Food Glorious Food!

The 5 Major Food Groups

OK c’mon, yes, there are in point of fact, FIVE groups.  I know you’ve heard this all before but, hang in, serious.

For those of us who diet, and that’d be pretty damn near 100% of the human race (Oh to be a hippo -- no, a real one. who would ever know if they needed to shed a pound or 5?) there are things that can NOT be lived without. Sure, sure, it’s good important and necessary to limit the intake but some foods are just blindingly needed!

1) Cheese -- Cheddar (duh), Feta, Pecorino, Gorgonzola (!!!), Bleu. Lovely, my brain has just gone into Cheese Lock -- you know, where you can practically taste it on your tongue, your taste buds go into super mega orgasm overdrive and all you can do is gasp and sip a nice (redundancy alert) Chianti? Yeah, a lot of you know just where I’m coming from on that.

Sad thing, I can’t have regular cheese on a daily or even weekly basis (soy cheese is a sad, poor substitute). I’m not lactose intolerant but I function significantly better without dairy. So I mostly go without but I cheat. Too much.

2) Fried. Yeah that IS a food group. You can fry up pretty much anything and I’m gonna love it. Have you had the Vegetable Tempura at The Golden Temple in Brookline, MA? Now there’s a dish that’ll make you believe that Fried is one of the 5 NEEDED major food groups. On the other, sort of other, end of the spectrum there’s Deep Fried Twinkies and NO I have not tied them and I doubt I ever will. C’mon, mon frère, wicked atomic hurl!

3) Guacamole. YES that is a category unto it’s own damned self. It deserves to be. Now, y’all know that Jen’s sister is the Test Kitchen Director at Cook’s Illustrated, si? She once had to do a whole thing, for the mag, on guac. Store bought -- who makes the best and all that. I believe Trader Joe’s won the  day BUT, serious and true, Jen makes THE most stellar guac known to mankind. NO, that’s totally, not even close to hyperbole. I don’t know what she does to the stuff (sacrifice virgin, male, long distance runners prior to slicing open the first avocado maybe) but she needs to keep doing it.

4) Seaweed. Oh SHUT up -- someone has to be crazy about that shit!

5) Cupcakes! duh. No explanation whatsoever is needed there -- if it’s not obvious you must be dead.

OK, OK, there are really 6 major food groups but you knew that.

6) Wine. I’m not a wine fop by any stretch of the imagination. I tend to pick out wines by whichever label seems prettiest. Granted, I DO know that I prefer dry reds so I’m not an utter philistine. But it's close.

Um, diet? Me? Yup. I’ll be on the treadmill At 5 AM sharp per usual. Sigh.