Lettuce, Spinach, and Kale, oh my!

I am 36 years old, and lettuce makes me puke. Still. Always has. Yesterday I refused a sandwich that had lettuce on it, and Mama thought I was being a spoiled brat. She swore lettuce doesn’t even have a taste, that I could take the stuff off the sandwich and eat it. Spoiled, yes. No argument. But I simply can’t eat anything that’s been tainted by lettuce.

Several years ago I was in the Taco Bell drive-through with my BFF. I’d ordered tacos, meat and cheese only. As soon as they handed me the bag, which was rolled closed a bit, I wrinkled my nose and thought, “Did I not say no lettuce?” Seeing my expression, BFF asked what was wrong. “There’s lettuce ….” “You haven’t even opened the bag.” “I smell it.” And sure enough, there was one tiny sliver of lettuce on one of the tacos. I searched for more, but that one piece was all I found. No need to yell at the employees (not that I routinely yell at people, but that was a close call). Since it was such an itty bitty sliver, I removed it and managed to choke down the taco. BFF rolled her eyes. This is my “Princess and the Pea” superpower: the ability to sniff out lettuce.


When I was growing up, Mama tried her hardest to get me to eat things that were not fried in bacon grease. It was a losing battle. Every time she tried to make me eat a salad (always lettuce based), I would instantly heave it up. Not the greatest experience at the dinner table, so Mama gave it up eventually. As an adult, I’ve tried it a few times off and on to see if my taste buds have matured. Nope!


I can’t really explain why it offends me so. It’s a texture thing mostly, I think. It’s sort of like crunchy water. But I like ice, so that isn’t it precisely. I don’t know. If you want to chalk it up to me being weird, I’ll allow it. Just the thought of it *shudders*…. gross!


Anyway, in the way of all adults who need to lose weight, I decided a while back salad would have to be a necessary part of my new “lifestyle change.” My Nutrition Nazi No. 1 friend (I say that with love!) decided to be sneaky and get me to try a spinach-based salad. She made me one with grilled chicken, diet cheese, turkey bacon, diet ranch … ALL the healthy. I wasn’t overly impressed, but at least I didn’t spit it out. Whoohoo! That’s a win, right? I wasn’t crazy about that particular variation, but I did start eating spinach, grapes, and pecans. I tried a raspberry vinaigrette dressing. It didn’t inspire me, so I just eat that combo plain. I really like it. As in actually sometimes want to eat it. On purpose, not just out of fear I’ll die without salad intake as part of my diet.


In my own explorations of online recipes, I came across a tuna salad salad. The tuna salad bit has a little mayo, apples, pecans, and, ya know, tuna. I dump that on spinach. Use Newman’s Own Olive Oil and Vinegar dressing. This I actually crave from time to time. It’s miraculous. Of course, my BFF thinks it’s hilarious I needed a recipe to make tuna salad, but hey. Cooking isn’t really my thing. I don’t even know if I’d ever eaten tuna salad before, because, well, it had the word “salad” in it. I keep the recipe stored electronically in case I ever need a refresher. Really.


I have to admit, though, my favorite salad ever was at Slice Pizza and Brew in Birmingham, Alabama. Their spinach salad has bacon, caramelized onion, mushroom, grated egg, and house warm bacon vinaigrette. I ate around the mushroom (not a fan), but the rest was GREAT! Did I mention the warm bacon vinaigrette? Excuse me for a moment while I relive the glory *mmmmm* … OK, so where was I? Right. Turns out all I needed to enjoy salad was bacon grease. Who knew? My cousin RL, that’s who! And blessings unto you, RL. I thank you!


Most recently, my Nutrition Nazi No. 2 friend held my hand while I bravely learned a new salad recipe. She supervised me cutting up a mango, chopping up kale, massaging kale, making a dressing from scratch, etc. She was concerned at how close I came to chopping off a finger with the sharp pointy thingy … chef’s knife? I don’t know. She was amused at all the Ick! faces I made. But in the end, she was proud I actually made a salad and ate a whole portion with no retching noises. It was hard to classify what I thought of the salad. It was not fantastic, but not bad either. Just strange. Which means I may have to revise my food rating system, which has always been: “spit it out,” “not bad,” or “OMG *close eyes in foodgasm*.” I need a new category for stuff that I’m not sure about but am willing to try to incorporate into my diet. Yay for being open, right? So I guess I’ll call that category “strange.”


Author’s note:
The kale salad recipe can be found at: http://www.food.com/recipe/massaged-kale-salad-aarti-sequeira-436159
The tuna salad salad, I can’t remember the source. But here goes.

5 oz. light tuna (canned in water), drained

2 Tbsp low-cal mayo

1 medium apple, diced

pecans to taste

3 cups fresh spinach

2 Tbsp Newman’s Own Olive Oil and Vinegar Dressing

Combine first four ingredients. Serve on spinach and drizzle with dressing.

Co'-Cola, You Know I'll Always Love You ...

My relationship with Co’-Cola has been long and enduring. Think Object Constancy. People come and go--die, divorce me, pick drugs over me--but Coke is always there for me. But then I got diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. So I had to have the whole “it’s not you; it’s me” conversation with the true love of my life. It sucked.

 

When I got diagnosed, I was locked in a hospital for 7 days and completely deprived of my sugary drug of choice--which made the separation easier, I suppose. When I gained my freedom, I’d gotten over the caffeine withdrawal headache, which was monstrous, I assure you. I was terrified if I indulged again I would either die, go into a permanent coma, ruin my liver, lose my vision, have a stroke, have a heart attack, have my limbs amputated … you get the idea. Nothing less would have made me give up Coke.

 

I’ve tried and failed so many times. In fact, I once shared a list of life goals with my cousin-friend Randi Leigh, and she laughed pretty hard that I had marked “given up” by that goal but still had Meet the Dalai Lama included. “You really think that’s more likely to happen than you giving up a soft drink?” Ahem. I DID, in fact, get to see the Dalai Lama give a talk in New Orleans shortly after that conversation, so THERE. While I didn’t technically meet him, I do consider that goal pretty much accomplished.

 

Anyway, the diagnosis was early February. No Coke for at least a month. Then I let myself try 4 ounces, just to see what would happen. My sugar spiked pretty quick like, and I immediately felt like crap. No way to sugarcoat it (ick, bad word choice). I could not drink Coke anymore. Ever.

 

So, I was militant in not even taking a sip.

 

Until I lost my job this week. On Monday, I got fired for, haha, being diabetic. Not that simple, but that’s sort of the story. I believe it was justified, blah, blah, but that doesn’t make it suck any less.

 

Since I seemed to have misplaced my healthy coping skills--or not misplaced, but doubted their potency (a bubble bath or watching the waves for an hour was NOT going to fix this)-- I bought myself a cold 20-ounce Coke. I waited til I got home to drink it, lest I spike my sugar, pass out and wreck. I even made sure Mama was on the couch with me in case she needed to rush me to the hospital. See, responsible like.

 

And it was good. Oh, was it good. But. It wasn’t THE SAME. It was too sweet. The corn syrup didn’t bite the back sides of my tongue like it was supposed to. Usually that first sip is so divine, I close my eyes in ecstasy and all is instantly right with the universe. Ommmmm.

 

Like an awkward former couple where too much damage has been done, too much time has passed, the relationship has been irrevocably damaged. I felt a couple of tears well up before I finished the bottle, but blinked them away. (No, I’m not kidding). I wasn’t crying because I lost my job; I was crying because I’d lost my Co’-Cola.

 

I know y’all think I’m being ridiculous. But let me try to explain a bit more.

 

When I was growing up, sweet tea was constant but in a different way. It was always on hand. I was either drinking it or watching Mama make it, or later making it myself. We were never out of tea bags or sugar. I mean, this was red-dirt-road Alabama. And we took our tea seriously. I mean, I only call it sweet tea because some non-Southerners might be reading this, and I don’t want y’all confused. If you ordered sweet tea in those parts, you’d out yourself as “ain’t from ‘round here” quicker than your accent ever would. So tea. It was delicious, but I took it for granted.

 

Coke, on the other hand, was a treat. When Daddy loaded us all up in the truck to visit his parents, or take us to the beach maybe, sometimes we’d stop at Stinson’s and get a cold 8-oz. glass treasure from the machine out front. If we were extra lucky, we’d go inside and I’d get a little pack of Sixlets. But the Coke was what I pined for, what I delighted in. We passed that store every time we went to school, every time we went to town. So I’d look forward to just seeing the dang Coke machine. But actually stopping wasn’t super common. Still, it was THERE.

 

When I was an adult, I could buy Coke anytime I wanted, more or less. I became a habitual user, but I never lost the high.

Hope and Coke on a date at the zoo in Trinidad, fall 2013.

 

Then came a trip to Trinidad and Tobago. I’d known in theory that different countries had different formulas of Coke. But I was unprepared for the weirdness of Coke with no corn syrup. I drank it constantly nonetheless, and I’m sure the people who were dealing for me would be shocked to hear me say I didn’t like it as good as my home version given the mass quantities I drank while I was interning that semester.

 

But the first thing I did when I got home was demand a meal of Coke and boiled peanuts. Do not judge. Bama girl, remember? It was glorious.

 

Sure, it was fantastic to, you know, see friends and family, have access to hot water, be able to understand everybody’s accent, see pine trees, be HOME. But, oh, the COKE. Sigh. What a reunion.

 

Anyway, back to this week. I thought that maybe because my Monday Coke was in a plastic bottle, that was the problem. So I snuck into Walmart like a criminal Tuesday and bought a 6-pack of the good stuff. The 8-oz. glass bottles. Put ‘em in the fridge. Waited hours to make sure they were well and truly chilled. And I popped one open, thrilling at the little fizzy noise. I took a tentative sip. And motherf--------! Still too sweet! Are you friggin’ kidding me??????? I had the second one Wednesday. A third yesterday. Same deal. I guess it really is over.

 

I have three left. I am going to give them away. There’s no point in drinking them. I don’t get the same emotional payoff. And it’s too dangerous anyway, what with the aforementioned threat of death, coma, amputations, etc.

 

I know I should be glad, as this development will make it easier to stick to my new healthy eating lifestyle. (expletives deleted). This is a GOOD thing. This IS a good thing. THIS is a good thing.

 

Maybe if I say it enough, find the right inflections, I’ll move on and get to a place of acceptance. Maybe.

Author’s note: Don’t tell me to try Coke Life with stevia. I did. It sucks. Same with Diet Coke. That stuff should be removed from the market, it’s so awful. It’s over for Coke and me, and that’s all she wrote.