food » CoupleDumb

An Enchilada Recipe with a side of healthy relationship.

Nov 202009

Everything taste better with an egg on it.
          Friday is here and we are starving. We have been talking about food all week and it’s time to get cooking. As the Holidays quickly approach, all of us turn to thinking about some delicacies that hold warm memories and link us to a simpler time. Some things just taste so damn good that we can’t get enough. Comfort foods are different for each person but the feelings these dishes give us are truly universal. So grab a bowl of chicken noodle soup and a grilled cheese sandwich and read on.

          Lee says: I’m Cuban so those foods are yummy but mean nothing to me. Now if you said white rice and a friend egg then my mind would flood with memories of my youth. If you said Tamal en Casuela I would remember special Sunday dinners that would be warmed by the goodness of this meal. Cuban toast and café con leche was a breakfast that I would eat when I was pregnant with Bobby. That combo, in addition to some cheesy 70s music, tapped me into a sense of peace that I was sorely lacking during that pregnancy.

          So what is comfort food if not a type of drug (panacea)? We use food to take away or drown a pain. When emotionally hurt, a woman is supposed to eat ice cream. When a guy is angry he eats a steak. I know I’m generalizing but clichés are based on some sort of reality. For example: Chicken soup for a cold. Is there antibiotic properties to boiled chicken? No but it does have anti-inflammatory effects. And they have found that chicken soup stops the movement of neutrophils which are responsible for mucous and possibly the cough produced during a cold. Wow! I thought it just was soothing, especially how my Mommy made it.

          My Mom boiled a whole chicken in water with spices (salt, pepper, garlic powder) and one whole sliced onion. She added squash to the mix and boiled the hell out of it. She would remove the chicken, check the seasoning then blend and puree the squash with the chicken broth. This was Sopa Amarilla (Yellow Soup). You could have it with or without noodles or over white rice. This was the magic soup. My little brother called it Sopa Maria (Maria’s soup) since he misunderstood that my Mom would choose a name for this ambrosia solely on the color and consistency. Go ahead and ask him right now what it’s called and he’ll swear that it’s Maria’s Soup and you can’t change his 36 year old mind.

          So my point is, and I do have one, food is not just something to sustain life. It holds a special place in our psyche. It is sacred and should be revered. Do you find it interesting that the longer it takes to cook the better it is for you? Or, the simpler the food the healthier? The question is: Are you treating your body like a temple or a state fair?

          Recipe for Green Enchiladas- Lee style

Please note that I always make a lot of these since they tend to be great for leftovers and Paul cries when we run out.

          5 lbs. Boneless and Skinless Chicken Breasts

          1 yellow onion

          1 can of green chilies

          Large Package of corn tortillas (this isn’t really a good recipe with exact measurements. This is CoupleDumb. We talk about relationships.)

          Cheese (lots and lots)

          2 bunches of cilantro

          2-3 lbs of tomatillos (or if you can find them in cans even better since you don’t have to wash them and roast them with salt in a 350 degree oven for 30-45 minutes).

          Salt to taste

          Garlic powder (for broth only)

          Pepper (for broth)
          Boil chicken, half a can of chilies and onion with seasonings until chicken is cooked. Save this broth for some really yummy soup. Meanwhile blend roasted tomatillos and cilantro in a Cuisinart. Add salt and pepper to taste.
          Take chicken and use two forks to shred them. Take shredded chicken and mix them with some of the sauce and cheese (so that it has a consistency where it sticks together). Then put some chicken mixture into a raw tortilla and roll and place in an oiled oven resistant pan with some sauce on the bottom. Continue until you finish the bottom row. Then cover it with sauce and cheese. I repeat another layer on top since Paul likes it stacked. Cover it with foil and bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees (make sure the cheese is all melted). Eat it with a fried egg. Yummy.

          Paul says: It’s kind of weird that both my mother and Lee make enchiladas that elicit in me an emotional reaction. Even though they are wildly different, they bring a gluttonous tear to my eye every time that I eat them. They are like love with an egg on top.

10,000 Calorie per Day Relationship

Relationship Rejects

Nov 192009

Everything is good as a sandwich.

          Our relationship with food defines who we are. It is directly linked to our self esteem, our social life, and our health. Anyone who tries to pretend like it is just about eating is fibbing to you. Luckily, you have CoupleDumb to set you straight. So, grab a donut in each hand and enjoy your Thursday while we talk some more about food.

          Paul says: To understand my relationship with food, I need to tell you a little story. When I was a younger man in my late teens, my brother and I went on a weight gaining diet. I was rail thin at six feet tall and 128 pounds and my brother had an unhealthy body fat less than 5%. So, for six months I ate 10,000 calories per day. To eat that many calories required about a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon (I wasn’t worried about cholesterol), a protein shake, and then more food two hours later. Basically, I would eat constantly. At night I would go to bed bloated from my pre-slumber shake, hoping that I did not vomit in my sleep. My brother and I did this every day for six months and, at the end, I gained a whopping two pounds. Oh, my brother gained nothing.

          People hate this story. That they hate the story is ok. They like to tell me how much they hate that story and that is not ok. During my formative teen years, I despised the way I looked. When girls liked meaty coordinated boys, I had gangly and bony going at full throttle. At least that is what I thought girls liked. As I get older I realize the girls are just as clueless as boys but that insight was not granted to me until well after it was useful. So when I made myself sick in hopes that it would make me more attractive socially and sexually, I was greeted with a very verbal dislike. Please actually said the words, ‘I hate you’ to my face. These were friends that would say the words with a jocular cadence and ire in their eyes.

          That is what helped create my relationship with food. It mirrors the responses I got for my eating habits. I love food and I hate food. I will eat almost anything. I do not like salmon or coconut. Beyond that, everything is fair game. I can be a vegetarian because I love vegetables or I can be a strict carnivore because meat is yummy. Add garlic and everything is delicious. At a point in my life, I embraced that I was naturally thin and developed my most unhealthy eating habits. Once I figured out that I can eat whatever I wanted without the risk of weight gain, I did just that. A half sheet of cake for breakfast or gallons of ice cream before bed are just alright with me. Then I turned 40 and began gaining weight. Fuck you, genetics!

          So this whole story is my way of illustrating that food is a central relationship, not an ancillary one. Take a look at your relationship with food and you will see your relationship with almost everything else. I’m going to go make oatmeal now because I have a lifetime of habits to break. Fuck you, genetics!

          Lee says: As his partner for the last 22 years, I can tell you this is not the same man I married. Wait, he still eats the same but the physique is quite different. That’s not true. When we met, his food could not touch. There was a lot of it but his food was not allowed to co-mingle. My mother, and I’d like to think a little sex and loosening up, fixed all that up. Paul likes to think that he has always been this easy going guy but where food was concerned, he had a love/rigid relationship. He could eat anything but it was just so. Food was enjoyable and probably after the 10,000 calorie a day diet, it became a means to an end that genetics ultimately took care of 20 years later.

          A good example is when we were dating. We had gone on our first weekend getaway together (sharing a room- OMG!). I was a wreck. We met our great friend, Steve, in Palo Alto and drove to Berkeley for some sightseeing and dinner. While we ate our scrumptious Italian meal, I had the audacity to take a piece of my garlic bread and dip into my marinara (on my plate). Paul leaned over and Mr. Mild Mannered whispered, ‘What are you doing?’ I was surprised but answered, ‘I’m dipping my bread.’ He then looked at me and said ‘That’s disgusting!’ I was mortified. Of course, I had no idea that he was uptight about food.

          Now, I have to stop him from dipping anything and everything. Sure, occasionally I’ll give him the stink eye and say how disgusting that is. He doesn’t care. I’m like a food Pygmalion and he is my Galatea. O.K. , my Galatea is a little plumper and dips his bread into everything but he’s still mine.

Celebrity Smackdown : Hollywood Food

Celebrity Smackdown

Nov 182009

That's not really Jesus. Jesus likes his coffee hot and black, like his women.

          Does everyone have their smacking gloves on? We do! It feels good to let loose every now and then. It feels good to not hold back your feelings and let those judgments fly. It feels good to say the things that everyone thinks but are too politically correct to say for fear reprisal through law suits or thugs named Bernard. It feels good to mention that anything we say on CoupleDumb is really our personal opinion and an editorial of said subject matter. It feels good to make our attorney happy. So now that we said that, we can concentrate on something as elusive as Loch Ness and enigmatic as alien abduction. We are talking about celebrities and food.

          Lee says: This is so unfair. Paul picks the theme of the week and I am stuck figuring out which celebrity has food issues or demonstrates a poor relationship to food. Yeah, that’s easy. The realization is that you never see celebrities eating. Sure, you see them drinking their Starbucks and Red Bulls but you never see them pounding back a Big Mac or munching on some tacos. It just isn’t seen. Sure, occasionally you’ll catch them leaving a restaurant or they’ll report that everyone went to In & Out Burger after an award show but do you see any paparazzi shots of them eating a Double Double with grilled onions and extra sauce? Nope. However, you do see celebrities leaving gyms all sweaty and sucking on a bottle of water. But, isn’t having no relationship with food dysfunctional?

          For years we have been seeing these people losing weight and staying rail thin. The waif has been around for over 40 years but can you blame Twiggy for the revamping of feminine perfection? Back then flat chested women with a 20 inch waist was pretty, but today, the girl better have some titties. We are looking for real Barbies. I am sure there is some stupid model asking a podiatrist to deform her right now to get that ungodly bend and tapering of her foot. To these girls, food is the enemy. It is an addiction. Explain? If an alcoholic stops drinking, isn’t he still an addict? Yes. An addiction is an obsession (thought) and a compulsion (action). He/she may stop drinking (action) but the obsession (thought) is still there. This unhealthy relationship with food not only affects them but their audience as well. Thanks to these bitches, their handlers, photographers, magazine editors and fashion designers, we are forced to adhere to their idea of physical perfection instead of them catering to the needs of their customers. Isn’t there something wrong with this?

          And then we have these famous for nothing bitches who spend every night partying and drinking and yet don’t gain an ounce. Thank God for bitches like the Kardashians who at least sport a real girl ass and yet are considered fat because they have hips and butts. You see, tits are fine. Humungous tits are acceptable but you can’t have a waist and your hips and ass better look like a 13 year old boy’s. Fake is fine in these equations. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been reconstructed to something akin to the 6 million dollar chick with bionic boobies, razor sharp pug nose and ab implants that make you look like your tummy was a school zone with speed bumps. As long as you are ‘perfect’ that’s great. But my question is how can these bitches drink as much as they do, and lets face it they have the DUIs to prove it, and yet not gain an ounce?

          Then last but not least, celebrities who gain and lose weight for a role. Yeah, that makes all of us with weight issues feel so much better. People like Robert DeNiro and Rene Zellwegger gaining weight for a role or Tom Hanks and Christian Bale losing an unhealthy amount for a role. To all these people, food is fuel and a means to an end. There is no reverence. Yes I know, I am a food addict but I am also spiritual. Food is a gift and without it we would die. I love my coffee like the next person and I have never ordered at Frappaccino in my life, however, you have to wonder whether they have all the nutrition a human needs to survive.