Dandelions and Butterfly Kisses (aka Flowers and Grass)

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I could be considered a ‘Health Nut.’ I was thinking about tweaking my daily diet, but after reviewing my normal eating habits I believe that I am one fit MoFo. For instance, my morning vodka smoothies are always packed full of vibrant, fresh, locally grown fruit. And whenever I eat out at a restaurant I always order a side dish of steamed vegetables. This provides me with extra fiber, vitamins and minerals, and a moist place to extinguish my cigarettes. And after the work day is done, I feel that I am the Jack LaLanne of Happy Hour. No greasy hot wings or fat-laden dips for me. I stay with the simple heart-healthy olive. Two are conveniently provided in each low-calorie martini, and I’ve been told that there are times during the course of the evening that I’ll have consumed over twelve of these little Mediterranean medicine balls. (I don’t really recall this, but then I’ve never been good with numbers).

So after my ‘Health Nut’ self-realization, I decided to seek out and experience the next level of the healthy food lifestyle which I affectionately refer to as the ‘All Natural-Organic Health Fanatic.’ We all know someone in this category. It’s the person who does squats while talking on the phone, doesn’t eat ‘red’ meat and always asks the waiter if the tuna salad is ‘dolphin safe.’ I asked to be introduced to this lifestyle by my friend Robin who would rather fast for thirty days than eat anything that wasn’t organically grown. Plus, she’s got a great rack…er, a great rack of Self-Help books that I occasionally borrow. Robin happily agreed to escort me through her typical day of ‘health driven’ meals (her term, not mine).

First stop; a breakfast smoothie. Now we’re talkin’! She took me into an ‘Organic Juice Bar’ and right behind the counter was a big wooden tray with a hunk of sod that they were making drinks out of. I’m serious! There was a sign over it that said ‘Wheat Grass’, so I asked the kid standing next to it how it compared to Marathon III or traditional Kentucky fescue, and he kind of cocked his head to the side and stared at me like a confused puppy. Then the girl behind the counter asked me if I wanted to ‘Super Shot’ my Orange Mango drink and I said “Oh yeah! Give me three of Patron’ Silver.”

Again I received the puppy look as she pointed to a list on the wall that included all of their ‘Super Shots.’ Bee pollen? Ginseng? Four different types of protein powder but no Smirnoff or Jose Cuervo? What type of weird parallel universe had I crossed into?

Lunch proved to be even worse. Robin took me to her favorite ‘all-natural organic’ restaurant. I was going to ask her if it was possible to be organic without being all-natural when the waitress placed what looked like some sort of Christmas-wreath-on-a-plate in front of me. Robin told me that this was her favorite ‘salad’ but it looked more like a bunch of prickly weeds and tree leaves topped with…wait a minute…are those dandelions? Robin said that the name of this dish was “Dandelions and Butterfly Kisses” and it was topped with freshly squeezed “lemon dressing.” I had to tell her that a freshly squeezed lemon isn’t a dressing, it’s a juice and when you combine it with a small compost of bitter greens that ‘butterfly kisses’ isn’t what comes to mind. A better name for this unsightly haystack would have been “Freshly Urinated Field Clippings” or “The Lemon/Lawnmower Incident.” And although Robin is great eye candy, I had to end this food fueled episode of ‘”The Twilight Zone” and escape back to my world where people don’t order their meals from a landscaping catalog. I ended up having dinner with a grass fed patty of prime USDA Angus, and a couple of sweet, frothy blondes. (Two forty-ounce blonde ales to be exact.)

Yeah, the life of a dedicated, self proclaimed ‘Health Nut’ isn’t easy, but who wants to live to be a hundred if you have to eat like Robin? If I’m losing a few years because of my love of butter sauces and aged beef, so be it. For this Health Nut, it’s quality over quantity. So if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to treat my heart to a little olive therapy.