Diets & Clean Freaks

There I was, in the customer lounge at my auto’s dealership, waiting to have my brakes done and my oil changed. Not overly a fan of car ownership in general, I find auto customer lounges to be especially dispiriting. To any ex-NYC city folk, even if you haven’t lived there in 20 years, there’s something so quintessentially wretched and suburban about waiting around for your wheels to be serviced. It’s almost worse than the DMV. While the various dealerships make an effort, sometimes even a supreme effort (my own dealership is particularly kind, offering Keurig coffee, TV, and free Wifi), the wait is always long and tedious until your name is called. This time I brought a book but too quickly finished it. Having failed to bring my laptop, I started watching tv.

The tail end of the “Live with Kelly and Michael” was on and their guest was Kevin Bacon. I’m inclined to like Kevin solely on the basis of his name. Besides sworn vegans, who doesn’t like Bacon? Kevin was promoting his star turn in a new cable series, “The Following,” but he also was  charming and chatty about his upcoming anniversary with his wife, Kyra Sedgewick. Her show, “The Closer,” which shot for several years in L.A., has ended, but she said she would miss it (and no doubt the weather). So Kevin revealed that they bought a a small place in L.A. to be their romantic grown up “empty nest” getaway because their home in CT is never empty thanks to their kids. Stuck as I was in the auto customer lounge, I couldn’t tear my eyes off Kevin, who appears to never age, and is even better looking now than he was when he starred in “Diner,” “Apollo 13,” and “Mystic River.” He also seems like the perfect husband, i.e. a subscriber to the adage, “Happy wife, happy life.” For their upcoming significant anniversary, instead of the “Footloose” style dance party they usually have, Kyra expressed interest in renewing their marriage vows. “I don’t really like the idea, but if she wants it, I’ll do it,” Kevin said, manfully.

The Rachael Ray show was next. In case you haven’t tuned in for awhile, Rachael’s not all about cooking now, although there is a heavy cooking component. And I do mean, heavy. More on that in a minute. Rachael kicks off sitting on a couch with her guest du jour, who that morning was a doctor opining how to prevent flu and other dangerous germs from entering your domicile. By the time the guy was through, I couldn’t decide if he was a freakazoid germaphobe or a reckoning into the future. when not only will we all be armed, but we’ll all be wearing plastic gloves and surgical masks. According to this guy, you should never touch an ATM with your bare hands. fingers. You should use hand sanitizer throughout the day, that is when you can’t actually use soap and water. You should spray clean the face of your smart phone regularly, and while out and about, never ever touch a handrail or a door knob. You should never wear shoes or boots inside the house. While he was talking I thought how germy I must be, although I almost never use an ATM, don’t own a smart phone, and gave up taking mine or anybody else’s boots off upon entry.

Sitting in a public waiting room watching all this, I was starting to feel a bit hinky. One of the things the doc said never to do was touch a waiting room magazine. He got quite graphic and gross talking about waiting rooms in doctors’ offices. Of course I realized how all the magazines are touched over and over by sick peoples’ hands. Just as I was pulling my coat around me more tightly as though it could be a barrier to other peoples’ viruses, Rachael switched gears to enter her special Rachael Ray kitchen where she was about to present her recipe for apple cider brined double cut pork chops. The recipe called for making mulled cider first and then soaking the chops in them overnight. After that the chops were dried, dredged lightly in flour, and browned in a pan. Next they were popped in a Dutch oven and smothered with browned onions and then slow cooked for several hours to be served with crispy, thick, potato pancakes, and green beans. After all this talk with the doc about avoiding germs, I was shocked by Rachael’s food, which was high calorie, extremely heavy, and covered and cooked in gobs of fat and salt. And her serving sizes! She must be appeasing the heart, aka “heart attack” land. A single portion was 2 thick cut boned pork chops, 2 enormous potato pancakes, and a quarter cup of green beans. Now I really was feeling sick.

The takeaway from this story is that once they said my car was ready, I drove straight home not to disinfect the house, which is hopeless, but to duplicate the apple cider brine. Rachael said herself it could be used on a whole chicken. I poured a quarter jug of fresh apple cider into a saucepan. To this I added a splash of apple cider vinegar, some fresh garlic, and a couple of bay leaves. I brought this mixture to a rolling boil, and poured it over a washed, fresh killed organic whole chicken waiting in a stainless steel bowl. This went into the refrigerator to rest overnight. In a couple of hours, I’ll take out the chicken, dry it, and pan roast it in the oven. We have broccoli and spinach. My husband would probably love the potato pancakes, but they’re not on our diet.