Cooking Lit :: with Jessica Baxter

The Great Depression and the New Deal

Meal: I’m on a diet, betch.
Drink: DDP

Well, I am back. After long consideration I have decided that I will not jump off of a bridge just yet. The last month was dedicated to self-loathing, depression, sleep, crying, over-eating, binge-drinking, aging, job-searching and regular pity parties.

Things that have happened since I dropped off of the face of the internet:

1. Clint fixed my oven.
2. My Dad came to visit from Michigan.
3. I turned 26.
4. I was deemed unhirable by a school and a church AND a hospital.
5. I re-landscaped my front yard.
6. I was told by a drunk family member that I had “put on a little weight”.
7. Clint became a BMW man after his old car was totaled.
8. I cooked the best fish of my life.
9. I bought and installed a stripper pole in my living room.

Are you hung up on item 6, too? I am. I was already a little self-conscious about my body when this someone dropped this devastation bomb. He, realizing the shock waves that were rippling thru the kitchen, backpeddled by explaining that “its cool” if I have “extra weight because Italians are beautiful even when they are heavy.”

That’s right, folks. Lucky for me I am pretty even when I am fat. And of course this unleashed many Catch-22 questions for my husband… like, “So, do YOU think I have put on weight?” and “What do you MEAN he MIGHT not have meant it because he was drunk?!” and “Don’t you think offering to work out with me is AGREEING with him?!”

And that is the worst part: This drunk asshole said something rude to me but really Clint is the victim. Clint is the one who must weather the storm of dieting and exercise and fishing for compliments. HB has to put up with the aftermath of this careless criticism while the offender lives peacefully on the other side of town. Poor Clint, because every one knows that I. CAN. HOLD. A. GRUDGE.

Oh yeah, about the stripper pole. Clint practically kicked me out of the house last weekend to join my friend Krissi’s bachelorette party that was being held at a studio that specializes in Stripper-Cize (think Jazzercize but with poles and rap and champagne). It was his attempt to remedy the funk brought on by the above mentioned “weight comment”. As the doorknob was hitting me in the ass, he promised that I would have a good time and regret not going.

Even though I was the goofiest girl there, and I was next to Melanie-the-Gorgeous-Sex-Goddess, I’ll give it to the HB… I am so glad I went!!! I danced and flipped and spun and thrusted until I regained some feelings of my old self! I haven’t felt as silly and sexy since the baby was born (um, TWO years ago people!). I felt so good, in fact, that I came straight home and bought a pole for my living room. And set it up. And made a play list. And danced.
And danced.
And danced some more.

Without really trying, I have brought this story around full circle. The stripper class (well, and the sunshine and my friends and the exercise and the attention of my HB) has snapped me out of my Great Depression. I have brought out the hand weights and the scale, and I fully intend to purchase the Carmen Electra Stripper workout so I can practice on my pole.

And tonight for dinner, no potatoes and sour cream. No pasta in cream sauce. Grilled chicken and asparagus, made in the back yard in the sunshine. The boys can fend for themselves if they need butter or carbs or sides. I’ll be cooking LIGHT. And lit, of course, but only vodka on the rocks.