oh man! i just wrote this powerfully eloquent entry and accidentally erased it. drat!

anyways, here we go again: a few nights ago i came home late and hungry and tired and threw together broccoli, mushrooms and leftover pasta in what came out to be a simple and delicious latenight meal. so last night i did the same thing, but with tomatoes instead of broccoli. a little butter, some olive oil, salt, pepper, basil, garlic and a handful or so of parmesan cheese. my dinner resembled one of those stoufers frozen stirfry bags, but i guess since those are supposed to resemble real stir fry with fresh veggies, i did good.

but what i had been saying before i ever so rudely erased my own post, was that my wonderful dinner was eclipsed by the messed up lunch time discussion i had yesterday. my organization gathered us together to tell us all about the exciting new building plans over lunch which in itself was hideous. you remember that kid who always got beat up in third grade? well, he's become the president of the organization [and god help me if anyone related to my workplace reads this]. right, so before the actual presentation, we were provided with a tasty [kosher] taco lunch, complete with tofu onion vegetarian alternative to the ground beef. i sat at a table with five of my female coworkers and, with that, i pose the question:

Why, i ask, are women incapable of sitting down to a meal together without talking about body weight, fat, dieting and caloric intake?! while dining on our soft shelled and most likely very low calorie tacos (veggie "ground beef," no cheese, etc.), women at my table sighed about how hard it is to stay on a diet, decided to go off the diet "for the day," admired others' ability to exercise self-control and only eat fruit salad, etc. agh! what is wrong with people?!? its as if you can only eat if you simultaneously lament the fact that, well, you are eating.

ah, and thus, in our "post-feminist" age, we have so many so many horrible concepts about health and body beautiful. at what point did these women decide that a strict diet of raw fruits and veggies was the admirable, healthiest way to go? i work with one woman who, when i brought in a bag of jelly bellies for the office, checked the calorie count. the heartiest meal i've seen her eat is a microwaved sweet potato sans toppings. another woman i work with eats the same meal for lunch and the same dinner every day: for lunch, microwaved fruit with a scoop of yogurt; for dinner, microwaved veggies with chickpeas. no wonder she's teeny, pasty, pale, tired and has thin hair! its so sad that people think that this is a good way to eat.

i am grateful to my parents for being total gourmets and gourmands. i'm so glad that by the time i was six, they were dragging me to sushi restaurants, taking me to neat restaurants in foreign countries and exposing me to a world beyond macaroni&cheese. as a result, while i certainly have body image backage, something impossible to avoid as an american female, i like to think that i have a very healthy attitude towards food in that i'm mildly obsessed with it. so thank you mom and dad!