...or so I thought. I should comment on my history, which is a deal chubbier than my present. In college I studied abroad in Italy. One might expect a man like me ate himself stupid -- but that presupposes money to buy food with, which, by the time I settled in Florence, I had already spent, well, all of. All the rest of the money I didn't have went into a nicer-than-needed bicycle. Thus was my life: too proud to ask for more money from my parents, too poor for food, I spent four months biking for several hours a day and eating 12 meals per week. Let's suffer no delusions: Italians don't really do breakfast, and my host mother (an American ex-pat, ironically enough) was no exception: 1-2 pieces of toast, espresso with milk, basta.

I set foot in Europe at a genial bodyweight of around 230 pounds; five months later I departed at 190 pounds. For the first time in my life, I felt svelte and healthy. Stateside, it took me a month or two to discover that 12 is the wrong number of meals to eat in a week, and they needn't be tiny. It took basic arithmetic, the Internet, and extreme fatigue to realize that I was eating 1200 calories per day and burning close to 4,000. I felt like hell. On a revived and renewed budget I resolved not to underfeed myself again; as sort of a thank-you gesture from my body, I almost immediately put on 15 pounds of muscle.

My dietary regimen was intense. For breakfast, I concocted a smoothie of juice, yoghurt, frozen fruit, protein powder, and raw oatmeal that provided an even thousand calories -- but only after I realized that my breakfast ritual of granola, fruit, yoghurt, two pieces of bacon and a fried egg might be a bit, erh, unhealthy. (Without the bacon and egg it became too low-cal -- hence the smoothie.) Lunch was a sandwich or two, usually an hour or two after my mid-morning snack, and an hour or two before my mid-afternoon snack. Then dinner, studying, a snack, studying, dessert, and bed. I had discovered the secret power of exercise: with enough exertion I could eat as much of whatever I wanted to, whenever I wanted. I ate following this philosophy for four years.

It hasn't truly failed me; that's not what this essay is about. These days I carry about 205 pounds of myself around with me. I've sold my car. I tow groceries in 60 pound loads in a trailer behind my bike. I'm the healthiest I've ever been -- which puts me in the mood to get even healthier. Overcoming yourself introduces you to the plausibility of overcoming yourself again.

I've also just turned 25 -- which is a funny age. Growing up in the US is a progression through a series of milestone birthdays: becoming a teenager; your sweet sixteen; turning 18, when you're a real adult and can vote and die in war; drinking at 21. The exciting event when you turn 25? Cheaper car rentals and lowered automobile insurance. Nobody breaks out the brass band when you turn 25.

But even in an optimistic live-to-100 world, 25 is a quarter of your life, done. For the average male, it might be more than a third. I'm young, of course -- but I'm getting older. Much fuss gets made about men's health through your thirties and into your forties; lots of verbiage is spent on such cheery topics as watching your cholesterol, sodium, stress, blood pressure, and glycemic index. Even more fuss is made of the prevalence of a the misspent youth -- the "If only I had been in shape and eaten sensibly" regret. Moving through my twenties, I feel like my thirties are this ominous cloud of discovering all the mistakes I made.

Which upsets me. So far, my life has been, all told, a long succession of things which are each better than the thing prior. Yes yes, I have hardships too -- but I lead a good life. The way health gets talked about you'd think you turn 35 and have a physical during which your doctor extracts all the joy from you, replacing it with low-density lipoproteins and fear.

Chiefly, I'm afraid of giving up eating. Between you and me: I lose sleep wondering if I'll have to give up beef, or gouda, or beer. I'm not sure living to a ripe old age has any appeal to me at all, if it means making the trip without my dear friends lipid, simple carbohydrate, and sodium chloride (kosher, of course). I've begun to wonder: what does being a healthy, responsible foodie mean?

Answers are not obvious, if they exist at all. Just try -- I dare you -- to make sense of the reams of health advice in the world today. We're supposed to eat nothing but meat protein, fat be damned, unless we're supposed to never eat any animal product, fat be damned (so long as it's not animal fat). Maybe the solution is veganism. No wait: hypnotism. If only there was a website to help me choose the right diet!

Notice a trend here: diets have little message consistency beyond "you would be healthier if you ate like this." Some focus solely on weight loss; others want to lower the concentration of certain compounds in your blood, be it salt or bacon or cholesterol. Implicit in dieting is the assumption that you want to lose weight (unless it isn't --  being fat might save your life). Some studies show it's far healthier to be slightly overweight and active than slim and sedentary. Well and good: but what's over weight, and are you overweight if you're carrying around 120 pounds of extra muscle?

I'm belaboring a point, but it's an important one: you can find expert research to support any lifestyle you feel like leading. I'll bet there's an "All Blow and Hookers" diet out there -- it works for Mick Jagger, doesn't it? Given the wildly conflicting advice, absence of good scientific backing, and the dime-a-dozen feel of the doctors that support these claims, I've a hard time not considering these diets pure baloney. The most consistent element is this: almost every one of these things has a claim to the effect of "The all-remoulade diet, in combination with regular sleep and exercise, might involve you losing weight." Put another way: work out, rest enough, eat what you like.

In an effort to sustain myself, I've taken my usual approach -- which is to say I've over-thought the issue of eating until it seems nearly meaningless. I've noticed a few things, which all seem to line up. Consider:

1. Humans are superb omnivores. We've managed to survive almost everywhere on earth on myriad diets.
2. The American way of eating is atrocious, because it focuses so intently on foods that sacrifice quality for timeliness, filtered through an intensely obtuse and evil web of political and business maneuvers.
3. Obesity? Not a huge problem among a lot of indigenous peoples, or wild animals, or for non-Americans.

Point three, especially, has some fascinating ramifications. I mean, sure, America is the "Land of Plenty," and we all eat as much as we want, and we're sedentary as hell. But what really strikes me is the idea of biological regulatory systems, for which a great case study is my mother's dogs: only one of them, a corgi, will willingly eat more than it needs to in a sitting. Particularly the German Shepherds we used to live with would never eat more than they wanted, no matter what the availability was like.

One of the weirdest part about an eating American is his or her propensity to feed straight past "sated" -- we don't eat until we've had as much as we need. We go until "full," until we can't hold anymore.  We complicate this further with power-lunch-style speed eating, gorging so briskly the body can't get a word in before it's already much too late.

I came upon the idea that somewhere in my body is a little-used branch of my nervous system designed to keep me healthy by helping eat the right amount. Though gentle testing I've found that about twenty minutes after eating what I used to consider a very modest meal, I feel a great deal more full than I did when I finished consuming it. Even weirder: if I eat a huge meal, and I'm really paying attention, I don't often really need that much food at the next meal. A huge dinner usually foretells a small-to-cursory breakfast. Different parts of my brain introduce noise into the signal; I'm a champion eat-when-I'm-sad kinda guy, for instance. The point remains the same: I've discovered my own voice of portioning.

That voice gets louder when I exercise -- or maybe just more distinct. As part of being a sustainable foodie I've introduced a good deal of workout into my week. When I'm faithful to it, when I do my weights and run my miles and bike about town, the Voice of Portions commands eating -- and who am I to argue? If I miss a work out, I find myself looking at snacks and realizing that I don't actually need to eat -- but in a comfortable, peaceful way. I don't tend to blood sugar crash when I've been exercising regularly.

I've re-evaluated my system. Every chance is an excellent time to eat, but maybe eating three big meals per day because I technically can isn't the right way to go about things. With exercise, I can permit more eating -- and that's wonderful, especially if I can enable more eating in the long term. Sustainable eating, I think, means eating only as much as you need. (And after a 30-mile commuting day and a 5 mile run, I need to eat like a fool!)

In the mean time, I've found a wonderful rationalization to try and eat as much local, seasonal, home-cooked food as I can. I want to believe -- I badly want to believe -- that the secret to healthful eating is a little moderation and minimal processing. Yes, I eat cheese, but also home-baked breads, green salads, and sensible portions of meat. Naturally fermented things, like beer and cheese, don't worry me -- I'm no raw foodist, I just care very little for chemicals. I try to eat everything -- health through broad diet. I eat what my body asks for -- fruit and raw veggies some days, a slab of Chateaubriand the next, and yes that does get damn tricky when trying to be local and seasonal. I'm muddling through -- and I feel healthier than I ever have. I'd like to think I'll be able to eat this way 'til the far-off end of my days.

I'll let you know how it goes.

This week, I recommend that you make Mashed Potatos; few things are quite as tasty, no? There is, of course, an ongoing debate over just how mashers should wind up; I am decidedly not a fan of the Idaho pureed-russets-with-cream incarnation. Make mine; eat them with your Roasted Chicken -- as economic a way to get meat into your diet as ever there was. Use the pan drippings to make gravy. Happiness abounds! You'll probably also want a side; I'm a big fan of either roasted brussel sprouts with pancetta or sauteed greens (collards/kale/etc), but I've met with great success using a universal spring-mix salad. A bread tends to make the meal; I like whole-wheat levain, but then I'm partial to my own cooking.

I love leftovers, especially those that can be repurposed into something tastier. You've just made mashed potatoes -- wonderful! Do you know how useful that stuff is? For the love o' Pete, make Shepherds Pie! Or, for the ultimate in comfort food, take a cast iron skillet and fry up some mashed potato cakes. Make more gravy from the butter and crispy potato bits. There are certain evenings where that and a bottle of porter might be all I eat, though it's rare. These things go great with meatloaf or burgers -- you'll probably want to balance out with asparagus or another universal salad. (Or you can just curl up in your pajamas with a pair of 'tater cakes and pretend no problems exist in the world. Just sayin'.)

So mashed potatoes? Totally the gift that keeps on giving. I want to encourage you to use the last of your mashed potatoes to make potato-leek soup. Oh man: that's a good day. The soup is like a Vichyssoise with less nostalgia, and it's wonderful hot or cold. Again, bread is key -- but aim sour. I haven't tried this yet, but I've a hunch that a bread bowl would make this soup. And maybe some bacon crumbles. Anybody? Anybody?

Very infrequently. Very... very infrequently. Like, embarassingly infrequently. Like, I-didn't-notice-they-had-taken-my-blog-offline-for-billing-dilenquency infrequently.

....damnit.

Whats more, in brief review of past posts I've discovered two things. I write a lot more than I post; every time I have one of these absences, I come back with trumpets and verbiage about how I'm Back For Real, This Time! It's been said before, but I'll say it again: damnit.

This time, I promise nothing but higher transparency, starting with the following contemplation:

I've got four huge unfinished posts in indefinite cold storage because I haven't been able to finish a-one of them. I haven't posted anything of worth or merit in a long time. Why? What's going on? Do I just suck too much for the internet?

I see three problems:

1. Good blogging takes either self discipline or a giddy love of blogging. I have mild guilt and a cool enjoyment of blogging. I'll have to change one or the other of those.

2. I've been trying to force-feed myself bananas and write about it for too damn long in the name of this blog. It hasn't worked; I don't like the things. I need to do other stuff for this blog than eat foods I hate.

3. This is the big one: everything I've tried to write in the last year runs in to the same, overwhelming issue: time. I've written four different treatises which all, in some way, orbit the same issue without ever dealing with it. All four are crippled or unworkable. Forgive this rhetorical gyration, but none of those essays are about what they're about -- they're tangential to their own points, and that makes them pretty crappy. Even as somebody with a love of good oblique writing, I can't take this "nothing is acutally said" thing I've got going on.

My blog hosting service recently (*cough* a year-and-a-half ago) upgraded their service capabilities. For some reason, one of the neglected features in the old version was the ability to put a hyperlink in a blog post leading to a different blog post on the same blog. This has changed; we are Catching Up with the Times (welcome to 2003!). I've found my pet topics: food and Time (hereinafter with a capital T when it's The Topic of Time In General). I've been trying to cope with Time by writing one freaking huge essay that'll take care of everything in one go. Sadly, I think that essay is, at least for now, beyond me -- I don't have the resources or the skill.

But this is The Intarwob. I am empowered with Hyperlinks and Good Internal References. I'm going to try -- no promises, this time -- to tackle these topics, Food and Time, in a different way. Something a little more Semantic Web, a little less Publishable Treatise. We'll see how it shakes out, eh? I'm optimistic.

Note: This post is midway through a series. You might prefer starting at the beginning.

As is true of many of my peers, I became familiar with the works of Friedrich Nietzsche through his pivotal role in modern computer gaming. Despite his greater renown as a nihilist philosopher (and general wack-job), Nietzsche has contributed significantly to the component of modern video gaming most commonly known as "flavor text." Put another way: Nietzsche wrote the equivalent of fantastic mood lighting. (It's difficult to think of what verb to apply to this process; "repurposing" implies that Nietzsche had an original purpose...) One of my favorite quotes appeared on the opening screen of Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness

:

He who fights against monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process. And when you stare persistently into an abyss, the abyss also stares into you.
Beyond Good and Evil, "Fourth Part: Maxims and Interludes," section 146 (1886).

I've known of this quote for over a decade; I vividly remember it's cold, pixilated script slithering ominously across my monitor. One way or another, I keep returning to it - I treat it like a Buddhist koan, flipping it over in my brain, trying to unlock it with experiential keys. Lately, I gained new insight into Herr Nietzche's maxim while being threatened by an abomination impaled on a trident.

...which is to say a banana, dredged in vegan chocolate fondu and skewered on the appropriate fork. It's become a constant in my life; given the publicity of my hatred, and my quest for happy ingestion, everybody I know has begun emitting their helpful suggestions and favorite banana-preparing techniques.

And so, as I enjoyed an otherwise-lovely round of dredging fruit in chocolate, with otherwise lovely people, I found my beloved girlfriend looking meaningfully at the last cylinder of death (erh, banana). The room fell somewhat quiet, as the group realized what was going on. Suddenly, I was the center of attention: the boy who hates bananas, on the next step of his quest.

My god: I think I'm becoming a banana. At least, they're coming to consume my digestive thoughts. Every time I turn around, I'm being offered another banana. And you know what? A banana dredged in chocolate... is a horrendous way to ruin chocolate. I'm coming to think it's the texture: a banana is rather a lot like coagulated pudding, too firm to be creamy and to creamy to be solid. Unless, of course, it's the "small, sweet, red" banana I forced myself to eat three days ago. Or rather, attempted to eat: I couldn't get past the first bite. It smelled - reaked - of cedar chips, with a texture akin to sweaters packed in clay. This isn't food, people. Not even soaked in chocolate.

And so, I'm calling for suggestions: give me all the rest of your favorite banana recipes. Sometime very, very soon I'm going to make a feast of the things. I will cook them in every way you've ever heard of. Help me out here, The Internet. The abyss is staring back.

You may have thought -- and, I'll admit, not without good reason -- that I had abandoned my quest to like Bananas. Not so! Kid Delicious flinches not in the face of even the grossest of American staple fruit. I persevere.

I've been encountering the blasted things all over the place; the American food establishment can hardly sneeze without releasing a new lineup of banana chips, puddings, and aroma therapy orthotic inserts. I've tried them, gentle reader, I really have. I've made it through seven entire banana flakes, most of a pudding, and a bowl of  ginger snap granola (which I ate while thinking about bananas, I promise. Baleful, nauseating, oblong thoughts. Really.)

 The number of banana products and concoctions I've eaten is only rivaled by the number of times I've nearly expelled a partially digested banana onto my shoes.

 Today, I came up with a new plan: shi shi gourmet organic bananas! Take one: the Small Red Banana.

 The result?

So terrible, not even my banana-loving girlfriend would eat it. A dollar ninety-eight of pure disappointment, red and stupid-looking. It was even harder to peel than a regular banana! Help me, Jeffrey; I can't stand these stupid things.

Asia in general seems to have a very different approach to beverages than we do in the states. Take yourself to an Asian supermarket some day and marvel at the drinks case; you, like I, probably cannot tell any of the drinks apart. I'm told by afficionadi that each of the three hundred varieties of pre-brewed green tea is substantially different from all the others; to be honest, I've never committed the time to find out. I spend my time exploring the mysteries of the Powdered Drink Aisle.

 As near as I can tell, China is the world's foremost innovator of instant drink powders -- and I love them. Conveniently packaged in one-serving pouches, you can toss them into your lunch and shake them into your water bottle for a delectable and refreshing treat. My favorite is Honey Ginger Beverage; the worst I've found yet is Jackie Chan's Insta-Green (do not be fooled! Just because Jackie likes it does not mean it is actually potable!). They are of especial joy to me as a bicyclist; on a hot day, cold water is easy to come by and blood-sugar is worth its weight in gold. Anything that can refresh me and give me more power to bike on is worth its powdery weight in gold.

I started bicycling in Italy, which is one of the foremost places in the world to drink. It flummoxes Americans to learn this: in Italy, you never walk around carrying a beverage! It's highly taboo. Mitigating factors abound: the coffee is what we think of as espresso (in Italy it's just called "café," and there is no drip. No, none. Seriously.), and it's always served at drinking temperature in manageable portions; most Italians get around by bus or scooter, which make to-go cups difficult to manage; and in Italy, you can buy a good café on any street corner, at a bar or tabacchi. (Where do you think Howard Schulz got the idea?). Perhaps most important is this: you never drink (or eat) while walking around (except for maybe just maybe gelato), because it's rude to your drink. If you're walking around, you clearly aren't giving your drink the attention it richly deserves -- why did you buy it in the first place, after all, if not to enjoy it? Only activities that enrich the experience are worth having with your coffee; good conversation, for instance, or a cornuto di miele.

For the Italians, enjoyment is the most important thing. "It's hot; I want it to be cold." my host mother told me crisply while dropping ice-cubes into her San Giovese. I've watched distinguished gentlemen in suits dunk bread directly into their wine in respectable restaurants. At a dinner, I once observed an Italian woman pouring red wine directly into her glass of water. My confusion was plain, and so a venerable pensionatto leaned heavily across the table to address me.

"We never put water in our wine," he instructed me, a finger gliding through the air between us as though conducting my apprehension, "because it would make the wine worse. But we put wine in our water. It makes the water better."

All at the table nodded their agreement to this sage declaration.

Among the many indignities of year-round cycling is Exposure to the Elements. No matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to find a way to bike in Seattle without getting rained on. In the winter, the cold chews on your vitality, making it difficult to move, let alone ride anywhere. The chorus with which I sing requires a trip to the southern end of the city once a week, all winter; biking home at 11pm through 34 degree rain is a soul-crushing experience for which I've found three weapons: an iPod, a thermos, and a flask. There are many evenings to which I would have been lost forever if not for Kraftwerk, hot rooibos tea, and bourbon.

My advice to you all is this: slow down! Remember to taste your food; too often, in the rushing crush that is American life, we stop paying attention to the details that make up our daily doings. Taste your latte. Have you ever gotten your cappuccino dry? (Do you even know that they can be dry or wet?) What about your favorite beer -- is it always cold? Try it warm. Do you like it better? Relax. Have your coffee on the porch in the morning. Feel the mug and taste the brew -- try Sumatran Mandeling or Ethiopian Yergacheffe. You're the only expert of your own taste, so pay attention! There's quite a world out there to love.

For the Record: I woke up this morning and drank lemonade and water. I wrote this while drinking a cup of Stumptown Sumatra Misty Valley coffee, a medium-roasted bean dried with some of the cherry still on the bean, giving excpetional fruit and a velvet texture. Later, I had ice water, then Limeade. With dinner, I'm drinking a Val Dieu Grand Cru Belgian Abbey Ale -- rich with notes of coffee, sweet shortbread, and a finish not unlike the best parts of caramalize sweet onion.

I still don't like bananas. Not one bit. I should clarify: raw, whole bananas. In breads, puddings, and whipped desserts they're perfectly manageable. Freshly peeled, perfectly ripe bananas? Not happening.

(On the off chance you're reading this and have no idea what's going on: a banana split is a sundae, consisting of a scoop each of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice cream, drizzled in caramel, hot fudge sauce, and strawberry sauce, covered in whipped cream, and fenced in with a banana, split in half and placed on either side of the ice cream. Yagh.)

The banana split I consumed was free; I set out to eat no banana that day. My friends and I, innocently sitting in a coffee shop eating a perfectly lovely chocolate pot du créme with peanut butter, intended no splitting of any sort or kind. And then the staff "accidentally" made a banana split for the wrong table and offered it to us for free -- "so it won't go to waste." We aren't fools; we accepted.

And if it had been a nice, rare Châteaubriand, I would have accepted with a smile on my face. Perhaps a neat stack of profiteroles? Why can nobody ever accidentally serve me a smallish tower of profiteroles, draped in caramel and chocolate? No, it was a banana split that now adorned our table. I set to it with a sigh and a grimace.

 As I've reported, I can now comfortably eat bananas in all manner of baked things. This seems to have done nothing whatsoever to my ability to eat a raw banana. Even mostly frozen and covered in good ice cream, I could barely choke my half banana down, and keeping it down took both time and effort.

I remark a curious trend: there is a list of other foods I've never been too fond of. Sweet potatoes, for instance, have never held a high place in my estimations, squash and brussel sprouts likewise. And yet, with no focused effort of any kind on my part, I'm starting to like all of them. Even given the amount of willpower I've dumped on bananas, I still find them nearly inedible -- my body just doesn't seem convinced that they qualify as "food." I have no adverse reactions beyond powerful disgust: no nausea, no sickness, no allergic reactions of any familiar form. Yet I can't help but wondering if there isn't something more visceral at work here than simple dislike?

The Senate is voting soon on new Farm legislation; those of you who've read The Omnivore's Dillema will appreciate that Farm legislation is wacky and insidious. The author of said book, Michael Pollan, has written fabulously eloquent verbiage on the legistlations problems in a NYT op-ed piece, which you should read. The rebuttal -- equally well written -- is by Tom Philpott, and is to be found here, at Grist. 

 Seriously, people. This is important. I'm going to educate myself and get back to you. More soon.