October 10, 2013
(To learn about The Opposite Diet, go to the right column and click on “About The Opposite Diet.”)
The 9th Opposite Diet Tip:
9. The Art of Overeating (TAOO) says “Avoid the poduce department. For an overeater, the supermarket is heaven – with the exception of the produce department. Avoid it.”
Of course, you must do the opposite of this “tongue-in-cheek” advice. When you go to the supermarket make the produce department your first destination. The longer you wait, the older the lettuces, tomatoes, apples, pears and bananas are becoming.
Once you are there fill your shopping basket with the delicious fruits and vegetables. The available variety is amazing. Try different heirloom tomatoes – yellow, orange, purple and green. Or try the grape tomatoes. Fruit is plentiful from all over the world so there are seldom out-of-season times. Try exotics you might be unfamiliar with. The produce employees can direct you to the taste you like – tart or sweet. Try different kinds of lettuces and herbs. Mix it up. This will add flavor to a salad. Besides a mixture of lettuces, I put broccoli, mushrooms, tomatoes, dill, basil, Italian parsley, arugula and fruit such as grapes, mandarin oranges and blueberries in my salad. And since the salad dressing is key to a great salad, below is a repeat of the my simple, quick recipe for vinagrette dressing that is also described in Tip #8.
Once you have filled your shopping cart with fruits and vegetables, you will have less room and less money available for the unhealthy and fat-excessive foods of the cookie and cracker aisles, the frozen ice creams, the sauce-satuated deli foods and the sugar-filled bakery goodies.
Once again, my easy vinagrette salad dressing:
Best to make the dressing in a dressing container called a cruet. These are made of glass and have a removable lid with an opening for pouring. Most supermarkets sell them with a Good Seasonings packet of dressing ingredients. I give the packet away and keep the cruet.
Fill the cruet with balsamic vinegar up to the “V” (for vinegar) line. Use canola oil or safflower oil to fill the rest of the cruet to within 1 inch of the cruet top. Add salt and pepper to taste. Keep refrigerated and shake well every time before use. Of course, you can vary the oil and vinegar according to your own taste. Pretty easy, huh!
My Rant ‘N Rave
I realize that clothes are either in style or out of style. But I don’t understand how every designer designs the same thing. All the same color clothes or the same width of pant legs or the same kind of collar on a blouse or shirt. Do they text each other to discuss what they are going to design for the next season? There is a great deal of variety in the runway shows, but when the clothes hit the stores, they are mostly the same. I think being a clothing designer means being in style but also being individual.