So the World Cup began this weekend–fast kicking, low scoring, and TIES!!–as they put it, hilariously, on The Simpsons. And how did the US perform against England? We tied.
In mild celebration, Mister’s soccer club came over for dinner. “How many people?” I asked. “Definitely six, maybe eleven” was the answer. So I made enough food to feed eleven; we ended up with nine. I cooked: kalbi (Korean spare ribs), sigumchi namul (the marinated spinach of yesterday), lime shrimp, mapo tofu and grilled tofu for the vegetarians, and cold cucumber salad. And dessert was trifle for like, 50 (seriously, you should have seen the bowl), plus homemade mint chocolate ice-cream, plus homemade vanilla ice-cream–did I mention I love making ice-cream almost as much as eating it? I can’t say the guests were impressed, so much as they appeared mystified–who would put in all this effort? But the truth is, it was a lot of food, but all of it was easy to make. And easy to eat…
So there I was Sunday morning with food hangover and–I wish I could say the opposite about myself–but food hangover never seems to discourage me from still wanting to eat; it actually sort of makes me want to eat more unhealthy things. The refrigerator crammed with teriyaki beef and leftover trifle for 35 did not help. It’s sort of like when you take a day off from exercising and it’s just a bit harder to get back at it the following day. And so, even though we had spent gobs of money on groceries and had food to spare, I still drove out to the supermarket and bought myself a grapefruit–the one cure-all for halting the madness, putting your foot down, and declaring, “I defy you, trifle-topped-with-mint-ice-cream! Be gone, lime-shrimp-with-a-side-of-beef! My body is a temple!“
And I should mention I hate falling into the “grapefruit-as-diet-food” rhetoric–that is not the point. Sure, it is healthy and low-calorie and all that, but it’s more about how grapefruit just makes you feel clean. Of course, notice that we’re curing food with more food here, but it really does work. What else but icy-cold wedges, eaten slowly and methodically, followed by a wash of leftover juice squeezed directly from the rind, could?
RECIPE: Grilled Ginger Grapefruit
Filed under: Clean Food Daily, citrus, food hangover, fruit, health
