Eats and Treats
Saturday night, Muri and I went out for an Erev Mother’s Day dinner at our favorite brewery-restaurant here in Arizona, Gordon Biersch Restaurant and Brewery. It has excellent food for a brewery (Muri likes the Lobster Mac and Cheese) and excellent beer for a restaurant (I like their Marzen, a dark amber beer). I like to try different dishes each time I go but this time I was frustrated by the number of entrees served with
with quinoa kale pilaf as a side dish. I realize both quinoa and kale are trendy superfoods but if I wanted those I’d go to I’d go to Heather’s Organic Vegan Gluten-Free Anti-Oxidant Diner. Fortunately, Gordon was willing to substitute garlic sauteed spinach which I actually want to eat. After all, I grew up hearing Popeye tell me, I’ll fight to the finish if I eat my spinach, before he beat the 
crap out of Bluto, who was too stupid to ever figure out that if he ate his spinach he wouldn’t lose all the time. By the way, after years with spinach salad as a favorite, some food nut felt it necessary to tell me that eating spinach raw is bad for me because contains goitrogens (naturally occurring substances that can interfere with the functioning of the thyroid gland). Maybe that’s why Popeye always ate his spinach from a can. Of course, GreenCravers.com, which stretches its credibility with the motto, Yes, kids love greens, tells me, To avoid the health risks from pesticides buy only organic dark leafy green vegetables. I guess Popeye managed without that bit of wisdom. Maybe he was on a budget. Have you noticed the price of organic vegetables?
So, here it is, Top Sites Tuesday #203 and Thought Number One is: I really get tired of people (and restaurants) telling me what to eat. I’m tired of hearing about superfoods that always seem to be obscure berries or grains that taste like sawdust or greens that even cattle pass by while grazing. Why is it that the stuff I’m supposed to eat always tastes worse than the stuff I want to eat? OK, I admit, I’m a dark chocolate junkie and the latest fad-knowledge says that dark chocolate is full of antioxidants … and that red wine helps control diabetes, so we should eat dark chocolate with red wine … unless, of course, you’re an overweight pre-diabetic, like I am. And morethanorganic.com (MORE THAN ORGANIC !?!) tells me I should drink natural wines to avoid sulfites. Oy vey. I was just figuring out what tannins were. Today a friend was posting gluten free recipes on Facebook and in traffic the other day, I was behind a car with a bumper sticker telling me I should Be a Vegan. And that I shouldn’t Eat My Friends. I’ve never had a steer as a friend.
Seriously, I really don’t care what anyone eats. They can graze in the backyard, for all I care. And I try to eat reasonably. But I like my food to taste good and I don’t want to spend the last years of my life eating kale and quinoa and bungie-berries so that I can forget that spinach and rice and blueberries actually taste better. I have friends that are vegetarians and vegans and gluten-free eaters. I even have a friend that eats according to her blood type. Most of them are skinnier than I am but they don’t seem to be a whole lot healthier. I have a feeling that people are getting rich on books about superfood diets and harvesting strange berries that only grow in the jungles of Guatemala, then selling the juice for $15 a bottle. And that within a few years,
we’ll discover that bungie-berries contribute to Attention Deficit Disorder and that romanesco is even better for us than kale. So, how about this for Thought Number Two: You eat what you like and I’ll eat what I like. Stop telling me how and what to eat. Someday, when we’ve both moved on from this earthly plane, we can sit around together and compare notes. Maybe you’ll get to say, See? You should have eaten my way, but I’m betting not. I’m betting you’ll be wishing you’d had that piece of pie. Which is why I’m going to eat what I want, whether you play by my rules or not. Which I know you won’t. But I won’t be listening.
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Tags: curmudgeonly rants, feeling older, food, humor, nutrition, postaday, restaurants, superfoods
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Older Eyes 
May 14, 2013 at 11:56 am
And I do believe your humor here shone through! I enjoyed this piece very much -perhaps because your logic coincides a whole lot here with mine but maybe even more so because I do believe your theories about this stuff are very true! (And the price of eating organic is unbelievably high -definitely would be out-of-range for poor folks who are reputed to be the ones most in need of correcting their diets and trying to eat healthily! (Not that my eating is all that healthful all the time -it’s not, but I do try to serve a mainly balanced diet in the meals I prepare -just not always lo-cal or absent the carbs from the pasta I dearly love so I eat it anyway!
May 14, 2013 at 2:56 pm
What a coincidence, that your post was in part about Gordon Biersch and so is mine.
I found your post really interesting. Most of the time I try to eat healthy. Over the years, I find that, I like lean protein and veggies as well as anything else. That’s not to say that if I wanted to have a slice of cake once in awhile, I wouldn’t.
I noticed a lot of restaurants now have a salad called the “Superfood Salad”. It was on the GB menu as well. I didn’t order it, I had the Harvest Grilled Chicken Salad. Guess, it’s a good thing I didn’t have the Spinach and Goat Cheese salad. I have never heard that about raw spinach before. Not that that would stop me…as anything and everything is found at some point to be bad for us.
Click
May 14, 2013 at 7:06 pm
HAHA I just read Cheryl’s post and you guys must like the same restaurants!
As far as eating healthy, I try. It doesn’t happen. I grew up in the South where we say “Do you know what the difference between a good cook and a great cook is?” The answer of course is “A pound of butter”
I read about super foods all the time, we’re even growing spinach and kale too, but you can bet that by the time that healthy food gets cooked or turned into a salad it won’t be all that healthy any more.
Enjoy your pie, I think I’ll have a rum and coke for dessert 😉
Clicks!
–Trina
May 14, 2013 at 7:09 pm
Hi Bud,
I’m sure there are healthier ways to eat. What is quinoa anyway – must Google that, I keep hearing about it . For the most part I eat everything put in front of me and I take it easy on the Fast food (when I can)
I’ve tried all kinds of diets changes for my health, the one I like most is the one I’m on now… If it doesn’t hurt my stomach it’s good to eat.
Great Thoughts!
Wolf
May 15, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Oh my word. I’ve never even heard of Lobster Mac and Cheese. Of course now I MUST find it!
“I’m tired of hearing about superfoods that always seem to be obscure berries or grains that taste like sawdust or greens that even cattle pass by while grazing”
OMG! ME TOO! Especially with all of my crazy food allergies. I just wanna smack people sometimes.
“You eat what you like and I’ll eat what I like. Stop telling me how and what to eat. ”
AMEN!
May 20, 2013 at 3:34 am
The unifying theme is delicious flavors: grilled romaine with subtle anchovy vinaigrette, browned gnocchi in foie gras butter with peas and mushrooms, thin-sliced corned beef tongue on rye toast, quail stuffed with cornbread and sausage and highlighted with pilsner gastrique, a sliced ribeye pub steak with bourbon demi-glace, crisped beech mushrooms and creamed spinach. Great food with craft beers and craft cocktails (an impressive lineup of brown liquors for sipping, too) make this a downtown destination, popular before and after shows.