It happened. The breakdown.
5:30 pm
It was a regular work night. We had planned to make spaghetti squash and meatballs, for which we had bought all of the ingredients over the weekend. Then catastrophe hit– excuse the melodramatics but go with it.
While J was parking the car, I went to the kitchen to gather the ingredients needed. After a long, stressful day at work I had a headache and was already not looking forward to cooking all night. I began reading the recipe and mentally checking off the ingredients as I plucked them from the fridge and pantry, when I realized that some of the ingredients were missing. A few spices and a few vegetables had made it into the bag that we had taken to J’s house, instead of the bag that came to mine. I kept reading the recipe in the hopes that I could improvise, when I came to the realization that were were not only missing ingredients, but some very important appliances! The recipe called for both a slow cooker and a pressure cooker– two things I definitely did not have!
Let’s just say that the hunger and the long day of stress had gotten to me. I was angry and upset that we could have been so silly as to not read the entire recipe and I had no idea in that moment what to do next.
In a panic I called J to try and figure out our next steps.
7:15 pm
J came in looking no better than myself after an equally trying day at the office and nearly two hours of driving the same mundane circuit, around Huntington, Gainsborough and Mass Ave, looking for parking. It was getting late and we were both starving! We tried to brainstorm places we could order from, or other meals that we could cook. (Truth be told, after the day I had all I wanted was a piece of pizza and a beer- neither of which even slightly resembles the paleolithic diet.)
7:30 pm
I hit rock bottom. Since all of our meals had been planned down to the pinch of pepper, we didn’t have any ingredients laying around to create a new meal (I had also given away all of the non-Paleo food in cabinets so I couldn’t have made a cheat meal even if we wanted too). We couldn’t come up with one restaurant that was close by, would have relatively quick service and Paleo friendly food. Pieces of the menus we looked at worked but who wants a burger with out a bun, cheese or fries? At that moment, not me!
That’s when the dramatics kicked in. Now, growing up I had my heart set on being a star, while my acting and singing could use a little work, I perfected the “drama” at a young age. So while I am going to blame this on hunger and cravings.. it was probably more of that little bit of diva kicking in.
I began cursing Paleo. Literally walking around the room flailing my arms. It went a little something like this… “Why the f*** can’t we eat potatoes?” “Maybe if the cavemen tried a little harder they would have found peanuts.” “If corn grows out of the ground then why the f*** can’t I eat it?”
In a matter of minutes J started dying of laughter, and I soon followed suit. Seriously, was I really swearing about food?
After a short fit of giggles, we both regained composure and realized that maybe we needed to ease ourselves into the paleolithic lifestyle, rather than jumping in with no life vest.
At the end of the day we decided to go out to dinner. Ironically enough we both got burgers (with no bun) and french fries. While this is definitely not Paleo, I was impressed that we both made the delicious not to eat any grains! (It had only been a few days since my divorce with bread and I knew if I went back I’d never leave again.)
J and I mad a pact that night. We made a pact to do the best we could, without getting so upset over food, for the next few weeks before moving in together. It is difficult to cook a meal every night when you are split between two apartments. So, in full disclosure, we decided to go completely gluten free, be less strict about rice based food and we are still eating peanuts, potatoes and corn. (With this in mind, don’t hate on a meal that may contain these ingredients) Once we move at the end of the month we will re-evaluate and become a bit stricter.
Until next time,
Kenze Lee