made her uncomfortable, and I am being very kind to both parties. It wasn’t dislike on either my parters’ or my mother’s part. It was fear of doing anything wrong, so let’s just not say anything at all.

To me, this is genuine, true homophobia. The fear of doing something wrong in front of a queer person, so you don’t do anything. You isolate them by not willing to just be scared and show up. Or ask questions so that your next interaction isn’t as awkward. Homophobia is not loud. That’s just people being angry bigots in the streets over nothing, and the people it “affects” the most are people who don’t know any queer people and have only been taught the party line. To be homophobic is to know you have fears and discomfort. To be homophobic without being a bigot means being willing to tell someone you’re uncomfortable and hopefully learn more until you’re not.

I don’t know how my mother would have felt about poly, but it doesn’t weigh on me because I didn’t live up to her fairy tale for me in the first place, and that VHS tape had been running in her brain since 1972, when she first started thinking about having a child and wanting a daughter. By the time I was born in 1977, I had a Beautiful Memory Picture I was tearing down before it even got built. It fucked up her program when I came out as gay, and I can’t apologize, but I can empathize.

This happens less and less frequently now, but I came out in 1990, and that’s just communication from me. It’s not like other people didn’t have eyes.

I don’t have hatred for homophobia. It took me quite a few years to accept the fact that I was gay, and I still have moments of internalized homophobia because that’s the world we live in and continue to make small progresses towards changing. I do have hatred for bigotry. Come at me with anger and I’ll tune you out.

Show me that you’re scared, and I’ll respond.

I will listen while I pour you a Diet Coke.

What are your feelings about eating meat?

I used to be vegan, and probably would be full time if I was interested in spending all my money at Whole Foods (but God, is it fun….. I’ve found so much that I love). Now, I’m mostly vegetarian because I don’t like cooking meat, but I’ll have it if it is prepared for me. For instance, once in a blue moon I’ll get a whole roasted chicken from Safeway. I can’t eat a whole chicken, but many times I have tried. 😉 In true autistic fashion, I have my favorites and I order them every single week. This is because I truly love adventurous food, when that is my focus. I have to cut out all my sensory issues to be able to focus, so food is one of them. White bread. Pizza with extra cheese and mild sauce. Eggs. Butter. Cheddar. The most challenging thing I bought was a jar of pesto for a frozen pizza and later spaghetti this week. Sometimes I make pesto Alfredo with pumpkin seeds as protein. If I am writing while I work, it’s ham, turkey, or egg on toast with cheese, or plain pancakes with one note syrup. However, I don’t like the same sandwich forever. I don’t choose one food and eat it every day. I choose a diet for the week and buy the same thing every time. It is so comforting when every bite is the same, and also something rich in its simplicity. I can do a lot with an egg and some cheddar. I prefer the texture of cheese when it’s cold, so I learned early on how to make the perfect scrambled egg and just lay it on top of the cheese and toast.

I am also very, very fond of the classic French-style sandwich. It’s really good white bread toast (I use Wonder, there is no substitute in this country), lots of butter, Swiss, mustard, and black pepper. I’ve been eating that almost every day for lunch this year. Very occasionally, I buy spring mix to wilt into eggs, rice, and lentils…. sometimes Brussels sprouts either fresh or roasted. But again, not often, because I tend to repeat things. I don’t have to eat fancy food all the time- that’s what makes it a treat.

I had a craving for fried chicken the other day, and that’s because Uber Eats was having a sale. I got 10 pieces of chicken (first of all, I really had no idea how much food that actually was), two sides of collard greens, and a Mac and cheese. When I got the chicken, I immediately deboned it and put it away for sandwiches, because by the time I’d put everything away, I’d snacked on enough. Really good local place, cheaper and better than KFC and of course now I don’t remember the name of it. I hope I recognize it again, but there’s nothing like trying a local restaurant that hast stuff on sale. It’s how I found out you can order prepared crawfish, which is also on the list of acceptable foods. AuDHD requires stability and flexibility, which in me is an iron structure for when I experience new things and when I don’t. Sometimes I have the bandwidth, sometimes I’m a picky eater. It depends.

Today it was chicken, cheddar, and honey mustard- total Boston Market throwback. Probably Sunkist limon later, a drink that tastes like the best Mexican street lemonade in the world and is sugar free. I could mix it with tea if I could be arsed to cold brew. I know I’ve already forgotten milk this week (or haven’t checked to see if I need more, but it’s almost time). The only problem is that you can’t get the bags back out of soda bottles easily, so it becomes a two use sort of deal. But I get plenty of soda when I’m out, and 20oz Coke Zero bottles work well for cold brew. I would use one tea bag if I was going to drink it straight, two or three if I was going to add milk (shaking it with Splenda and almond milk is delicious).

I’ve also started buying a package of cookies every week because they’re good as an accessory to ice cream if someone comes over and I need something nice, or just on their own. I like the white bread biscuits with the chocolate square on top. Yes, it’s a cookie, but it tastes British so I’ll give it to them.

I also generally get bananas, because I get some sandwich meat and eggs, but that’s not enough protein for every meal. It might not seem related, but vegans live on peanut butter and, often, banana sandwiches. It’s as packed with nutrition as rice and beans. (Rice, beans, and eggs are everything you need to start your day.) I know I have these things in the pantry somewhere, but I need to look for them. Frozen pizza is life because I can’t make cheese toast that good.

In short, I believe that eating meat is fine as long as you do it in moderation. Eat food. Not a lot. Mostly plants. Michael Pollan set me on the right track, because I eat whatever I want. Most of the time, it’s something ambitious with vegetables because there are just so many recipes I haven’t tried……. or made my own.

I have “fixed” many major sauces and soups. Campbell’s is the gold standard, don’t touch it. If I had to pick a favorite, cream of lettuce or mushroom made with whole milk and extra fresh lettuce or grilled/sautéed mushrooms. When you eat Campbell’s, you’re generally invoking someone’s childhood and it’s hard to mess with that. With all soup bases it’s easier not to reinvent the wheel unless you just like boiling chicken carcasses. Yes, I agree with David Chang that all pre-made stock is garbage, but I’m not standing over the stove to make fresh, either. He can. I’ll just add some of his momofuku pepper sauce to my boxed setup and he can tell me if it’s not okay. I don’t need it to be perfect, I just need it to be the base when building a chord.

It’s beautiful whether I’m eating meat or not, because I actually like mushroom stocks and gravies better than chicken. To me, it actually tastes better….. particularly on poutine.

Let’s end on poutine. I’d like to think about mushroom gravy and cheese a while longer. Maybe get some collard greens with bacon to go on top.

It’s a good image, because yesterday was a day and I’m still recovering. Sometimes I think so hard I have to stop. I have reached the end of my battery, but it will recharge eventually. I always set out with the best of intentions to post, and for the last several months I’ve missed one day. Some of it is the feeling of wanting to get plunked out of obscurity knowing that blogging is not X Factor material, Most of it is that in order to be ready for what’s coming, I need to be in shape.

I get that through how I feel about eating meat- nonplussed, except on the days when I’m obsessed with it because I’ve made the commitment to truly cut down. It’s been a dramatic change, but worth it. Superfood is really a thing. You’ll like greens better with vinegar. On the poutine. That’s you’re going to eat because I suggested it.