Fashionably Large
The title is taken from a song off the album “Slap in the Face” by Henry Ate. I am hoping the song writer, one Karma-Ann Swanepoel (she has such a cool name), was trying to make a point to those skinny chicks who are always going on about how ‘fat’ they are, that they are being utterly ridiculous. If not, Karma-Ann was making fun of people like me and I may just have to push her down a flight of stairs if I ever get the chance.
Anyway, I had good intentions of posting something before Christmas but there was all that cooking and baking to do and so I got a little side tracked you understand.
I did start writing something, it went like this:
(written the day before Christmas 2004)
As I type this, there is a huge piece of smoked pork boiling away on the stove. Our menu for tomorrow includes but is not limited to:
Stuffed, roasted Cornish Hen
Smoked Pork Shoulder
Roast Potatoes
Gravy
Green Salad - because I just know I’m going to encounter someone who will tell me they got by on a few lettuce leaves and a whiff of roasting turkey on Christmas day, so I get to say, honestly, that I had salad, they don’t need to know about all the rest
Christmas Pudding - with your choice of cream, custard or ideal milk
Malva Pudding - a divine little recipe, great for using up those cups of sugar (4), cream (1) and butter (1) you have taking up storage space in your kitchen.
And lastly, enough sweets, chips, chocolates, nuts and dried fruit to keep a kiddies birthday party well catered.
Our guest list for tomorrow, includes and is limited to:
My Geek
Me
The Cat - though she is a strict Hill’s Science Diet follower and will probably decline any tidbits off the table (she does fancy yogurt though, so perhaps she’ll get a lick of that for dessert).
If you’re thinking what I’m thinking then you’re thinking that giving the cat yogurt is just totally spoiling her. Or you might be thinking that two people can’t possibly eat so much. And you’re right, we can’t. But the plan is not to eat up every last morsel within the 24 hours allocated for celebrating Christmas, the plan is to have a tonne of left overs so that I don’t have to cook until well into the New Year. Or at least until Tuesday. Or more likely Monday.
But we all know that at some point, like my first day back at work when I realise I no longer fit into my navy blue work pants, that we’re going to be thinking that dirty little four letter word that has wrecked lives and made your mother cry - diet.
Just for the record I know I’m going to have to do the whole diet thing in the new year, even if I forgo the stuffing of my round face tomorrow. I’m going to this really important wedding in February (my own) and naturally I want to look like a bikini model -just in case, at that last minute, my Geek needs some final nudge to go through with the whole shebang.
(So that was Christmas eve, it’s now two days after Christmas 2004 and the story continues).
Christmas has been and gone. Most of the leftovers are almost gone as well. We never did open the Christmas Pudding - the malva pudding was (and still is) more then enough. Some sliced pork has made its way into the freezer for those days I just don’t have time to cook. The Cornish hen is now resting comfortably on my hips and so now I have to do that other horrible thing - diet.
I’ve tried a few diet plans in my life - who hasn’t? Obviously I’ve not had too much success. As a public service though I’m going to list a few plans I’ve tried that haven’t worked so that you don’t have to waste time and money on trying them yourselves.
Weighless - brilliant concept and when you sign up you not only get a free kitchen scale but a support group as well. Ah yes, the support group. The only thing supportive about the group is getting to have a good look around and realising there are people fatter then you living in the same town. It makes one feel so much better - “see I’m not as fat as Betty and I saw her at Milky Lane stuffing her face with waffles and cream and can’t she just show any restraint - God I am so much better then her”. Great support - unless you are Betty.
Then along came “Eat Right For Your Type” - that the key to my beautiful supermodel self lies in something as simple as my blood type was just like manna from heaven. Except my blood type is Type A and according to the book that meant I have to be a vegetarian. Hey I can do vegetarian and probably save a bundle on groceries as well because meat is just so expensive you know.
Here’s where it falls apart, no meat also meant no tomatoes. Plenty of pasta if you like, but no tomatoes. WTF? How in God’s name do you make a pasta sauce without tomatoes? Bearing in mind that dairy products are also off the list. Nice try hey? You may as well shoot me now.
But I did try, God how I tried. I even tried tofu for God’s sake. Suffice it to say that had I stuck with the plan I would have a really serious soy sauce addiction by now and no twelve step plan to get over it.
Fortunately it was round about that time that God spoke to me on TV. Well, not directly, but through an infomercial.
Absolutely every one will tell you how crap infomercials are yet they make for more compelling viewing then Big Brother. After nearly an hour or four (I totally loose track of time while watching these things) you’re so convinced that you need this thing they are infomercialising about that the only thing stopping you from buying now and getting the zippy velour carrier bag and free toothpick holder is that teeny, tiny little problem you’re having with your credit card provider - they’re not providing you with one.
So anyway, God, through the medium of the infomercial, showed me the way to a super, slimmer more well travelled me. A little yellow pill in a bottle that would allow me to eat the whole malva pudding with custard and cream (no, there can never be too much cream) and nary a drop of fat nor granule of sugar would make it to my hips.
Unfortunately God forgot to tell me, me who has to break panado’s in quarters to swallow, that the little yellow pill is actually the size of a shotgun slug and about as tough as one too. That and the yellow pill works by compacting the sugar and fat into a concrete like substance that is stored in my colon. A mere oversight I’m sure.
I sometimes wonder if I really like black forest tea for the taste or the blessed relief copious amounts of the stuff brought me late one night in my bathroom.
Anyway, moving along.
Granted these are just some of the diets I’ve tried, there have been so many more. Although I have found that giving up women’s magazines has certainly helped, I need something more if I really want look good on my special day.
That “something more” could possibly be anti-depressants. It was suggested to me by someone who now gets by on a spoon of cornflakes and a dollop of yogurt a day. I’m just wondering how I’m going to convince a doctor to give me a prescription for the stuff, because you see, I’m not depressed.
Sorry did I just cause you to fall off your chair? Apologies, but it’s true.
I share my life with a wonderful Geek and a cat who personifies cute. I might not always like my job but I don’t get paid too badly (for Cape Town) and I even got a bonus (which I spent this morning). My car is my car, not the bank’s car, mine. I live in the most beautiful city on the world (not that I share the opinion but it’s what the tourist brochures say and who am I to argue with a tourist brochure). I just don’t have anything to be depressed about.
Unless I start believing certain women’s magazines that is. Then apparently I should be really depressed that I don’t have what it takes (eating disorder) to be a bikini model. But I don’t want to be a bikini model - I’m not sure what I want to be but bikini model is not it. But I do want to look good on my wedding day - what woman doesn’t?
Oh My God. Have I really sunk so low that I’m considering going onto anti-depressants just so that I can loose a few kilos? Because you know, my Geek loves me just as I am and whether I look like a bikini model or not is just not even as issue. Besides which, I’m pretty sure I’ll loose those few kilos as the stress of planning a wedding (we still don’t have a photographer, wedding cake or DJ and W-day is 25 Feb) gets to me and all I can manage to keep down is black tea and dry toast.
And these here were my profound thoughts as I dealt with Christmas 2004. And now looky here, it’s almost Christmas 2005.
If you’re wondering the answers are no, I didn’t go the happy-pill popping diet route nor did the pre-wedding stress do anything to shrink my waistline. No, it’s still only us and the cat for Christmas lunch and I think we actually prefer it that way. No, this year’s Christmas lunch menu is not nearly as extensive, I mean we only have one kind of dessert and it’s not Christmas pudding or malva pudding. No, I don’t have any plans to diet in the new year.
Yes, I still suck at writing a decent ending to a blog post and no, I don’t think that will improve in the new year either.
Merry Christmas* Everyone!
* When I say “Merry Christmas” what I mean to say but can’t be bothered to type is this.