Meat Heads

I read a lot of paleo blogs, and I find them all really interesting. However, I've noticed two things 1) most people approach paleo from the fitness and athletics perspective and 2) most paleo bloggers are married, live in the burbs, and often have kids. I don't know a lot of poor artists, metalheads, or long-haired hippies doing paleo, or at least none that are blogging about it. More importantly, I don't know a lot of chefs who are openly paleo.

I came to paleo after a few years of researching nutrition in order to avoid becoming diabetic like my father, but I've never been much of a health nut. I have never been a gym rat, I'm not by any stretch of the imagination an athlete, and my preferred exercise is long walks, lifting amps, and bike rides. I also pride myself on being a really great cook. I respect culinary traditions and the identity and values bound up within a culture's cuisine. My reverence for food is what drives my passion for paleo as much as my belief that it is the healthiest nutritional paradigm.

I will never ever ever be a raw foodist or do the 80/10/10 thing except maybe at some point as an experiment on myself because I love cooking. I think there is a lot to be learned from culinary traditions, and I find cooking to be therapeutic and meditative. I also believe that cooking developed for a good reason, that our ancestors weren't idiots, and that some foods need to be cooked to make their nutrients fully absorbable. Cooking is also like alchemy, it creates such wonderful fragrances and tastes, and I can't possibly give that up.

Aside from the paleo reasons for doing so, I largely eschew grains and legumes because I view them as filler, as nutritionally worthless dry goods that people use to pad out a meal when they're too cheap to eat or serve real food. I avoid sugar, not simply because of the diabetes thing, but also because I think it's a way for a cook to cheat, to disguise certain flavors, to get sweetness without proper caramelization, and to make a food more palatable without putting in the work to bring out the real flavors of the ingredients. I respect a cook who can take ingredients and make them delicious without adding too much to them. A good cook is patient, attentive, and trusts her ingredients. I often don't use any seasonings other than salt and pepper, maybe some lemon juice.

I think this culinary perspective is missing from the paleo movement. I saw Eric Ripert on some show the other night where he made market vegetables over a bed of cauliflower "couscous" - he had made faux couscous out of a head of cauliflower. I did this the other night, and it was incredible, almost like the real thing, except for the (duh) cauliflower flavor. His recipe was almost completely paleo (minus some canola oil which you can easily substitute with olive), fresh, simple, and vegan to boot! I'm not saying I'm going vegan, but it's odd that a celebrity chef accidentally (or not?) has created a mostly paleo dish, and the fact that it excited me, an enthusiastic carnivore, means a lot. It means that no matter your preferences and restrictions - vegan, raw, low-carb, etc - you can and should eat really exciting, fresh, well-made food that also happens to be paleo.

It also means that you don't have to be a power-lifter, a cross-fitter, and endurance athlete, or even go to the gym to enjoy and benefit from paleo. We aren't all meat heads.

Circle the Wagon

[This picture is an embarrassing reminder of what I'm like at a party]

On Independence Day, I went to the End of the World, the little grassy patch by the canal that separates the Bywater from the 9th Ward. I watched fireworks with a bunch of nice people and some new friends. Overall, it was a pleasant evening. The whole time, however, I was slowly sipping at my usual half-pint of Evan Williams, which I was mixing with water. I was also having some of the champagne that people were offering me. I wasn't aiming to get drunk, I never am, I just enjoy drinking, especially in social situations where I've become dependent on booze to take the edge off social awkwardness. I was on foot, having walked all the way from the Tremé because the bike I was borrowing got a flat. The night became blurrier and blurrier, and a friend suggested we go to get some food and wine at a nearby wine bar. When I got there, I snarfed down a sausage, despite the fact that it was on bread, because I had the drunk munchies (I usually avoid things that have even touched gluten), and I had a glass of wine from the bottle my friend bought.

And that's the last thing I remember before I suddenly found myself alone, walking in a completely unfamiliar part of town. New Orleans is a dangerous city, and it's really not smart to walk around alone at night, especially when you're drunk. Not too long ago, a girl was shot in the face just for wandering into the wrong neighborhood — the very neighborhood I was stumbling around in that night. I was very far from any of the areas I was supposed to be in, and I had no clue how I managed to wander so far off. I have no idea how close I came to death or violence, but with the help of a very special woman on the other end of the phone, I made it back to the house I was staying at safely. I woke up in the morning with the crystal clear knowledge that I had put myself in a completely unsafe and stupid situation that wouldn't have arisen had I been even slightly more sober. The painful fact is that I have gotten myself into similar situations before. I'm a pleasant drunk, I'm friendly and well behaved, I don't puke, and I usually just pass out before I do anything really retarded. I've always assumed that I posed no risk to anyone else. But I realize now that I've been putting myself at risk pretty regularly for a long time now, and it's getting to the point where it's impacting the people around me.

I have a drinking problem. I'll admit, every other aspect of paleo living has been pretty easy for me, and alcohol may not be completely verboten for most paleo folks, but I definitely drink too much. The minute someone I love says "Your drinking hurts me" is when I know I have to stop. I've managed to clean up the rest of my diet and quit smoking, and my drinking has been the elephant in the room considering how much I rant about health. I don't feel the need to be puritanical about drinking, and I don't intend to give it up entirely forever (I still believe moderate alcohol consumption is healthy), but I definitely need to press the reset button. I want to get to the point where I can have one or two glasses of wine with dinner and leave it at that (currently, I can down an entire bottle by myself). I want to be able to go just one night without a drink, which I haven't done since I cooked on the Lady Maryland about a year ago (I was completely sober for 10 days, then, and I didn't miss booze at all, so I know I can do it). I want to not feel anxious when there's no booze around. So tonight, I may have one drink to celebrate my last night in New Orleans, but when I get back to Baltimore, my main goal will be to sober up and make it up to all my loved ones who have had to drag my half-conscious body from a party, stayed on the phone with me while I wandered drunkenly in the streets, or otherwise had to put up with me when I'm wasted.