Tag: Beer Belly

  • ODDS and ENDS: Gumbo, Cowboys, and Beer

    (I saw my problems, and I’ll see the light…)

    So, it doesn’t feel 100% like Autumn outside, but I’m not letting that stop me from cooking like it’s Fall. This is the season of baking, soups and stews. And I intend to go after my white whale, “Gumbo.” I have tried for a couple of years now to get it down, and even have one stellar recipe from a friend who used to live down in New Orleans. I have made gumbo with okra, with shrimp, crayfish, sausage, chicken, and everything else you can throw in. Yet, it still hasn’t come out the way I am looking for. The issue is me, I am the problem, and the real problem is that my roux never gets dark enough. I have got it down to sandy brown, an awful tan, maybe even khaki – all of them incorrect. No, I have to get my roux down to an intense chocolate color – dark brown. I have thought about this for awhile now, done research, and this is the weekend that I get my gumbo recipe down pat. I try to remember to take pictures.

    The Dallas Cowboys play on Sunday. This is the year. I have said that for twenty years, but this time I mean it. They will go 12-5, yet again. I will find a way to watch every game here in New York City, all the while I will get wall to wall coverage of the shitty Giants and somehow even shittier J-E-T-S. JETS! JETS! JETS!

    And I have bought beer, so I can sit on the couch all day on Sunday and watch football. I normally don’t do this, but something in my, most likely my beer belly, thought that I should do it. I have to agree.

  • Back at the Gym

    Okay, I will say that I have been away from the gym for three months. Somewhere in the middle of June I stopped going to work out. The reasons why I stopped going were a bit complicated: The school year was coming to an end, we had a family vacation coming up that I needed to prep for, and I just didn’t feel like going any more.

    Now, I did go to the gym for at least once a week for five months. As the four of you who read this may know, in all that time, I didn’t lose any weight, nor reap the benefits of working out like better sleep, more focus, positive feelings. I still felt and looked like me, just with more sweat and body order.

    So why go back?

    Because I do know that good things happen when you work out, like living longer and shit. I fell off the bandwagon this summer, but I did take into account that I should eat and drink as much as possible if I stopped going to the gym. I had a “Summer of Ice Cream” if that gives you an idea of how I behaved. But, I do want to spend as much time as possible with my kid and wife, and the easiest way to accomplish that is to work out at least thirty minutes a day for three to four times a week.

    Yeah…

    As you can tell, I was never an “eat your vegetables” kind of guy, but I wanted to make the commitment of going to the gym for a year. I will need to come up with some sort of penance for taking that time off, but I would like to follow through all the way to January 2023, and then see where I am at.

    I know what my problem is. Well, I know what two of my problems are. First, I don’t have a clear goal. I just want to stay alive, but that goal has no bench mark to it other than being able to wake up tomorrow. If I actually said something like, I want to lose twenty pounds, or run a 5k, or fit into my old pants and shirts, then that would mean I would really have to work at it, and not do this kid glove thing. The second problem is that I don’t want to admit that I am getting older. That’s really all this is. I’m middle aged, balding and putting on a classic “Dad Bod” gut. I can only buy so many untucked shirts, and stretchy khaki pants, before I give in to t-shirts and sweats. I never had to worry about this stuff before, and now I have to be concerned about weight, health and shit, which only makes me feel older. (Ahh, the classic self-pity middle aged man. Not just for Updike and Roth novels!) I also know that if I don’t want to feel this way, I should either accept who I am right now, or I should make more of an effort in the gym.

    And I just can’t commit to one or the other.

    So, I’ll keep going to the gym, and hope at some point it will click for me, or metaphorically, I will flip the switch and commit to whatever path.

    I mean, I’m paying for the gym, so I might as well go.

    (And if you would like to commit to something, why not commit to giving my blog a like, or a comment, or even share it with your friends. You know, GAINS!)