Chicken-Vegetable Soup, Redux

Remember that massacre in a pot I made?

It was supposed to look like this:

Yeeeeeaaah, boyyyyyyyy.

Here it is in a bowl:

Soup that I made. In a bowl.

Here it is in the fridge:

Soup that I made. In the fridge.

I almost took pictures of me and the soup frolicking together in a meadow. That’s how good it is.

Can I tell you something? I poached chicken. I took chicken, and then I poached it.

And I made vegetable soup and put that poached chicken in that vegetable soup, and it is delicious.

I’m cooking. I’m a cooker. I’m a caulker and a cooker.

I’m pretty sure there’s no end to my talents.

Actual Conversation from Tonight’s Dinner Party

(Not at my house, natch.)

Friend: This is delicious, [hostess], and speaking of which (turning to me), let’s talk about your blog.

Other friend: What about it?

Me: I’ve been trying to do some cooking.

Friend: (laughing) Ugh, what WAS that ham and lima bean and mozzarella thing?

Me: (hanging head) I’m TRYING.

Friend: You just need to learn a few basics, like soup and chicken.

Me: I tried to bake some chicken. It didn’t work.

Friend: What did you do?

Me: I coated it in a chicken spice and put it in my toast-r-oven at 400.

(peals of laughter from all parties)

Friend: You can’t cook chicken in a toast-r-oven!

Me: Why not? It’s a toast-r-OVEN. Gah!

Friend: How much chicken did you put in there?

Me: Four breasts.

(more peals)

Me: WHAT?!

Friend: So what happened?

Me: I couldn’t get it up to the right internal temperature, so I had to resort to the regular oven, but then it just turned to rubber.

By the way, that was two weeks ago, and it’s still in my fridge. Why do I believe that my cooking, like fine wine, will improve with age?

Paleo Schmaleo

A lot of people at CrossFit are into eating “paleo”—that is, no processed stuff, low-carb, etc. Indeed, a bunch of them periodically do this 30-day program called Whole30, which is super strict:

  • meat
  • vegetables
  • nuts & seeds
  • a little fruit
  • no dairy
  • no grains
  • no sugar
  • no alcohol
  • no legumes
  • no potatoes or other “nightshades”

Now, I get it. I mean, hunter-gatherers didn’t pluck their daily rations from the Cinnabon tree; they didn’t follow roaming herds of Auntie Anne’s Jumbo Pretzel Dogs. I also understand that humans are the only mammals that drink milk after infancy and the only mammals that drink the milk of another animal (rare exceptions excluded). And I’m clear that refined sugar is bad for you for many, many reasons.

But legumes? Really? I guess I just have a hard time believing that something that grows out of the ground could be that terrible for you.

Before you’re all, “Cocaine grows out of the ground!”, just stop. I’m not eating dehydrated garbanzo beans that are then re-hydrated and smashed into paste. Oh wait. That would be hummus, right? OK, well, they’re not mixed with kerosene and sulfuric acid and acetone and I’m not snorting them and, yes, I looked up cocaine processing. By the way, did you know that the Eloria Noyesi moth larva feeds exclusively on coca plants? You’re thinking what I’m thinking, right? That’s probably one productive fucking larva.

I digress.

One of the CrossFit coaches said that what she had assumed was arthritis her whole life disappeared when she did Whole30, and my joints are redonk, so I’ve been considering trying it.

Of course, it would be difficult for me considering my food issues. On the Whole30 website, they say, “Don’t you dare tell us this is hard. Giving up heroin is hard.” Clearly that statement was written by somebody who’d never experienced an eating disorder. Food is my heroin. So imagine you’re addicted to heroin and you want to quit, but you can’t go cold turkey because you have to shoot up at least three times a day to live. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you “trying to recover from a compulsive eating disorder”.

In addition, I might’ve mentioned that I can’t really cook. That would make the program difficult.

Plus there are some foods, which I consider healthy, that would be traumatic to give up.

Really just one food: peanut butter.

But the Whole30 people effuse, “You don’t need peanut butter! There’s an alternative. A delicious alternative. It’s called Sunbutter. It’s so delicious you’ll never want to go back to peanut butter.”

Lies.

That shit is nasty.

So until I learn to cook and find a real alternative to peanut butter, Whole30 schmole30.

I’m an “Athlete”

CrossFit Durham linked my blog to their website. They listed me under Athlete Blogs….hahahahahahakljakjahahahakljl;ahsh! (cough)

I am so not an athlete. Indeed, today I thought I was going to die during the last round of the WOD. Stupid box jumps. After every three or four jumps (and there were twenty in each round…along with ten wall balls and ten knees-to-elbows knees-to-somewhere-around-my-navel…five rounds! Great googly moogly!), I collapsed onto my knees with my face against the box. I finished in about twice the time everybody else took. Granted, I was having an asthma attack, but I still felt like a weakling.

When my sister and I were training to walk a marathon the first time, she bought us both Nike shirts that just had the swoosh and the word ATHLETE on them. We wore them ironically, of course, but we worried that others would think we sincerely imagined ourselves bad-asses. Wa said she kept meaning to take a Sharpie and put quotation marks around it.

That being said, remember my hissy fit (OK, hissy fitS) about people telling me I’ve lost weight? The hissy fits I had because, when they tell me that, I’ve never actually lost weight? Well, I guess I have because people keep saying it.

I don’t see it on the scale, but then again I don’t weigh myself much. I don’t feel it in my clothes, but with my ghetto ass, it takes a lot to feel a difference. I remember back that one time I did lose weight, people would chirp, “Ten pounds is a pants size!” I lost 25 pounds and barely went from a 16 to a 14. (For you dudes, that’s one pants size.)

Anywhoodle, I am definitely getting harder, better, faster, stronger.

But I’m not an athlete.

Signing off,

Amy the “Athlete”