I couldn’t commit to leaning on a lamp post much less a man. I loved them and I left them. I wouldn’t sign a lease. I wouldn’t promise that I’d be home for Christmas. I worked freelance so that I could leave at the drop of a whisk.
My commitment was to my friends and my 80’s wardrobe. And I never ate a meal.

I cooked mushrooms flown in from Le Marche and made salads from tiny greens picked that morning before the dew even had time to relax. I seared fish still carrying a Maine address in their wallet but none of it was for me and I didn’t want it. When I started cooking all day, everyday, I ate bagels and was addicted to cold, hard diet coke.
It’s different now that I’m a mother and a wife. I take it on as my responsibility to make sure the two of them get their fruit and vegetables. I made a deal with Ferdinand that if he ate 5 fruits and vegetables a day, so would I. My husband eats anything that I cook so just by being married to me he gets added fruits and vegetables and years to his life (if you don’t count the stress I cause.)
I started to wonder how many others who know all about food and all about how eating 5 to 6 vegetables can reduce your risk of a whole host of diseases and help your body work better in almost every way really do it? Is it a guarantee that you eat better if you know better?
My hunch is, uh-uh. No it does not.

In case “I know better but it doesn’t really matter” could be your name tag:

Buy fresh fruit and keep it on a shelf in a bowl in the fridge. It will remind you that the vegetables are right down below in the drawer (they need the extra protection.) The best way to eat fresh fruit and vegetables is as a snack which is where most of us have the hardest time anyway. Eat them between meals and don’t hold back. We were allowed one piece of fruit a day when I was growing up; it’s because we were cheap and Puritan so throw this theory out the window.
Have three, heck have four pieces of fruit. Slice an apple and eat it at your computer with a pear and your donut in the late morning. Eat a banana to have with your afternoon coffee. Slice an avocado when you get home, give it some salt and a squeeze of lemon and eat it with a carrot and a piece of celery while you heat up your dinner.
You don’t have to eat anything crazy like a pomegranate or a star fruit (even though it would be a lot of fun.)
Eat raw fennel, raw string beans, radishes and cherry tomatoes while you watch your movie. And then have your chips. Roll pre washed baby lettuce leaves around a dot of mascarpone and an olive. Chomp on frozen peas while they have you on hold for your cable.