Too Much

Our country has gotten really fat--troublingly, uncomfortably fat. Michelle Obama is worried. The CDC is worried. Parents are worried, doctors are worried. Even the military, experiencing a shortage of healthy-weight young people to serve, is worried. Or are they? Just saw this post on Eater about Guatanamo having a giant fast food mothership on it.

Also, just saw a piece on ABC about how we're making our pets obese as well. The culprits: over-feeding our animals as a substitute for love and the amount of crap pet food companies are loading into the food. n.b. the piece is called "Heavy petting," because apparently someone over there loves a good pun as much as I do.

A buddy forwarded me a link to an article about CSPI's Xtreme eating awards--which go not to competitive hot dog eaters but to restaurants that offer single servings that contain enough calories to feed a small family. This makes me really mad, it does.

I think about too muchness a lot. I sometimes joke that I am like a cow that you have to bring back from pasture because I will keep eating and eating. I am a completer. Leaving anything behind feels strange, so I empathize with the eater who finds themselves at the Cheesecake Factory polishing off a 1,400 calorie dish. Why the F is this restaurant serving such a thing? Wouldn't it be more economical for them to serve something smaller? Oh right, food is cheap.

I read all these stories (above) in the past week alone. With a few episodes of "Biggest Loser" and Jillian's new ridiculous weight loss show thrown in. I cry when I watch those shows, mostly because they have been genetically engineered to bring women to tears (like sugary, fatty foods engineered to make us crave them), but also because I see people trapped in a world where the food cards have been stacked against them, where too muchness is the easiest choice in every direction.

Cat food

This is kind of a recipe post. A recipe for what cats won't eat, even if they're starving, apparently.

Came home late Monday night, empty handed (f*ck! forgot cat food!). 'Scool. Cats like people food--this I know because I can't eat a meal without them crawling on my plate.

So I grab two eggs--NICE eggs, farmers market eggs--and scramble them slowly over low heat. Divide them between 2 small plates, put them on the floor.

Cats are totally uninterested.

Open the fridge, grab a container of this lovely french whole milk yogurt, pour it over the eggs. Buddy is interested. Seymour, no. The tang is intriguing to him; this is the same cat who likes Listerine.

I grab a few hunks of homemade chicken pot pie, plop 'em on the plate. I am getting desperate now, as are the cats. In a final, pathetic bid, I grab 2 slices of Jenny's homemade cherry galette. After all, Buddy had sneakily mawed several pieces during my dinner party a few nights ago.

He licks excitedly but once the sprinkled crust sugar is gone, so is his enthusiasm. Seymour, long gone, empty-stomached, gazing out at the UPS depot.