There is a scene in this wonderfully fun movie that… has romance, a bad guy, action and genuine sentiment. The scene pictured above is of Richard Dryfus ( Irv) kissing his wife’s hand and as corny as it might appear out of context… it was moving and sweet.
‘Lose weight or die more quickly and horribly’ would be a great slogan for a dieting commercial. For example, I love those shock commercials about smoking that show some older gent wheezing and , sympathetically, we listen to him warn us not to let this happen to us. Stop smoking, I get it. But if I were to take an educated guess, being overweight causes more physical harm and early death than almost anything we are doing to ourselves and it will only get worse.
I say get worse, because, it appears that the corpulent are moving into more sedentary years. I don’t think we have to worry about boomers taxing the social security program, a lot less of us may be around to collect anything. Now, the CDC had a quite beautiful color presentation of the trend in obesity rates in this country… but hard to understand… so I changed the colors and gray scaled it. Now, you can better see what’s going on. Arteries are choking in the heartland of America.
First, I know that the diversity of our commercial food offerings is part of what drives people to eat more and I wouldn’t give that up. I know that ‘super tasters’ like me have an additional challenge, but one doesn’t have to feast every day, drink everyday and give up walking.
By the way, strenuous exercise stimulates the appetite and initiates a chain of events leading to failure, dieting and walking is the key. When I was a young boy I had a favorite customer on my paper route, he was 103. He impressed me with his stories and finally I asked him — in my youthfully honest way — why he lasted so long? He told me that it was because he walked everyday to his coffee shop and such. Interestingly enough he did drive on occasion, but he impressed on me that walking was what kept his motor running. He noticed that the first things his friends stopped doing was to walk places, then came the chair , the bed and then death. He said that at a certain age, once you stop walking the ability to start walking again becomes nearly impossible. He also enjoyed eating fabulously on Sunday, drank his ‘Old Fashions’ and brandies, but he was lean the rest of the week.
Just watch what you eat, walk every day ( pick a fun destination , say a coffee shop) and allow yourself to enjoy 1 fabulous meal a week and you’ll lose weight… which makes most people healthier… if not happier.
Roger
PS. I am working on my one extravagant meal of the week… for Saturday!
Once you have taken the time to make your own pastrami and tweak it to your particular taste, it’s hard to buy anything else! Some folks cure their brisket for hours, others — like me — for weeks. Some like a standard sort of brine mixture… others ( again, like me) enjoy a mixture with beer, juniper and allspice berries. The beauty of making anything for yourself is that you can find the style that suits you best. So it wouldn’t surprise you if I said that I like my recipebest.
I can see why most folks don’t realize that Pastrami and Corned Beef are very similar although the final product seems very different. Pastrami starts off with a finished corned beef then goes through a small seasoning process and finally smoked. Most corned beef is served boiled and this allows the fat to disappear and leave a leaner product with the characteristic meaty ‘strings.’ Pastrami however is almost never boiled — at least I don’t — and the final product appears with thin ribbons of fat… which is why — I think — it is almost always served hot.
My great Uncle Karl was an interesting man, a shorter and chubbier version of myself that made his living as a butcher and also had a preference for Pastrami. I was fond of him (Karla is named after him) and talking with him about food was always a treat.
Roger
PS. By the way, Pastrami is one of Laura’s favorite dishes … hmmm … it continually amazes me how she gets me to make these things while allowing me to think it is my idea.