So, several months ago, after being on a whole food, plant based diet (WFPBD), I was getting a little bit bored with plain baked potatoes, plain brown rice (even with some salsa on it), steamed or boiled vegetables, salads and beans, etc. etc. I’m not a cook by any stretch of the imagination, and simply don’t have any time, even with all of the so called “easy” recipes for WFPB diets that are on line, to prepare, cook, clean up and eat any of those delicious looking meals. Nonetheless, my taste buds were crying out for something special, so I tried my hand at following an “easy to prepare” meal that was recommend by one of the WFPBD experts. Here it is and it looked incredibly appetizing!
https://www.drmcdougall.com/recipes/cauliflower-mac-and-no-queso/
I cleared my schedule and had an entire afternoon free and was up for the task. First, I needed some of the ingredients and ran off to Whole Foods to do some shopping. And after eagerly bringing everything home, I spent the next two hours in grinding, cutting, measuring, boiling, steaming, mixing, etc. etc. From the looks of it, you would have thought I was a chef and I was proud of myself for actually trying my hand at this. To be brief, though, I wound up with a nearly inedible, nearly tasteless meal that I forced myself to eat. I just couldn’t throw it out: after all, I had spent an hour or so at the store getting the ingredients, then spent all that time in prep, then cleaning up the horrible mess I had made—what else was I to do beside eat the “food” I had so excitedly prepared. To say that it was awful is an understatement. My wife refused to eat it, but knowing that it was completely plant based and salt and oil free, I was hell bent to force it down my throat. It took an enormous amount of will power to stop myself from running to 7-11 after all of that to get a Snickers Bar (Hagen Daas would have been my second choice!!).
I’m not one for giving up and so I knew what I had to do—-so that very night I went on line to search for vegan cooking classes. My taste buds demanded it—I needed more “excitement” in my food and meals. Being vegan, I searched for classes of this sort and because we were still at the tail end of Covid, almost all of them were on line courses. On line wasn’t for me—being such a novice at cooking, I needed expert real live person showing me the ropes. And, the other issue was that most of them were vegetarian (not vegan at all) and of course, none of them were strictly kosher. So, my search took forever and I finally found one at the Institute of Culinary Education (https://www.ice.edu/campuses/newyork) , the number one ranked culinary school in America. And quite fortunately for me, although quite an expensive school, they had relatively inexpensive courses for no credit and also fortunately, it was located in Manhattan, a mere half hour from my house.
I signed up immediately and I was actually quite lucky that the vegan course started just a few weeks later. Boy, was I ever psyched!! The chef was world renown, and the graduates from the school all got the very best restaurant gigs all across America. I headed out to school that cold December morning with as much enthusiasm as a kindergartner about tho start his first day at school. I mean, just the description of the meal itself was mouth watering. Who could resist something like this: “General Tao’s broccoli and Kung Pao (who these guys were, I’ll never know!) edamame black rice bowl with toasted sesame seeds. Quinoa power bowl with bruleed (I didn’t know what this meant, but didn’t bother to look it up) butternut squash; balsamic roasted red onion, massaged rainbow chard and almond “cheese” crumbles”
What a phenomenal class! There were about 25 of us there—all novices learning form the best of the best. All of the bowls, pans, utensils, spices, ingredients were all laid out for us to get started. And besides the main teacher (chef) we had 4 assistants to ask our numerous questions. I couldn’t have picked a better class—or so I thought!!
As soon as I read the ingredients (the devil is in the details!) it was then that I realized I had a major life choice to make. I knew that by the time we would be finished with the prep and cooking, I’d already be ”starving”. Was I going to eat the food we made or sneak out of the class afterwards and hold true to my diet? I had no idea that “my vegan WFPBD did not correspond to the school’s idea of “vegan”. I mean, the amount of oil—sesame, coconut and “other oils” that the ingredient list called for was substantial. After not having any oil at all in my diet for the last 6 months, was I really going to eat the food that we prepared??? Besides that: the salt—OMG!! American Heart Association is now recommending a maximum of 1,500 milligrams of salt per day; I bet our meal had well over that much just for our lunch!
Okay, I have to admit—the class was fun and despite the little voice in the back of my head that said “don’t eat it!”, I succumbed to temptation. And WOW! The food was utterly scrumptious, delicious —probably the best meal I had had in years. Take a look at these incredible dishes:
But I had to admit: there was a big price to pay! As part of the 12 day intensive course that I took with the Dr. John McDougall WFPBD program, we have monthly check ups of our weight, blood pressure and resting pulse. My check up was scheduled for a couple of days after my food downfall, and my anxiety at what this lunch was going to do to my numbers was completely justified. My hopes and prayers that the food wouldn’t affect me was silly self delusion: my diastolic pressure was up 10 points and diastolic was no better. I gained a pound and my resting pulse was up by five points. Did I learn my lesson—for sure!! Did I really enjoy that mean—a resounding YES!!! Will I do it again—NO!!
