It took 60 years for me to learn to eat like an adult. I'm 62 years old, so I've only started eating responsibly in the last few years.
It's not that I didn't eat well or eat out. My family often eats out. That's what we do. That's my job. However, for most of my adult life, I didn't care about my health and ate like an 18-year-old college freshman. I got away with this lifestyle in my 30s, but in my 40s my metabolism slowed, but my voracious eating habits didn't. When I was in my 40s and 50s, I used to shop at Big & Tall stores, and as soon as I walked in the door, they knew I wasn't tall.
There are still some bad foods that I enjoy.
When I say “bad foods,” I'm not talking about foods that are bad for me health-wise. I'm just talking about bad food. And as it turns out, most of them are bad for me too.
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At my elementary school, the school lunch plan for the day was to line up at the lunchroom door and fill trays with whatever we made in the cafeteria. Those meals were fairly balanced. It's not very good, but it's balanced for the most part. The food pyramid of the time was well represented. In my middle and high school, cafeterias served pizza, cheeseburgers, microwaved steak burgers, fries and chips from vending machines. That was my daily choice for six years.
If my mom had prepared shrimp the night before, I usually brought the leftovers in a thermos and had shrimp with cocktail sauce for lunch. But that was a rare case. I ate microwave pizza almost every day from 6th grade until I graduated from high school.
It was just pizza in the loosest form of the word. It was one of those convenience store items that are cooked to order in the school kitchen in a microwave. In the mid-to-late 1970s, microwave ovens were not yet widely available in households. But even though they are common now, they should never be used to cook pizza.
I've always believed that even bad pizza can be pretty good. I probably developed that philosophy while in school because the pizza at school was terrible. Very bad. I still ate it every day.
It was a personal sized pizza, the entire pizza was about 6 inches in diameter, wrapped in plastic, and when heated in the microwave it created steam inside the plastic. The cooking process resulted in a dough-like dough that was soft, moist, rubbery, and not flaky. There wasn't even a crust. It was like soggy thick pita bread. The tomato sauce was probably still canned. The cheese was cheap and minimal and the pepperoni was a case of indigestion waiting to happen.
Seriously, it was bad. But it was both good and bad. I don't think it was because it had sentimental value, reminding me of lunches with childhood friends. That was bad.
I know a little about pizza. I manage his two Italian restaurants and a third non-Italian restaurant that serves pizza. On top of that, I work in Italy for about 12 weeks a year and often visit places that serve great pizza with high quality, fresh ingredients and thin, flaky crust. Still, if someone offered me a microwave pizza from the school lunchroom, I'd eat it as I type this column. I felt sick for the next two hours, but I still ate.
Sometimes bad food can be good.
And it's not just about owning a business that offers high-quality versions of perfect examples of food. I run a bakery where I make fresh French pastries from scratch every morning. Still, I sometimes eat store-bought orange sweet rolls. And I've been doing it since I was a kid eating crappy pizza at school.
When I was a kid, my neighbor across the street used to bake amazing homemade orange sweet rolls. I would never have chosen her store-bought sweet rolls over hers if they were in her house. However, she only arrived on holidays and special occasions. For the rest of this year, I had a tin on my counter that was a surprise.
During my student years, I lived in a one-room apartment above the garage and had no money. At the time, a small frozen chicken pot pie cost him less than a dollar. they were bad. These are examples of bad food from my past, and today I have no aspirations or fond memories of them. Chicken pot pie can be frozen.
As I approach my 70th year on this earth, I am doing my best to make smarter choices when it comes to food. I ditched fad diets and came up with a meal plan based on a breakfast conversation I had with Julia Child years ago. I asked Mrs. Child. She asked, “How do you eat such fancy French food and stay so healthy?''
“I don't deny myself anything,” she said. “Just take a few nibbles and leave it at that.”
Based on that conversation, I created a meal plan that didn't involve drugs, math, journaling, etc. His son asked what the new plan was, and he answered, “Half.”
He laughed and said, “What?”
“Half,” I said. “I only eat half of what I'm served.” It doesn't matter if I'm at a restaurant or at home. I immediately cut it in half and eat one of them. I like protein, fruits, and vegetables, but I'll have a bite or two of dessert. It may be unconventional, but so far so good.
But if someone puts a bad pizza from my school days in front of me, I might call Audible to my plans and eat the whole thing for old memories. I feel like crap for the next few hours, but sometimes bad can be good.
1 pound spicy breakfast sausage
2 tablespoons green pepper, small dice
1 pound cream cheese (softened)
• Brown the sausage in a large skillet. Drain the oil and add the garlic, onion, and bell pepper.
• Continue cooking for 3-4 minutes.
• Place the sausage in a mixing bowl and add the remaining ingredients while hot. Using an electric mixer, mix until everything is well combined.
• Serve with warm chips, French bread, or your favorite crackers.
