So, What's For Dinner?

So, let’s talk about food, shall we?

Even better, let’s talk about the way we all think about food.

We’re bombarded day after day with media ads that provoke us to “Eat This!” And when you’ve finished gorging yourself, you’re encouraged to “Have This, Too!”

The most stomach-turning ad I’ve ever seen is for “Taco Bell” who is encouraging the time between dinner and breakfast is the “time” for something they call a “Fourth Meal”.

No one needs a “Fourth Meal”; all you need to do is look around at your fellow Target or Acme shoppers to understand that a fourth meal should be the last thing on their plate.

No one really needs a doughnut, either, but when there’s an “Apple Cinnamon” one in the box (with all of that good, sweet apple filling?) still sitting there from a morning meeting, I’ll cut it in half, because as we all know, one half a doughnut has no calories. It’s only when you eat the whole one that totes those puppies up.

Right?

But, I digress.

Michael Pollan (the author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “The Eaters’ Manifesto”), has a great idea that all of us should follow:

“If it doesn’t look like food that your grandmother wouldn’t recognize, don’t eat it.”

Or, as my late stepfather used to say, “Good food doesn’t make you fat. Junk makes you fat.”

So, those “Dunkin Donuts” are out, and homemade desserts are in, since I know what goes into them.

It takes exactly twenty minutes to put together a batch of cookies, and perhaps an hour so to bake them off. Yeah, it’s a bit of work, but it’s a lot of fun, too. And, they freeze beautifully!

Now, go and pull out all of your cookbooks. Drag out that crock pot that you haven’t used since the first Bush administration, too.

Go forth, and cook!