What American girls are good for.

A friend once repeated a remark he'd heard a comedian say - "The only thing American girls are good for is ordering off a menu." Now, I think this is hilarious - I also think there is some truth in there. We're good at other things, sure, but we're especially good at ordering from menus. Why? Because Americans are used to an abundance of choice. Our menus - our world - is options galore. Our problem isn't a lack of options, it's actually that we have too many options - and we don't know how to make informed choices about what we eat.

I have a life-threatening food allergy. Boring! Honestly, it's not something which impacts my day to day very much. The only time it's ever much of an issue is when I dine out. I guess my point is this - if I, with a life-threatening food allergy and all my damn dietary restrictions can still walk into any restaurant (Okay, maybe not The Stinking Rose) and manage to order a meal that I'll survive the consumption of, which is also reasonably healthy and tasty - anyone can. It's simply a matter of making informed and intelligent decisions about what I put in my body.

Tonight I went out to dinner with friends. I did what I usually do - I ordered two appetizers. Why? Because I like being able to have more than one thing, and I've found that the portions are much more reasonable. One dish was a lovely Japanese cucumber salad with seaweed, peppers, asparagus and a sesame and vinegar dressing, and the other was kabocha tempura. No meat. No dairy. Not a whole lot of fat. Yum as fuck.

Random Cookbook Plug: Dolores Casella's The Complete Vegetable Cookbook