MY LOUSY WORLD: A bachelor’s guide to healthy eating

Posted 12/14/17

In fact, Sunday evening I was hungrier than a lumberjack high on hemp, with little in the fridge besides a leftover, unidentified meat portion resembling a used Brillo Pad. I drove like a hungry bat out of hell to Bubba’s Bar-B-Que restaurant, …

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MY LOUSY WORLD: A bachelor’s guide to healthy eating

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Many errantly believe that a life-long bachelor lives on fast-food burritos, pizza deliveries and lard scooped by hand right out of the can. Well, I can only speak for myself and not other league bowlers, but I’m not one to completely eschew dietary health concerns. I do a little quality cooking at home, and don’t always order the chicken-fried steak at local eateries.

In fact, Sunday evening I was hungrier than a lumberjack high on hemp, with little in the fridge besides a leftover, unidentified meat portion resembling a used Brillo Pad. I drove like a hungry bat out of hell to Bubba’s Bar-B-Que restaurant, where it would have been easy to get a big ol’ rack of greasy ribs and leave with a big smile, sauce hardening on my mustache and stains on my shirt. But I opted to forgo meat for the far-healthier salad.

What’s not to love about the all-you-can-eat salad bar, and Bubba’s salad island is top-notch, offering endless condiments and side dishes. I had nearly forgotten the beauty of the limitless-trip salad bar, and not just for the health benefits. You start with a foundation of lettuce, pile on as many vegetables offerings as your plate can hold, then ladle on that Roquefort dressing until the aforementioned ingredients — buried in a thick, creamy mire — are rendered unrecognizable.

And when you finish that healthy plateful, right back you go, eating more of the same, as well as potato salad and an assortment of other salads until you’re bloated, your stomach hurts and you literally feel sick. What a blessed, healthy alternative to fatty meat and potatoes, and who can’t benefit from the aerobic exercise repeated trips necessitate?

As I sat there reading my sports page and munching gleefully, I was captured by those tiny ears of corn poking from my blue cheese. At the risk of sounding childishly ill-informed, I have to ask: Are they really, literal corn or merely cute little lookalikes? Must they be husked before preparation, or are they just born that way … naked, yellow and vulnerable like the rest of us?

And how about those little tomatoes the size of ping pong balls? I’d have no problem eating just those little suckers alone, swimming in that salad dressing like Christmas decorations. Garbanzo beans (or “chickpeas,” now considered inappropriate by the PC Police) are a welcome addition, as are kidney beans, surprisingly.

While on the subject of kidney beans and dietary recommendations, it might surprise you to learn this humble reporter once had a recipe published in a cookbook. No, I quip you not. The cookbooks were put on the market back in 2003 when I was on the board of directors of the Humane Society of Park County. As a fund-raising project, all board members were challenged to submit their favorite recipe, and I donated my always-popular “Blough Bacheloroni ‘n Cheese.”

Oh, make no mistake, this isn’t your grandmother’s mac ‘n cheese. It makes Kraft Mac & Cheese look like a kindergarten project. MY concoction offers not one, but two breeds of cheese, canned chicken chunks and yes, kidney beans. I suppose I should have registered a patent, but my first priority isn’t profit, but procuring a pleasurable dining experience.

I’m guessing many readers who haven’t heard about the cluttered, musty décor of my townhouse are probably hoping I invite them up for dinner at some point. I won’t, of course, but let’s just say if you did stop for a meal, sure, you’d probably step on a few TV dinner trays my dog Ginger has licked clean, but you would not leave hungry or free of cat hairs, my friends. That is my vow to you.

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