Monday, September 5, 2016

The Body Screams for the Mediterranean Diet

Diet is a misnomer since there's no need to lose weight but you know what your body needs and it tells you.  Mine tells me to get Mediterranean because feta cheese makes anything better because Greeks do love their cheeses.

There were only two larger markets in Pyrgos and only one with enough size to qualify as an American supermarket even if not on the same scale.  An excellent surprise in such a market is the extraordinary variety of cheeses with feta cheeses being an obvious favorite.  The most unusual surprise was the number of ways octopus can be presented in a market and Greeks really like their octopods.

Octopus was not of much interest otherwise as I had tried it previously when it was served cold.  It was an unusual taste but not particularly remarkable so that was about it for my octoworld.  Watching how the snorkelers prepare an octopus after catching it may not be for the squeamish.


The Mediterranean diet in general compels because it tastes so damn good.  American salads, the stock variety in restaurants, are usually trials of endurance with a pile of boring-as-hell iceberg lettuce which offers nothing nutritional, maybe a few orphan plum tomatoes, and some cheese but not much else.  Yah, of course you do better at home since I see no reason anyone would want to do worse.


Olive oil and definitely the most virgin of the virginal for this may be sufficient or maybe use that as a base for a vinaigrette dressing but either way it's as pure as it can possibly be, imbued with the ancient spirits of the Greek gods.  That's true to a larger extent than it may seem.

The greens are always the interesting kind and darker is better.  Olives, whether green or black, must be there and it can't be complete without feta cheese but the rest is to taste and that base can't miss on an intriguing and satisfying taste.


There is no interest in losing weight as my BMI would be an envy if not for some (cough) complications.  The driver is food my body will accept.  There's no chemo or anything of that nature but there's poor reactions to food which seem related to nothing more than poor diet.  You know already your body tells you the right things to eat but there are difficulties even when we don't need to hear the song and dance about what they are.


The True Confession is the current driver came from a couple of pre-mixed Med salads from the market.  That was excessive when it's not difficult to get the bits from the same market but this drives hard that making up such a salad would be a good move.  The trouble with that is Walmart sells the huge size of everything so reluctance comes from the equally huge chance of a lot of waste.

The Walmart mix seems like it goes to find a package of mixed dark greens and that's a fairly good value rather than buying all the bits.  Olives are easy but I definitely want them pitted.  Walmart may even have more than one variety of feta cheese, if I recall.  The pre-mixed had some chicken bits but not many and so what.  More interesting would be some tomato, maybe some chopped onion, and perish the thought of those damnable Baco-Bits.  Maybe a little something for a bit of crunch or some chopped pepper for a bit of fire and then the blessed olive oil.


The six-dollar El Supremo.  Walmart has rotisserie chicken for six bucks a bird.  If I get one of those and chop up some for a salad, most of the bird is still waiting to be 'et.  Looks like the market budget is ten bucks for El Supremo with a whole lot left over for subsequent eating.  Part of this is to pitch it to Yevette since she's not overly blowed-away but she has liked this stuff in the past.

The bird is optional but that definitely takes it up to El Supremo.  You probably have your own variations on the same thing as it invites experimenting.  Unknown if I'll ever sell Yevette on it since she's got a whole lot of Texas beef and 'taters behind her but I know I'm sold.  Must do this.

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