Thursday, September 26, 2013

Secondhand Rants will return on Thursday, October 03.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

You may think it’s the end of summer, but for me, it’s the season for doing things I never thought I’d do or, even worse, things I put off for some distant patch of future. You likely know the lineup by now: moving to Texas. Regular air travel. A great divestiture of possessions. And now, paleo. Well, not exactly paleo, so much as a light observance of the core tenet of paleo. I’ve told you my thoughts on the cuisine–“like a raptor shit in a bag,” etc.–and although the case was closed on the matter, well, here we are again.

It all began during a night cap with the Chief, when he revealed to me his weight–a scant seven pounds heavier than my own. The wrinkle here is he’s taller than me by at least a head, so right then and there, I felt like a living, breathing “before” picture. The secret to his svelte form? Paleo. Goddamn paleo. You apparently feel great, too, and the price of entry? “No wheat for 30 days,” he told me. That was the gauntlet–a grim, flourless one.

My first paleo breakfast, prepared just last week, was a complete disaster. I gathered that bacon and eggs was a popular paleo standby. Simple enough, right? Except you’re not supposed to approach it with a carton of Egg Beaters and pre-cooked Oscar Mayer bacon. I had the first inkling that something was wrong when I got a whiff of the “egg” as it–heaven help me here–rotated in a microwave. Then, that inkling turned into full-on fear when I inaugurated my new, all-natural dining experience with an unceremonious schlork as I dislodged the egg simulacrum from a bowl. Lesson learned. The story of paleo is really about knowing the provenance of your food, keeping it as raw as possible, and how once upon a time, in a jungle far away, a raptor sat next to a bag.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Secondhand Rants will return on Tuesday, September 24.