The End of Carbs

My brother asked me, “Why don’t we eat like, corn on the cob, or ribs, or mashed potatoes or any of that other stuff we used to eat?” Good question.

I blame the South Beach Diet. When I was about 14, there was this book called the South Beach Diet that appeared in my house. I think we bought it at Costco, of all places. I was old enough to care about diets (although too young to actually follow one), and a proficient cook, so I flipped through it. Turns out some of what I believed to be vegetables were going to give me diabetes. Also, white bread is worse for you than heroin. I found the recipes much more interesting, but puzzling. There was a salmon filet with rosemary and garlic, my favorite greek salad recipe, and seared rare tuna with the best spice rub I’ve found for it yet. Then there were some real horrors. For dessert, SBD recommends fat free ricotta cheese mixed with Splenda. To call this dessert was laughable; we could not get this stuff down. Why was this garbage in the same book as my beloved Greek Salad? In place of mashed potatoes there was this strange puree of cauliflower, which must have been designed to disappoint, to raise our hopes and make us believe for a second that we were having mashed potatoes. The cauliflower stuff didn’t last either, but real mashed potatoes only come out at Thanksgiving.

Our parents lost weight, but the more lasting effect was the factioning of family dinner. My brother was not going to eat either pureed cauliflower or salmon, so he ate more frozen macaroni and cheese or bagel bites, or sometimes he and I would have our own dinner. Now that it’s just my mom and brother, separate meals are standard.

We needed one summertime family dinner while I was home. Ribs were his request, along with the South Beach villain corn on the cob. I remembered making the barbeque sauce years ago from this amazing page-long recipe that included dried ancho chili and a 2 cups of bourbon. This time, I also took on the grilling and the trimming and minor butchering, which I absolutely love. Something about taking apart a huge piece of raw meat is very satisfying, probably evolutionarily ingrained. Gnawing corn from a cob or ripping meat from a bone is so enjoyable because it reminds us where our food came from- corn came from those stalks filling the fields down the road, and meat comes off a bone, from an animal, not from a grocery store bin in a shrink wrapped package.

I also made a favorite summer side, cucumber salad. The fact that I had a mandolin made it impossible to resist. Cucumbers are peeled, seeded, and sliced thin (less than 1/8 of an inch). The sliced cucumber is salted (I used 2 Tbs for 4 cups) and sits for a few hours while the salt pulls the water out. When the slices are soft, rinse and squeeze out the water with a dishtowel. 4 cups will be reduced to about 2. Tossed with just a tablespoon of mayonnaise or plain yogurt and lots of black pepper, this makes a great cold counterpoint for the spicy smoky ribs. You can also add onions (before salting) or feta (at the end), but it’s very nice by itself.