We shrink with age, why not our stomachs?
By Paul Mantee/Special to The Malibu Times
I quit smoking a few years back, and one day a short time later I looked in the mirror and found a stomach I didn’t recognize.
“What are you doing in my mirror?”
“I live here now.”
“Get outa’ town!”
“I snuck up on you while you were drinking a milkshake.”
I got a little defensive. “I’ve been drinking milk shakes all my life!”
“Lately, two in a row before bedtime,” responded the stomach.
“Only to wash down the lemon cake.”
“Tell me about it.”
Two heaping tablespoons chocolate-flavored Nestl’s Quik in a large glass.
Mix in enough milk to create a rich dark brown paste (making sure all the little dry pockets are eliminated).
Add one to two scoops Haagen Daaz vanilla ice cream, depending on preferred consistency.
Fill glass with milk and, with the underside of a tablespoon, work the ice cream around the inside of the glass till it melts and gives itself up to the whole.
Insert straw.
I like to sip it with my eyes closed.
They say we shrink with age, so why don’t our stomachs shrink with the rest of us? We get smaller, yet bigger. Merely, an observation-one of life’s little contradictions to help me segue to the point.
I resent the Atkins Diet.
Talk about a lingering bad taste. In the late 1970s I weighed-in at about 200 solid and looked pretty healthy. Actually, I was a hunk and didn’t know it. Some of us don’t realize those qualities till afterward and by then it’s too late. There was a plum role of a prisoner of war in an upcoming Movie of the Week called “When Hell Was in Session.” Not a bad script. The director was a close friend, and he indicated the role was as good as mine, except that I looked too robust to play a POW. Could I lose weight, he wondered. Could I? I jumped on that dreadful Atkins Diet for 30 days, slimmed down to 185 and looked so good I lost the part.
I love the outspoken woman. Some weeks ago, my significant pointed to sections of herself about which she felt insecure and exclaimed in a strong voice: “Look at this! Look at that!” But that was Atkins-ago and today I feel as if I’m flirting with a newcomer. If it hadn’t been for her gentle yet steady harangue, I would simply have followed my cardiologist’s advice: “Eat less.” But thanks to her persistence, I’m back on the diet whose principles embrace giving up only what feels good in your mouth.
I love to dine out, but I don’t advise it if you’re seriously committed to the Atkins plan. Just stay home and roll up a piece of ham in a slice of cheese, and pour yourself a glass of water. If you must dine out, here is a guide to a few local restaurants and what to avoid while your friends are having a good time.
Do not eat the French bread at Taverna Tony’s, even though it’s the best bread in Malibu, maybe even on the West Side. Enjoy a nice tablespoon of butter, but don’t eat the bread.
Do not order Guido’s pasta fagiole, which isn’t on the bill of fare anyway but can be acquired if one is quiet about it; and it happens to be my favorite item on/off the menu. The stomach in my mirror thrives on it.
Locals used to be able to get a dynamite baked potato back when Moonshadows was Moonshadows, which it really isn’t anymore since it went fancy. So I take some solace in the fact that nobody in Malibu is allowed a baked potato in a local restaurant. According to Dr. Atkins, whom I’m convinced dropped dead of an underdose of carbohydrates, it’s dandy to dine on a dish of sour cream, chives and bacon bits, but it’s forbidden to eat the potato underneath. How unnatural is that?
By all means, run from Sunday brunch at The Sage Room, where the continental ambience is not unlike a romantic trip to the Mediterranean, yet only minutes up the coast or down, depending on your locale. Do not partake of the orange cranberry French toast, the lemon bread pudding or, in particular, the homemade strawberry jam. Rub it on your body and eliminate the middleman.
Forget the crunchy mee krob at Thai Dishes and the 10 varieties of beautifully encrusted pizza-not including combinations-at Johnnie’s. Shun the pancakes smothered in real maple syrup at Marmalade. Fortunately, the tables are so close together; I often feast on someone else’s good fortune by staring and sniffing.
Okay, so I’ll eat at home. But you tell me the proper way to get an “acceptable” fried egg from the plate to the mouth without an “unacceptable” piece of toast. And so it goes. Plenty of cheese, no crackers. A wedge of Brie is fine. Off my thumb, I suppose. Peanut butter, no jelly. Hot dog, no bun. Relish and mustard in a stalk of celery, perhaps? I don’t think so. Meanwhile, I come from people to whom lacing a pan with olive oil and garlic is tantamount to making the Sign of The Cross and I’m pretty good at recreating several of the best pasta dishes I’ve tasted since I was nine. Atkins insists I can no longer eat the pasta, but it’s perfectly fine to drink the sauce. Presumably, from my milkshake glass.
My current stomach is so upset over the Atkins Diet it’s threatened to leave me if I shape up.