045 - The Agony and the Irony

I love the taste of lobster, but I find myself conflicted over the fact that they're boiled, or sometimes steamed, while they're still alive. I absolutely won't cook them for myself. You can't convince me that a lobster can't feel pain.

I once saw a show that I thought I was really going to like. It was this snarky old English lady who went to people's homes and taught them how to cook -- but if they didn't catch on quickly enough, she bonked them over the head with a cookbook. Sounds awesome, doesn't it?

It was.

Until she broke out the langoustines.

She proceeded to talk about how to cook them, while a voiceover tells me that, "the langoustines have been chilled to make them sleepy." My spidey senses begin to tingle. She picks up a langoustine... and violently rips it in half... head in one hand, tail in the other. It was still alive. She tells the women they can't feel it, but there on the counter is another langoustine, and he knows his number is up, because he's bucking like a little bronco... before she reaches out and rips him in half, too. I felt a tear slide down my cheek and I quickly flipped the channel.

I'm not gonna judge, I just don't know how other people do it. I'm too sympathetic. I always say that if I had to kill the cow myself, I'd be a vegetarian, but as long as it comes in the little packages at the grocery store, I will buy it. So I already know I'm a hypocrite, but at least I feel a little guilty about it. Saturday I felt a little ironic as I sat there, thinking how violent the movie was, as a hook ripped through the flesh of this guy's leg... and I sat there on the sofa, shredding up a rotisserie chicken...

I was watching A Lyon in the Kitchen as I ate dinner, that's where all the lobster talk came from. I like watching him cook, he's so easy going, and the food is so simple, but it looks delicious because it's incredibly fresh (in that way that only television food prepared by a professional chef seems to be). That would be nice, but I don't have the time, the money or the resources to get produce that fresh. I do visit a local market from time to time, but it's rare enough that it feels like a special treat. Mostly I rely on the grocery store down the street, and it's hit or miss. I didn't realize how much I missed really fresh produce until I cut into some fresh green beans a few months ago. The smell reminded me of my grandparents... both sets had their own gardens, and we used to sit around snapping the ends off of the green beans and peeling off the string that runs down the middle (we called them string beans).

So I'm upping the ante this week. One soda a day, and a full hour on the treadmill. This weight is coming off dammit! I did see a little more weight loss with the approach I took last week, but my time is growing short if I want to look good in the pics from Scotland. Only 63 more days... close enough that I can call it two months!  Woo-hoo!