Operation Fat Bastard - Ouch

OK, the irate Irish lady had a food craving last night. I was feeling charitable, and I had money on me (rare occasion, that). So I ran to the supermarket.

Now, ordinarily, this would amount to hopping in the truck, and rattling off in my jalopie to Harrris Teeter. Well, the weather was nice, and my bike lock broken. Ergo, I needed some excercise, baby.

So, I ran to the store. LITERALLY. Something new everyday, mon ami. Couldn't run back, cause she wanted beer, and that would have been messy.

Got back, and was told that I had forgotten a critical ingredient. Now had to run back. I got the item. Ran back to the house.

All good so far, right? Yep, having fun, runner's high, blah de blah...

I'm a bloody idiot sometimes, and prone to acts of sheer foolishness. So, naturally, the time had come to have an 'incident.'

I decided that I had progressed enough in my training to take the stairs 3 at a time, instead of my usual two. I don't have long legs for someone of my height, but I am, or so I have been told, 'bat shit crazy.' So I took them 3 at a time. And on the last set of 3, I felt something go loose and snap. Like an overstretched rubber band. Yeah, that was nice.

Ouch.

So, now my right knee is bugging the crap outta me. I'm downing ibuprofen like a junkie with a bottle of percocet. Dull, throbbing pain.

Upside : able to run for much longer distances without tiring. Downside : Damnit that hurts!

Deathburger 3000 | Time to lay off the Pork Fat

Saturday, while off shopping for new clothes as part of Operation Fat Bastard, I was struck by temptation. The vile, filthy, really really naughty kind. That's right... the most evil of all food cravings. RED MEAT. LOTS AND LOTS OF RED MEAT.

Well, come to think of it, it really isn't that evil or vile. But I can try, right? I can make ground beef really evil if I try hard enough. What about practically being deep fried in bacon grease?

Yep, that'll do the trick.

So, I got a huge baguette, some peppercorn bacon, some extra sharp cheddar, and a couple of pounds of ground beef, and some good Dijon mustard. Grey Poupon SUCKS.

Fry up 4 strips of bacon. In your cast iron skillet, no less.

Mold meat into patties that will fit in the baguette. Make em thick.

Put meat in skillet.

Bacon is very greasy. In my case, there was enough to come up half way on the sides of the hamburger. BWUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Deep-fried hamburger! It's so f-ing WRONG!

Flip after a while, so we can get the other side nice and crusty.

Put cheddar on top, preferably in uncomfortable chunks.

Toast baguette, sliced into hoagie sized portions. If you don't toast, it will get soggy instantly.

Smear on mayo on the bottom, dijon on top. Place deep fried deathburger inside. Top with bacon.

Eat, if you dare.

This tasted great. But an hour later I felt like I was gonna die. I'm still dealing with the gas. Time to lay off the bacon for a couple of days, me thinks.

But, oh, God, was it good goin down...

Operation Fat Bastard

I promised myself that I would devote this website exclusively to food. However, I am not a man of my word, so, here we go with Fat Bastard updates. Although, to be fair, they do kinda go hand in hand...

Further, I figure that while I am prone to running my mouth, I rarely give testimony. God has changed me, changed my life, and I don't say that often enough. I don't thank Him often enough. I am cantankerous and crotchety by nature, and I really hate it when I don't get what I want. Thus I complain endlessly, even when things are going well. But this is about rebirth, after all. And a man's nature can be changed.

So, brothers and sisters, I have come to TESTIFY! Woo hoo!

I weighed in this morning at 287.5 lbs. For the record, I started this journey at 333lbs, last recorded the last time I went to the doctor, which was around June of 2004. And it all started because of my bicycle.

Now, I have almost always been a big bubba, as they say. Since probably about the 4th grade, I have been overweight. People treat you differently when you're packing extra. And not in a good way. I have never handled that well. It, compounded by other factors that I am not willing to expose to the public eye, had made an impact on every facet of my life. Particularly in how I related to others, and how others related to me. When you are used to being scorned and mistreated, you adapt, and expect that from everyone you meet. It's ugly. And it made me as unattractive on the inside as I was on the outside, too. Even to myself.

Now, I do not know why I started riding my bike to work. I hated the thing, frankly. It was a sore reminder of a failed and painful relationship. I bought it because of her, and only used it because of her. Absent her presence, it was a pointless object. But I kept it, God only knows why.

So, long after I was kicked to the curb, having finally moved back to the fair Commonwealth of Virginia (which is not, despite the advertisement, for lovers). My new apartment was ridiculously close to work, a commute that was so much smaller than the 52 miles that I was used to that I am too embarrassed to say. OPEC's insatiable greed meant that my laziness was costing me money, though -- it was simply too expensive to drive to work. Thus a compulsion manifested that is still unexplainable. I rode my bike. My worthless, hated bike. Not for health, but for money.

Eventually, a month had passed. My eating habits had not changed, but my clothes fit better. I had energy that I had never had before. And I do mean never. I have almost always been one seriously lazy guy, trust me.

Thus, Operation Fat Bastard was born. Being something of a control freak when I am so inclined, and recognizing that such endeavors are doomed to failure when unrealistic goals are set, I divided OFB into three phases. Phase I : to get down below 300lbs by Dec 31, 2004. Phase II : I still haven't figured this one out, sorry. Phase III : Being comfortable in my own body by my birthday.

Phase III also has a requirement for a girlfriend, but I thinks its best if we leave that aspect alone.

The 300 lbs thing came about because it was my understanding that your generic bathroom scale stopped at 300 lbs. I guess Americans aren't quite as fat as the news says they are, ya know? I wanted to reach a point where I could start tracking my progress effectively and cheaply, and I was gonna give myself a good couple of months to get there.

Of course, by Sept I had found a model at Target that went up 330 lbs for cheap. Medical scales went up 500, but they cost an equal amount of money. Dollar per pound I'd guess. Bastards.

I brought the scale home, rushed to my bedroom, and weighed myself. I was expecting to maybe come in on the shy side of 329 or so. I'm new at this remember? I've had zero experience with actively trying such nonsense, ya know. I came in at 322. I was amazed. And so, having achieved such fantastic success while eating whatever the hell I wanted and drinking like a fish, imagine if I dieted? The horror.

Plus, I had a scale. And my latent obsessive compulsive behavior reared its terrifying head. I weighed myself in the morning, and in the evening. I bought a tape measure and began to track my waist and chest size.

I discovered that a pound of fat roughly equals 3,500 calories. I discovered two formulas, the BMR and the RMR, for measuring the amount of calories your body burns just to stay alive. I created a database to track weight and metabolic rate calculations. I'd enter readings every couple of weeks.

I discovered that I was losing 2 lbs a week on average. I increased my exercising. I stopped drinking so much. I took up a granola habit. My hunger decreased, my stomach shrank, I got real thirsty. I felt like I was possessed by a whirlwind. I was positively on fire.

People started treating me differently. I blamed it on weightloss, because that was the only reference I had for how people treated me. I brought this up with a friend, but I was told that my personality had changed too. And, though it pains me to admit it, it had.

Now, eventually, Dec 1 rolled around. I had moved into a new place, with roommates, and simply hadn't the time to obsess about weight. Weather had made regular exercise an obstacle, and living with two Irish-Americans meant lots of booze. So, I was anticipating only a modest loss.

But I hit 298! A month ahead of schedule! I was exhilarated!

With this in mind, I figured I'd settle down for an easy pace for December. Being Christmas time, that meant pie. The weather got worse, and my biking became a once a week at most thing, since I didn't have the proper attire.

I got cranky, and I got sick. Garr, me matie. Garr.

So, Jan 2nd, I weighed myself. 289. I had actually managed to lose weight while eating pie. Ha! Brand new metabolism, baby! HOORAH!

Yesterday, the weather was just delicious (for January). On the bike I was. Eww, it hurt. I was out of shape. Not as bad as back in July, but Lord, the pain. Plus, I was still sick. F-ing cold. But it was good to get back out there. I felt better instantly. Which was good, because New Year's wasn't all that great for me, frankly.

Today I rode into work again, even though it rained, lol. My truck is in the parking garage here, nice and lonely. And I'm on fire again.

If I maintain at least a pound and half a week, less than my present average, I'll hit the average weight zone for my height by my birthday. Plus, it'll only get warmer, so the distances will be greater. When the cold weather hit, I was up to about 15 miles on the weekends. I think I'll shoot for 30 miles by Easter.

All of this because I was compelled to do something I didn't want to do. Which, given my history with God, squares pretty consistently, I'd say. And I'm all the healthier for it, body, mind, and soul.

Needless to say, I do eat the food I write about here. Just not all of it. I stretch it out over days as lunch (which you can do when your daily calorie limit is 2000-2500 and your breakfast is granola). Though there may come a day when I'll have to give up the gumbo, I'll have to admit. I weep for the future, mon ami. I weep. But, for now, I'll just burn.

Unauthentic Gumbo - Recipe Hatred Revisited

I have had two people ask me for my recipe for gumbo, my mother and a friend from church. And, frankly, it is just bit of an effort not to slap them repeatedly when they do so.

I mean, this is me we're talking about here! To hell with recipes!

I made Chicken Picatta for my roommate once. Mind you, she isn't Italian, but she's pickier than a, well... let's just say she's a woman. Point is, I added onions. Why? Because onions should be added to everything, damnit. "That's not Chicken Picatta," says she, "Chicken Picatta doesn't have onions. You should follow the recipe."

Lookit, it has onions if I SAY IT HAS ONIONS FOUL HEATHEN!

Picatta means sharp - its basically any meat pounded flat, breaded, fried, and served with a citrus based sauce. You could throw in habaneros and it would still be picatta.

But back to gumbo.

My father never made gumbo for us. There is no family gumbo recipe that I am aware of. (Why else would my mother ask for mine?) In my younger years, before I attained the coveted rank of Maître grand d'arrogance, I asked my father how to make jambalaya (my personal favorite dish of all time). He refused to tell me. Could be he forgot. Or it could be he shared my hatred of recipes.

So, in that sense at least, this isn't authentic in any way. The Old Man also steadfastly maintained that gumbo was a Creole creation, and was something we shouldn't keep in our repertoire. Of course, he would still buy it in a can, so it could be he was lazy.

Gumbo is the original african word for okra. Don't know what language or dialect, and don't rightly care either way. I was taught that he wasn't gumbo unless it had okra. Lacking okra, it would have to be gumbo file, topped with file powder (ground sassafras leaves). Okra you can generally find in Arlington, but it'll cost you 5$ a pound, and it's never in quantity. Unless you buy canned or frozen, and, well, blech.

File powder is harder to find than a woman that say yes instead of maybe. You'll drive all over town, go from supermarket to supermarket, yuppie/hippie/earthy crunchy stores like Whole Foods, fancy supermarkets like Harris Teeter (lots of ladies at that one though, mon ami. Lots of ladies. Yum), to the 'gourmet' markets (like Balducci's). And you may, should the Almighty be so graceful, may, I say, find file powder.

And, not to get off on a rant here, but why is it the 'ethnic' section of the supermarket is really the hispanic and chinese section? And just how obscure can it be these days to want a can of chilis or a tortilla? I live in a major metropolitan area and I haven't seen -- except at Harris Teeter -- a white person in WEEKS. We Cajuns are few and far between, bubba, and it don't get much more ethnic than that, does it? I want my file and gator meat!

But back to gumbo.

At Balducci's, back when it was still Sutton Place Gourmet, the good Lord was kind enough to allow the store to stock a couple of meager and outrageously expensive containers of file powder. So, I started to work on the concept.

I generally make gumbo once or twice a month, diet and expense account willing. Ingredients vary, based generally on my mood and if I can find real Andouille (hint - not at Harris Teeter). It's pretty simple. The proportions are up to you. Recipes are only really nessecary in baking, because there it's all about biology (yeast) or chemistry (baking powder/soda). With gumbo, which is really just soup (I'm being honest!), it ain't all that complicate, ya hear?

So, here follows my basic recipe for gumbo.

Roux
Trinity
Water/Broth/Stock
Meat
Okra
File

Well, there you go. Enjoy.



Oh, that wasn't good enough?

Ok, here's what I did for New Year's Eve.

I went to Giant and bought one of them roasted chickens, whole. I used the breast meat for sandwhiches (with some nice crusty french bread and mustard). The rest I took off the bones and set aside in the fridge.

I then put the bones and skin into a stock pot full of water. I brought the water to a boil, then dropped it down to a simmer. I added some garlic, don't remember how much, and a tiny amount of dried basil. I left this on the stove for pretty much an entire day. Strain at the end to remove unpleasant reminders of dead animal. Fresh chicken stock.

But back to gumbo.

3 tbls Butter
3 tbls Flour
1 cup onion (chopped)
1 cup celery (chopped)
1 cup bell pepper (chopped)
4 cloves garlic, chopped, minced, smashed, I don't remember
Left over roasted chicken meat
1 Package Kielbasa, sliced
1 tbls cayenne pepper (powdered)
Salt & Pepper to taste

Melt butter. Add Flour. Cook roux on medium to medium high heat, stirring until it's a good dark brown. Mmmmm, yummy.

Add trinity. Lower to medium to medium low. Cook down until till the onions are kinda clear. Or until you're bored, up to you. Its a seasoning base, remember. We want it to sweat and make everything taste beautiful.

Add cayenne and salt and pepper.

You can brown the sausage in a seperate skillet if you don't like high quantities of UNCLEAN PORK FAT in your soup. I do. Throw the sausage in the pot.

If you follow my wonderful example, add more time to this stage to cook the sausage. Mmmmm, yummy.

Add garlic.
Add pulled chicken meat. Stir.

Add chicken stock. Bring to a boil. Roux won't thicken until it hits a boil. It won't thicken much at all if you made a dark roux, but it sure will taste good!

Let it simmer for about 30 minutes to whenever you like so all the flavors can mingle.

But in a bowl with rice. Or pasta if you're a heathen. Sprinkle with file powder.