My husband and I have started watching Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food and one thing I can say about JO is that guy's got passion. Getting people to eat well and cook for themselves is clearly something he cares a lot about and isn't just a put-on for his shows. Every time I watch him (or other people extolling the virtue of organic/100 mile/make-it-all-yourself food ) I get all fired up and want to become some healthy eating superwoman. I want to be a food saint.
But that feeling only ever lasts a day or two. The reality is I'm not perfect. I eat junk, I succumb to the lure of McDonald's now and then (more "now" than "then" lately). I don't buy organic, I use shortcuts in the kitchen (ever since my kid was born we've been buying pre-diced garlic. It's just so much easier!).
Sometimes it gets me down that I don't make more effort to be "perfect" in the kitchen, but I think I'm being too hard on myself. I think I'm a healthy middle ground between Jamie himself and the shlubs he always finds for his shows who eat nothing but takeout every day and whose diet is entirely beige. People who, in their late 50s, admit to never having cooked a thing in their lives. People who can't identify common veggies like broccoli. I may eat McDonald's, but I also make my own marinara sauce from scratch, thank you very much.
Earlier this week we were watching a recent episode where Jamie taught a few soccer hooligans (oups, I mean fans) to cook a chicken dish with asparagus and then had them teach each other. This morning, as we were putting together this week's meal plan, my husband turned to me out of the blue and said "I want to try that Jamie Oliver chicken thing." See - that guy can get anybody fired up!
We swapped out asparagus for green beans because that's what we had on hand and used dried thyme instead of fresh because I forgot to get the fresh. It was very, very tasty.
store-bought potatoes (shame!) on the side.
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