Is There Such A Thing As A Desk Potato?

Hi there. Long time no blog.

Things have gotten a little out of hand in recent weeks. I've fallen off the wagon -- the cooking wagon, that is -- so much so that I don't even have a kitchen-related photograph to show you today. Instead, I give you the view that I've been seeing a lot of lately: my desk at work. This is where the magic happens. Can't you tell?

Of course, I would be lying if I said that work has been the only thing keeping me from my chef's knife...

Usually on Saturdays I potter around in the kitchen. This is not a kitchen so much as a swanky hotel pool in Miami. The occasion: a bachelorette weekend. We spent the day reading Wolf Hall US Weekly and talking about Rahm Emmanuel's mayoral bid weddings.


And this? This is trouble.


This is the two laptop-sized pieces of Artichoke Basille pizza that I inhaled on the way to work on Sunday, in a frantic attempt to combat my hangover. A.K.A. double trouble.



These are gorgeous desserts about to leave the kitchen during a charity event at one of our restaurants on Sunday night. At least someone's been doing some cooking...

Listen, I'm not looking for pity here. I'm just pointing out that a busy schedule makes it difficult to take care of oneself properly; not taking care of oneself makes one feel exhausted; feeling exhausted makes it hard to care for oneself. And the vicious cycle goes on and on. Maybe I haven't been a couch potato lately but I've been the next worst thing, which is someone glued in front of a computer screen for many too many hours each day. Yes, a desk potato. And when not desk potatoing I've been spending my time consuming alcohol and animal fat in various forms.

And notice what isn't pictured above? Vegetables. Unless you count the ones swimming in grease and cheese on the pizza. Which I do not.

This calls to mind a New York Times article that I read last week about how you just can't get Americans to eat more vegetables. No matter what you do! Partly because they don't taste as good as, say, Twinkies, but they're also more expensive than Twinkies, and more time consuming to prepare and inferior in their shelf-life to the Twinkie. This makes them a very hard sell.

Even as someone who takes nutrition seriously, as you may have noticed, my enthusiasm for the CSA deliveries has waned in recent weeks. As it turns out getting odd quantities of strange vegetables at inconvenient times is not all that it's cracked up to be. I miss going to the greenmarket. I hate myself for putting Swiss Chard directly into the trash every single time. I'm annoyed at having to puzzle about what I could make that requires exactly three red onions, 5 baby turnips, and a head of bok choy. I don't always have the time, or at least the mental energy, to grapple with the multi-step process of preparing Jerusalem artichokes at the end of a long day. If it comes to that, I'd rather just eat a Twinkie. The CSA box is not for me.

I have to remind myself (and so do we all) that there are plenty of ways to incorporate vegetables into a meal without all that peeling, chopping, blanching, and roasting. Just a few of them:

1. An omelet and a green salad - If you have an extra vegetable or two lying about, omelets are a fantastic way to use them up. Just chop up the vegetables and saute them with some onions and garlic and they're a perfect filling. If you buy a head of Boston lettuce at the beginning of the week and keep it in the crisper drawer, you can shred a few leaves at a time into a simple salad in a matter of minutes.

2. Frozen vegetables and (lean) hamburgers-- A shortage of time to cook usually means a shortage of time for planning, and a major issue with vegetables is that you really need to plan out in advance what you'll use and when so that they don't spoil and go to waste. This is why frozen vegetables are so clutch; not only are they already prepped, but they can stay in the freezer for months at a time if necessary. Frozen broccoli, green beans, and peas are some of my alternatives to fresh versions. Steam them with a little water on the stove and then saute them in a hot pan with olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and whatever spices catch your fancy. To go along with the vegetables, you can defrost individual hamburger patties as you need them.

3. If all else fails...V-8 and an energy bar -- It lacks the romance of my go-to 'no cook' dinner, a glass of red wine with cheese and crackers, but has the advantages of a) being something that you can probably buy at your local drugstore, b) not making you fall asleep within 25 minutes and c) generally leaving you feeling top notch the next morning.

This week, I'm aiming to get back in the swing of things. The Viking's dear friend The Vegetarian is visiting for the week with his family, which will give me the perfect excuse to spend some quality time in the kitchen with vegetables. Who knows, maybe I'll even keep the Swiss Chard around this time.