By Larry Levine –
(BUT I STILL LOVE TO EAT is a memoir in progress being published in draft form in this magazine.)
I was doing fine, feeling smug about my ability to stick to a responsible diet – low fat, low cholesterol, low sodium. Then until Jennifer and I set sail on a 16-day cruise from San Diego California, through the Panama Canal to Ft. Lauderdale Florida and I faced challenges like none I had known before.
A cruise ship is where diets go to die.
The first night out we dined at the upscale Pinnacle Grill on the Holland America Lines’ Rotterdam. No problem. I had a beef steak tomato salad and grilled salmon with basmati rice. No desert. Just coffee. Red wine – zinfandel – with dinner.
Second night out – same restaurant. Wonderful crab cakes, not overly breaded or fried, but probably fairly heavy on the sodium. Some Frangelico as a before dinner drink. Grilled black cod with asparagus and rice. Hardly touched the asparagus because they were swimming in some kind of creamy butter sauce. Again, no desert, just coffee.
Third night out – dinner at the larger main restaurant. Small Ceasar Salad, grilled Pacific cod fish with roasted potatoes and steamed vegetables. Red wine. No desert. Black coffee.
Breakfast each day consisted of oat meal with hot soy milk and sliced banana. And a cup of coffee. Except the third morning out when I got to the restaurant too late and had to go upstairs to the buffet. There was oat meal in a big tub and no fruit other than bananas soaking in orange juice. So, I had an omelet with onions, mushrooms and tomatoes, a single slice of wheat toast dry and a cup of coffee. The omelet was cooked in olive oil. No big disaster here.
Lunch onboard the ship was a salad of leafy greens with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, radish and a dressing of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Each morning I would make a tour of the two restaurants – the upscale Pinnacle Grill and the main dining room. I would look at the dinner menu for each and decide where I wanted to eat that night. The $10 extra charge for Pinnacle was worth it and we ate there half the nights on the ship. I also would inspect the lunch menu for the main dining room and decide if I wanted to eat there or at the buffet, where there usually were some fairly safe options.
I was doing very well. The almost no fat, very low cholesterol and non-existent sodium breakfast left me some wiggle room the rest of the day.
All around me, however, were grossly overweight people stuffing themselves with the bounty of the cruise ship entitled. Eggs with bacon, ham and sausages all on the same plate at breakfast, followed by French toast and a pastry with coffee and often a second trip through the buffet line. Not just an isolated individual. But in every direction. Lunch consisted of several trips through the buffet line to pack away a plate from the Asian station, a second plate from the Italian station, probably a third plate from the carvery, and followed by at least one visit to the desert bar. On the way out, might as well stop at the taco bar, or grab a hot dog.
All the while, I’m leaving our cabin each morning at 6 a.m. to either spend an hour on the treadmill and stationary bicycle at the gym or knock off a mile and a half walk around the deck.
Danger, however, did rear its head the first night out and then began to tap on my shoulder with increasing insistence as the days ticked by. At dinner that first night, I spotted the baked Alaska on the desert menu. That’s always been one of the few deserts to which I aspire. I told Jennifer I would probably treat myself to a baked Alaska before we left the ship. She volunteered to make a great sacrifice and share it with me. I also made a mental note of the Colorado lamb chops. I think Colorado lamb is the best lamb on the market these days.
Then we made a stop at Manzanillo Mexico, where I got off the ship and prowled briefly around the town. Not much there but tourist shops, a couple of restaurants and some portable food stands. I did get in a two-mile walk along the boardwalk at a stiff pace.
While waiting for the shuttle bus to return me to the ship, I scanned the menu of a nearby restaurant. There it was in bold type that seemed to jump off the page – Tampanique. STEAK TAMPICO! My favorite of all Mexican meals – grilled steak and onions, with taquitos, an enchilada, a tamale, rice and beans. I first ate steak Tampico in Mexico City in 1961. I was there with a tour group being hosted by a travel agent buddy. It was Thanksgiving weekend and the first night in town the hotel was providing a Thanksgiving dinner for the American visitors.
“I didn’t come to Mexico to eat turkey,” I told my friend.
“So, go downstairs to the restaurant and order steak Tampico,” he answered.
I did and I was hooked. We were in town for four days. I had steak Tampico six times for lunch and dinner at different restaurants. I spent a fair amount of time in Mexico during my bachelor years in the early 1960s. Each time, steak Tampico would magically appear before me. Now, I was standing on a street corner in Manzanillo, 43 years later, looking at a menu and the words were screaming at me – STEAK TAMPICO; to hell with your heart; you’re being good enough to deserve a treat. But it was only 11 a.m. – too early for lunch. I would return to the ship and hold the steak Tampico for some future port.
It never happened; I never saw my dream dinner on another menu. But the slippage had begun. Crab cakes followed by rack of lamb one night. No desert, but I already had spotted the veal chop on the menu, and that baked Alaska still lingered at the edges of consciousness. All the while, the prospects of the restaurants at which we already had booked post-cruise reservations in New York kept banging at my brain – “don’t overdo it here on the ship; there’s Morimoto and Daniel and the River Café; there’s the Oyster Bar and Tavern on the Green and Café des Artiste, and del Posto. You don’t want to have to feel guilty at those places; give up a little on the mass produced ship-board food and save yourself for New York,” I told myself.
So, with that in mind, I summoned up the strength to reprise the grilled salmon and pass on the veal chop the night of the baked Alaska. I stopped drinking Frangelico and stuck to just a glass or two of red wine – Cabernet Sauvignon – with dinner.
Chiapas was our last stop in Mexico. There was no steak Tampico on the menu at the restaurant where we stopped for lunch. But there was Pollo con Mole and I’ve long believed mole is the sauce of the gods. I held out with no Mexican restaurant food for five months. Here I figured I’m being good enough to treat myself. It is, after all, not necessary to be perfect at every meal; it’s the overall diet that counts.
If cruise ships are where diets go to die, then senior citizen complexes in South Florida are where diets go to kill people.
After the cruise we Pembroke Pines to spend five days visiting relatives. With my aunt Tillie, we went to the restaurant at the Century Village retirement complex. Every item on the menu was lethal – smoked fish and meats, bacon, sausage, French toast, eggs. I settled for a turkey burger (fat included) on a sesame bun. Then next morning, when I couldn’t get service at the hotel restaurant, I went off in search of a coffee shop or deli where I could get a bowl of oat meal. There is no such place anywhere close by. When I asked the desk clerk at the hotel for some recommendations, I got a blank stare. “You mean like a Denny’s,” she asked. “I was hoping for something a little better,” I said. She turned to the computer to look for a place. But she clearly was out of luck. And so was I. I got in the car and ventured into the neighborhood. I wandered through parking lots in front of malls for an hour and couldn’t find a single place serving anything more for breakfast than a Starbuck’s Pandini, for which I ultimately settled – eggs, cheese, sodium and all.
All in all, the 21 days on the ship and in Florida presented some challenges. Then it was on to New York. The first morning in the hotel exercise facility I stepped on the scale. I weighed exactly what I had weighed the morning we left home.
Here’s a recipe for a Mexican dish I make at home. It complies with my post-surgical dietary guidelines.
CHICKEN RANCHERO
1 lb skinless, boneless chicken thighs cut into 2-inch strips
2 Tblsp vegetable oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2 medium onion (sliced)
1 California green chili – seeds and spines removed (sliced thinly)
1 clove garlic (chopped)
1 medium tomato (diced)
¼ tsp dried thyme (crushed)
½ tsp cumin
4 oz. tomato sauce
½ cup beer
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
½ cup sliced mushrooms
Heat oil in a wide skillet. Brown the chicken in the oil. Salt and pepper to taste. Add onion, chilies, garlic, tomatoes, thyme, cumin. tomato sauce, beer, Worcestershire sauce and mushrooms. Simmer covered for 30 minutes.
Serve with Spanish rice, refried beans and warm flour tortillas.
Makes 2 large servings.
NOTE: If you’ve been really good on your diet you can turn this into Steak Ranchero. Substitute one point of a nice cut of beef. Slice it into 2-inch strips. Sear it in oil. follow the rest of the direcctions as for the chicken version, but you’ll need to simmer it for 45 minutes to an hour. Don’t buy an inexpensive cut of beef that’s intended for braising, or it will come out tough unless you cook it a lot longer.
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