I met Justin a few days before my 21st birthday in Alamance county, North Carolina, in January 2003. On our first date, we went to a Steak n' Shake. On our first romantic date, we went to an upscale seafood restaurant and ordered lobster, sauteed in butter and beer, with fried okra on the side. What can I say? We were young and in love, and love makes you do crazy, artery-clogging things. We continued our whirlwind romance by randomly deciding to drive from NC to New Orleans a few weeks later for mardi gras. Four days of gumbo, fried oysters, pizza with shrimp and feta (mmmm both stinky and savory...amazingly delicious), etouffee and booze, booze, booze.
This began a wonderful relationship filled with cooking and good times. Justin is blessed (and cursed) with a world-class frying ability. The man could fry a AA battery and make it taste delicious. However, his specialty is seafood, specifically shrimp, tilapia, scallops, or whatever the local seafood counter had on sale. We both also became huge aficionados for Cajun cooking, embracing the 'kick it up a notch' philosophy of adding some more butter, more garlic, more bourbon, anything to make a dish bigger and better. Unfortunately, after several years of perfecting this specific art, our weekly grocery lists began to seem positively Caligulean in their excess.
After finishing college, Justin got offered an an amazing job in Manhattan. Figuring that this was our big break, we both packed up and headed to the big city to a one-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side. While neither disgustingly fat nor hideously out of shape, we both realized that we had a lot more...er...girth than your average New Yorker. So, when this office contest came up, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to try to end our bad habits, drop some pounds, and fit into New York society (as well as our subway seats). Neither of us has a gym membership, a nutritionist, or any serious medical problems. We, like millions of other Americans, are just two normal people who would like to look better naked. So, using common household ingredients and half an hour of daily excercise (that can be undertaken without any guidance or expensive equipment) we hope to cut a swath through fad diets, misinformation about 'healthy eating', and our own laziness.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment