Dearth of Snacks

Regular readers will recall that I spent the time between Christmas and April this year eating a diet of brown rice and bits of cardboard, due to a worsening relationship with my gallbladder.

Well, now my gallbladder is gone, and it’s just me and the limitless universe of food left to our own devices.

While I was in the heart of the cardboard food journey, I came to the understanding with myself that it would probably be a good idea to eat with an eye to health once all was settled. At the same time, I resolved I wouldn’t become a prisoner to this notion.

I did decide, however, that if I was going to eat foods not generally considered “healthy,” I was at least going to abandon the pointless harm of unhealthy food that offered no other worldly pleasures.

For example, over the past decade I’ve probably eaten hundreds of pounds of poorly prepared, bland-tasting, generally unappetizing french fries. There have been one or two cases where I’ve had truly great french fries that have enlivened me; the rest were simply deep-fried glop that I ate mostly because they were included with other bits of glop on the menu.

Same situation with chocolate: once you’ve tasted what chocolate can be, the Kit Kats, Mars bars and the rest taste like waxy gunk, and offer little or no satisfaction more than 30 seconds after eating (if even that).

My problem now is that I live in a region where eating out, at least in a snacky spur of the moment kind of way, usually means that glop and gunk are about all that’s on the menu.

I like to snack. If I had my way, I’d give up three square meals a day, and become a permanent Pintxosologist.

Is it wrong to seek out new places to live because of the snacks on offer?

Comments

Alan's picture
Alan on May 26, 2003 - 14:00 Permalink

Is it wrong to seek out new places to live because of the snacks on offer?” What criteria do we use for where we live? Having moved this spring, this has been much on my mind.

I moved for a job which has turned out to be a good decision — it might not have. I could conceive of moving to care for a family member. Refugees move for justice. I was warned not to move to the UK by my mother in the 1980’s as I am a UK citizen as well as Canadian and she feared Maggie T. would start move Falklands having gotten a good taste in her mouth on the first.

But snacking. Why not. How much of life is spent actually ruminating on the next bite? Much.

Ann's picture
Ann on May 26, 2003 - 14:18 Permalink

Here are some snacking suggestions:
1. The pistachios from the Brighton Clover farm
2. Veggie chips, which are available in the health food section of the Superstore -also two bite brownies, also at the Superstore
3. Yogen Fruz from Sam’s at St. Peter’s Road
4. Sweet potato fries at the Pilot House
5. Any one of a number of appetizers from the Taj Mahal, which are available to go
6. An order of mussels from the Water Prince Shop

None of these are particularly lo-cal or healthy — but they fullfill the requirement of calories well spent. You get special caloric dispensation if you walk to get any of them.

Ann's picture
Ann on May 27, 2003 - 12:29 Permalink

Let me add a to the snack list…
Michelle’s cake at Timothy’s. They don’t always have it, but it’s really, really good.

Calamari with garlic sauce at Shaddy’s.

Also, if you want to snack with friends, go to Shaddy’s and order the appetizer combo. Add an order of calamari and some wine and you have something that is almost tapas like.

The incredibly rich nanaimo bar like things at Beanz, which have a peanut butter filling and are kind of like Reeses time ten.

Peter Rukavina's picture
Peter Rukavina on May 27, 2003 - 15:05 Permalink

Ann, you speak, of course, of both the Cappucino Nanaimo Bar and the Peanut Butter Bar, both of which have been responsible for more sugar highs than I would care to consider.

I used to say, and still, I must admit, feel to some degree, that dessert is not worth having unless it is chocolate based. But then I had a cold plum soup in NYC last year, and the tides changes in a substantial way. Cold plum soup won’t do it for me all the time, but I find myself craving a much wider variety of the sweet world all the same.

Alan's picture
Alan on May 27, 2003 - 15:09 Permalink

Have you encountered Liberty Walnut and Plum yogurt?