PrintEd Levine's Serious Diet, Week 11: Less Really Is More
It's only taken me half a century or so to figure out that when it comes to food—crazy good, delicious food—less really is more.
The late, great jazz composer and pianist Thelonious Monk used to say (I am paraphrasing here), "It's not just the notes you play (that make great music), it's the notes you don't play." The very first time I heard Monk I knew that he was right about music. I just could never admit to myself that it might be true about food as well.
See, I grew up the youngest of four brothers, and lordy, we all liked to eat. And though my parents were died-in-the-wool leftists, my mother must have thought there was value in creating some kind of strange, ritualized Darwinian competition among her four sons in everything we did together, even eating.
What else could explain her making nine pork chops for the four of us, so that a fight over the one extra pork chop was inevitable. No wonder we all eat so fast and have battled weight problems all our lives. No wonder I have spent half a century scanning menus looking for the one item that would supply food in bulk to my stomach and brain.
But yesterday, eating lunch with my oldest brother, I realized that quality trumps quantity every time when it comes to food and music and probably every other good thing in the world for that matter.
And all it took was a shrimp salad sandwich from one of my favorite New York lunch spots, the Blue Ribbon Bakery, to bring that lesson home to me one last time, hopefully this time for good.
The shrimp salad sandwich at the Blue Ribbon Bakery is a minimalist masterpiece. Small pieces of meaty, perfectly cooked, poached gulf shrimp are mixed with mayonnaise, celery, salt, and pepper and spread one piece high across two slices of thinly sliced, freshly baked in house challah.
At another time I would have been furious about the meagerness of the portion of shrimp salad. I would have wanted that shrimp salad piled so high I couldn't easily bite all the way through the sandwich. I probably would have said something to the waiter about the paucity of shrimp in the shrimp salad. But yesterday at lunch with my brother I ordered the shrimp salad sandwich KNOWING there wasn't very much to it.
The late New York newspaper man Jerry Nachtman once wrote something to the effect that "I used to think that I could never get enough spare ribs." It was his way of justifying wanting and eating more of everything he loved, including Chinese spare ribs. It turns out there can be enough Chinese spare ribs, and shrimp salad, and perfect scoops of ice cream, and anything else that is crazy good in this world.
The problem with these kinds of cosmic realizations is that they have to be readily available to people like me whenever I need them. Otherwise I end up eating greasy tortilla chips while waiting for my perfect and small lamb barbacoa burrito. That's just what happened to me this past weekend.
So there you have my week for you in a nutshell, or perhaps I should say a tortilla shell. It was a week of the good and the bad, and I hope not the ugly when I get on the scale. Here goes. Well, I stayed even this week. I'm not even that disappointed. It really is a long race. At least that's what I keep telling myself. And that shrimp salad sandwich will still be there next time I eat at the Blue Ribbon Bakery. Unfortunately so will the greasy tortilla chips.
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it pleasant. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
Where to Find the Best...
Archives by Date
13 Comments:
It has always bugged me when people I dine out with complain about small portions. I mean, really, right? We have gotten so used to gorging ourselves on 17-inch plates of food (sure, I'm exaggerating slightly) that we now moan mightily when restaurants serve sensible portions.
I prefer to eat just enough that I walk away satisfied and still exclaiming about how wonderful the meal was. Anytime I stuff myself, all I do is waddle away hoping I can unbutton the top of my pants without anyone noticing. It is at those times that I forget how masterful the meal really was as I turn all thoughts to how to go belly up.
sarahbeam at 8:42AM on 03/27/08
Excellent point. It's all to easy to eat too much bad food, trying to make up for the lack of flavor with an excess of quantity. (I experienced this just last night, unfortunately!) Delicious food is satisfying in a way lackluster eats can never be.
Joy Manning at 8:55AM on 03/27/08
There's a Japanese saying that translates to "Eat until you are 80% full." Whenever I'm feeling snack-happy or trying my damndest to finish off a meal, I think of that saying. It reminds me to slow down, and give my mind time to catch up with my stomach. This way of thinking helps me to eat less, and better, food.
Ariel777 at 11:00AM on 03/27/08
Hi Ed -- I assume your poor dead parents were "dyed-in-the-wool leftists," no? (Sorry, editing's my day job -- I just see these things).
Charlotte at 1:12PM on 03/27/08
Congrats Ed! sometimes staying even is a great thing. Your shrimp salad satori is a wonderful thing! Eat what you love and know if you really want more, it will be there another time.
huney_bumper at 3:51PM on 03/27/08
Hi Ed - Great post. I'm so glad someone else shares my greasy tortilla chip problem. I don't remember the last time I've made it to the burrito course without being 80% full.
bstetka at 5:05PM on 03/27/08
Ed, I don't know how old you are or what generation your parents grew up in - but I was the child of Depression children...and if it went on your plate you were expected to clean the plate of every morsel so nothing went to waste...poor children in India were starving because you weren't eating your food. Very bad child-rearing. Definitely setting up kids to overeat. I on the other hand was so picky that they had to force me to eat. I swore I would never do that to my kids...and I didn't. But then they wouldn't eat what I cooked - and I wasn't a bad cook. Now that they are grown they claim I never fed them and their palates are all very expensive/extensive.
So I guess the moral of this story is that you'll blame your parents no matter what they do. Great job on your diet. Lose a few pounds for me!
nrwfos at 1:47AM on 03/28/08
I had an even week, too. I don't know if anyone else out there has this problem, but I eat when food is in front of me, so parties and buffets kill me every time, as do places with huge portions. I avoid buffets now, but I need/want to go to parties. Any thoughts?
daveinfred at 8:22AM on 03/28/08
@Dave try concentrating on mingling with friends at parties and always have a glass of mineral water in your hand, this way if you want to pick at the food you have to conciously put down the glass. ;)
huney_bumper at 9:42AM on 03/28/08
I happened to catch "I can make you thin" on TLC the other night. I've followed this guy's advice to eat at the table-no TV, reading, or internet. After each bite, PUT THE KNIFE & FORK DOWN!" and chew each mouthful at least 20x. No alcohol with the meal. Eat what you want & like until full & don't save the leftovers. The pants I couldn't zip up on Monday sild on like a dream yesterday! (2 days!)I am never hungry, but realize now that my eating habits were the worst. At home, meals were just an aside to crosswords, the news, TV and surfing the net. Now I really apreciate what I eat and can leave something on my plate. I think there are more points to his program, but he said this method is enough for some. Lucky me!
passy at 11:09AM on 03/28/08
I think there's an important connection missed here that relates more to generation gap than portion size. Our parents - those raised in the earlier part of the century - who struggled to attain even middle class status, would always comfort themselves that they had enough food on the table for their family. Although the quality was great - like my own Jewish mother's home cooking - if you didn't leave the table "full" you weren't fed enough. And at family gatherings, that same Jewish mother would be scooping out and dropping another large dollop of mashed potatoes with onions on yur plate even as she asked "would you like more?"
To take less was an insult to the cook and the house!
Food to them was not "art" - it was life, wealth, happiness.
And here comes Passover!
JeffsInTheKitchen at 1:27PM on 03/28/08
My kids used to laugh about my mother in law's fretting that she wouldn't have enough food on the table, and then pushing more on everyone because there were left-overs. It's definitely a cultural thing. Hopefully the 'clean plate club' will be disbanding at some point in the near future. As one of my friends is fond of saying, if you want a little behind, you have to leave a little behind. And while I'm dishing out platitudes, I'll just add the one I found in a fortune cookie. "Life is a journey, not a destination." It's like that with managing food intake. You can't expect the issues to go away just because you meet a weight goal. It's something you're going to live with forever. And Ed, it seems as though you've made a breakthrough. Congrats!
challah at 1:31PM on 03/31/08
My mom has always been petite (about 110 pounds on a 5 foot frame) but she never seems to diet or go hungry, which I didn't understand because our family eats rather fat-laden ethnic food, and my father, while a healthy weight, has always had a belly. I never noticed my mom's unique eating habits until I myself became conscious of eating healthy, in my later teens. I suddenly noticed her eating habits and I can't say I was surprised anymore about her healthy build. My mom always ate at regular mealtimes, never ate between meals, consumed her food very slowly and deliberately, flavored her food strongly, never skimped on fat and grease, ate smaller or fewer portions than the rest of us, and always had a small, rich dessert before bed.
I will never be a slow eater, and I skip way too many meals to adhere to regular mealtimes, but I've learned a couple useful things from watching her (she always encouraged us to eat frequently and didn't teach us her eating style, so I learned most of it from watching). I've learned from her not to eat between meals, so I get good and hungry before mealtimes. I then try to make large, full-fat, complex meals that satisfy me at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.The rule of thumb I learned from her was, If you're hungry between meals, you didn't eat enough to satisfy yourself at mealtimes, so don't skimp during meals because it'll backfire.
I don't think her advice fits everyone, though. It is truly suited to a particularly Asian style of cooking and eating: long, multi-course family meals with several helpings of rice to fill you up and a variety of heavily flavored, non-low-fat toppings, sauces, curries, and stews to satisfy all your taste buds, heavy on vegetables with meat or seafood served once a week.
stumbler02 at 3:48PM on 03/31/08