A Lazy Carnivore's Guide to Delicious Dinners.

Just a little announcement before we begin: Reflections of a Shallow Pond, from this point forward, will be a food blog. No more twisted fiction, no more raunchy rhymes, future posts will contain nothing but photos of my food—a bag of pretzels from the vending machine, half of a stale maple bar from two cubicles over—you'll see everything I eat accompanied by three to seven funny hash tags.

Aw, I'm just kidding. I'm actually getting started on a young adult series where our hero is a clown with rabies. Somehow he only manages to kill bad people, and you really start liking him by the end of book four.

Today, however, I really do want to discuss cooking because it can be fun, yes? In my opinion, nothing beats a leisurely Sunday afternoon spent preparing something delicious. Pot roast, salmon, maybe some grilled kabobs—most things taste terrific when we're bestowed with a relaxed timeline to really cultivate a meal.

Problem is, on those weeknights where everyone converges at home around six, a deadly tandem of low blood sugar and teen-induced, finicky entitlement can force a nice evening to break bad in a hurry.

Whether we're tapped out after riding the bus for an hour next to a guy soaked in Axe and Olde English or just can't justify going to the taco truck for the third night in a row, we need to crank something out and move on. Hit it and quit it, as the kids used to say.

I know most of you feel my pain, so I'd like to share the dishes I prepare when confronted with whiny family members, profound lack of motivation, or both. None are accompanied by fruit or vegetables, so feel free to shake out a bag of salad to ease your parental conscience. And as a typical work week essentially consists of four dinner days (Monday through Thursday), here are my top four hasty tasty dinners:

4) Pizza: Ive eaten so much of it in my life that my DNA has become indistinguishable from the genetic code of Canadian Bacon. So why not learn to make it, right? You know, teach a man to fish, yada, yada.

It's pretty straight-forward. Buy two boxes of Appian Way pizza crust and stretch out the dough on a greased cookie sheet. Try using latex gloves to reduce stickiness. Bake the crust alone at 425° for ten minutes, then remove from the oven. The Appian Way sauce is good, but take it a step further and mix another brand in with it, like Contadina or Ragu. Add your toppings and bake for an additional fifteen minutes. You'll be watching Wheel of Fortune before you can Sajak!

3) Beef stroganoff: Your brood will come a runnin' for this fun frolic of noodle and cow. It's nothing but meat and carbs, but even a tattered coyote would taste good after marinating for nine hours in the crock pot. Combine stew meat, two cups of beef bullion, a tablespoon each of ketchup and Worcestershire in a slow cooker. Go to work or your local bar for the day.

In the evening, add mushrooms and two tablespoons of flour and stir until thick. Mix in a cup of sour cream and pour over egg noodles. Hot freaking damn it's good, and the back of the recipe book makes it even better:

In this woman's world, crockery is no mockery.

2) Sloppy Joes: This is a lowest-common-denominator meal, whether you're in a crunch to get to the science fair or in front of Netflix for the season finale of Broadchurch. On the bell-shaped curve of food preparation effort, it falls somewhere between unwrapping gum and washing a fork.

Fry up a pound-and-a-half of ground beef (or a combo of beef and ground turkey), drain it and combine with the Sloppy Joe seasoning, a cup of water and tomato paste. Throw in some of that sauce from pizza night to give it an added zing. Toast hamburger buns and top them with the bubbling, saucy deliciousness. Add shredded cheddar and you'll discover there's nothing sloppy about these Joes, yo.

1) French dips: In our house, French dips continue to dwarf the other easy dinners. Why? They taste as good as the restaurant version and you have no choice but to have them with frozen steak fries. You can go all Safeway on these, too, from the sandwich rolls to the frozen steak fries to the deli roast beef to the au jus.

With two minutes remaining for the fries to bake, lightly butter the rolls and broil. During that time, heat up the roast beef in the microwave. Everything comes together in a magical synergy as you top your French Dip with horseradish; grilled onions and melted provolone are optional.

Well, there you have it—a week's worth of dinners that take about the same amount of energy as scratching your tuchus. Try them and I promise you, your family will embrace their mediocrity with a watered down passion you haven't experienced since Ted Cruz picked a running mate.

You'll Feel Better About Yourself After You Read This.

Hang on a second. 

Sorry about that, had to loosen up the belt a little. 

Okay, what the hell, I took it all the way off—it's been that kind of a weekend. 

What's the deal with belts, anyway? Oh sure, the man cons you into believing a belt is a useful accessory for keeping the old trou from sagging, but I submit that it's nothing more than an oppressive device whose roots can be traced to medieval dungeons. The belt is nothing more than an iron man maiden designed to punish my marbled middle.

Women seemed to have gotten the message years ago, burning not only their brassieres, but other confining devices propagated by men to keep them constricted and tamed. Girdles, curlers, high heels—even tweezers were shit -canned by a group of people fed up with a system which promotes torture in the name of fashion.

And that's why I'm about to burn my belt. I'm fed up—literally—from Thanksgiving weekend. During the past five days, I have exhibited the type of behavior that makes Caligula look like an even skinnier version of that chick who's married to Harrison Ford.

Fortunately, I've discovered there's actually a name for this culinary debauchery; I looked it up and it's called the "Nagev" diet. I know, it's sounds sort of Russian, but the term actually is "vegan" spelled backwards. It involves consuming only the bodies and byproducts of organisms which once had a face. 

It all started because I prepared Thanksgiving this year. All of it. Came up with the menu, shopped for it and cooked it all up. Fat was the common denominator. Each dish—turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes—contained at least an entire stick of butter, except the pumpkin pie, which I'm pretty sure still contained more lard than Rush Limbaugh tucks south of the elastic. 

I must have subconsciously decided that dairy products would not only stave off blandness, they would also curb any food-born hazards which may lie in wait for my bride and daughters. Ever since the e-coli scare with the under-toasted Pop Tarts, I've been a smidge paranoid.

The day went well, thankfully. Everything tasted pretty darned good, and nary a family member succumbed to the charms of our bathroom's only pottery not holding candles.

Still, everything would have been fine had I decided to eat with abandon on Thursday only. But when I rolled out of bed Friday morning, I'd barely nodded good morning to my wife and planted my swollen feet on the cold floor before pie had made me its breakfast bitch. 

From that moment on, every meal was a mini Thanksgiving. I understand I've taken a bit of journalistic license with this blog, but here's an indisputable fact: Out of the next four meals I ate, four of them were turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. By Saturday night, I'd thrown back so much sodium that I dreamed of Popsicle forests with Diet Coke waterfalls. 

My fifty-one-year-old body, after layering on a sedentary weekend of football watching, pleaded with me to purge the gelatinous globs of gluttony from its distressed bloodstream. By Sunday night, it begged me, "Dude, go to the gym. Or go for a walk. Hell, just move your toes."

Maybe I'll hold off on burning my belt for now. After all, what are the alternatives? A loosely tied rope? Nah, only Ellie Mae can pull that off. 

Suspenders? Nope, even though some guys can definitely rock that look, 

I don't think I'm one of them.

I'll see how things feel after a couple of salads.

Weight Watchers Works. Wait, What?

In case I haven't mentioned it, I'm fifty. Oh, I have mentioned it? How many times? Wow, sorry.

Anyway, after 18,417 days spent cruising down life's interstate, I can glance in the rear view mirror and see quite a few stretches where I wasn't exactly wearing a seat belt.

Safe sex analogy? I'm going to say no, since my dad reads this.

What I'm really getting at is, how often have you looked back at an event or entire time period in your life, slapped your forehead V8-style, and yelped, "What the hell was I thinking?"

The thing is, no matter how savvy and seasoned my old carcass grows, these OMG moments still occur, the most recent a mere month ago. But first, a few more dated examples:

How could I have allowed a girlfriend to convince me that popping my collar, wearing penny loafers with no socks and stylishly tying a sweater around my neck, even with Miami Vice sitting atop the Nielson ratings, was a solid decision?

Why did I promise the same emotionally rickety individual that, in the event of her untimely demise, I would personally pen her biography, so that everyone on our big blue marble could understand the calamity of a brilliant life cut short?

Since I'd always wanted to wear my hair in a ponytail, yet preferred short bangs to locks which cascaded over my eyes, why did I surmise that a mullet provided the best of both worlds? After testing this naturally-cultivated 'coon-skin cap look one afternoon at Safeway, my wife forbade me from ever venturing out again with such an abhorrent hair hat.

While slightly offended at the time, I thank you now, my bride, one thousand fold.

But no obscene behaviors, no loathsome practices, have reared their little, double-chinned prairie dog heads with more frequency than my eating escapades. Since I was old enough to pronounce the word "Caligula,", I've vacillated between moderation and all-out Homer Simpson-esque gluttony.

Eat an entire pizza?  Come on, challenge me, my man. Pint of ice cream? Easy, then I'll eat Ben and Jerry.

Today marks the end of four full weeks on "Weight Watchers Online For Men"(I can't really tell any difference from the regular Weight Watchers, other than the bold font on the homepage and how the words might be uttered by the dulcet baritone of James Earl Jones.).

And since it's now been a month, I've again had an opportunity to revisit my behavior prior to beginning this regimen which is more about sane eating than it is a gimmicky diet.

The concept is simple—keep track of everything you eat. It's similar to how accountants or lawyers record billable time, but without the social stigmas of repressed arsonists with mother issues or soulless sycophants who pray on baked daytime-TV-watching whiplash victims.

So unfair. I was an accountant, and my mother issues were minimal most days.

It's all about ownership. Everything you throw down your mineshaft, you report to James Earl Jones. The day before I started WW, I enjoyed a twelve-inch meatball sub with chipotle sauce (What the hell? Was I fourteen and going through a growth spurt?). It was delicious, no doubt, but if I'd introduced a bag of Sour Cream 'n' Onion Lays, that single meal would've devoured all my points for an entire day.

As with so many other areas of life, I'm just trying to be mindful. I'll still knock down a couple of beers or glasses of wine on the weekend, but when all my choices show up in digital splendor, I'll think twice about lining up another IPA.

So far, I've given birth to a fairly robust food baby—nine pounds down. My clothes are a little looser and when I look in the mirror, there's a little less fleshy overhang, but this train needs to keep on rolling for another twenty ell bees.

Then I can buy a smaller sweater to tie around my neck.

Happy New Year from All of Me.

"Dad, you're not fat, you're just overweight."
-Zoe, my seventeen-year-old daughter

January 1, 2013.

I slowly awakened, exhaling gratefully. My relief was palpable, and I mumbled a silent oath of gratitude that I hadn't actually attended a Styx concert in my back yard, naked on a blanket while spooning the stubbly scapulae of a bearded Taylor Swift.

Rolling onto my back and propping my head on a second pillow, my hands rested comfortably atop my belly. I looked across at my fifty-year-old fingers, interlaced at an equal altitude to my crusty eyeballs. Performing some rudimentary calculations, I quickly surmised that my hands lay approximately twelve inches above the surface of the mattress.

Everything in between was me and my DNA. Nothing but fella flesh. A heapin' helpin' of Tim loaf.

I woke this morning a year older, a year smarter and about six years fatter.

And honestly, my credibility is shot. A couple of years ago I proclaimed a new healthy tack after the doctor labeled me as obese while pointing accusingly, his latexed finger still moist with my shame. Last year, I again threw down the gauntlet and announced that enough is enough, it's time to whittle off some of this lard or forever live in Elastica, land of sweatpants and football jerseys.

I  realize that as we age, things become increasingly difficult—losing weight, covering up bald spots, making people under forty laugh at a joke about Richard Nixon or pet rocks. However, some tasks actually keep getting easier, such as eating an entire sixteen-inch sausage and Canadian Bacon pie. Twenty years ago, I might wimp out a slice and a half short, whereas now I can choke one down with the prowess of a human anaconda.

It's also become significantly easier to watch football for hours on end. In the past, I may have gone out to throw the ball with friends at halftime. Now, I rise only to stave off involuntary couch voiding or to fend off the dangers of sedentary bed sores and perilous clot migrations.

About three years ago, I lost twenty pounds simply by counting calories, but I seem to have lost that discipline. Repeated forms of motivation, like countless "biggest loser" competitions at work have rendered my efforts fruitless.

So now, it's time to dance with and old friend. I joined Weight Watchers this morning, the same organization I graced with my presence forty years ago, one hand grasping my mom's palm and the other a doctor's note.

I want this to work. I want to stop grunting when I get out of chairs. I want my knees and back and ankles and feet to stop fighting back and return to my squad. I want food that misses my mouth to fall to the floor, rather than a conveniently located chin crevice.

It's time to leave Limbaugh and go Gosling.

Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing, Baby.

Ouch.

For the past three weeks, these poor guys have been bloodied. They've been battered and bludgeoned. They've been abused more than a dog whose tag is etched, "Property of the Romney Family. If found, please hose off and return."

The National Football League Referees Association has been on strike for the first three weeks of the NFL season, holding out for the guaranteed pensions that team owners would like to eliminate in favor of a defined contribution, or 401k, plan.

While I won't delve to deeply into the muck of this labor dispute, it is curious that the lords of a nine billion dollar industry have chosen to embed their diamond spurs over $3.3 million. According to my calculations, that's approximately bullshit point four five seven percent of the league's annual revenue.

And because these millionaires and billionaires can't seem to defibrillate their own blackened hearts, a motley assortment of replacements have  crawled up through the cracks, wearing black hats and white knickers, to officiate America's premier spectator sport.

In the words of Homer Simpson, "Those refs sure did suck last night! They just plain sucked. I've seen refs suck before, but they were the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked."

Or something like that.

As recently as Monday night, my Seattle Seahawks benefited from a grossly botched ruling on the game's last play to defeat the storied Green Bay Packers. Although the Packers were justified in their outrage, there's something unappealing about huge dudes who resemble superheroes whining like my kids when they're told to go back and wipe a little better.

Bad call aside, I enjoyed watching the disciples of St. Vincent de Lombardi suck on a sour grapcicle.

And what did we expect? Our lives are crammed with experiences involving impostors and charlatans, imitations and pretenders, especially when we're kids.

I remember entering my third grade classroom one morning and there stood a strange lady scrawling "Mrs. Priqué" on the blackboard? Once we were all seated, her fakey teacher voice boomed for the first time: "Good morning, class. Mrs. Henderson was feeling under the weather this morning, so I'll be filling in today. My last name is pronounced 'Prick-ay.' No other pronunciations are acceptable, ladies and gentlemen. If you happen to mispronounce my name, you'll be corrected and given a warning. If you do it again, you'll be sent to the office."

I was a fairly well-behaved kid, but as we know, all bets are off when the sub shows up. I considered it a great opportunity to channel Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now, and since I'd been given one free pass, it was time to stir up a good laugh from my fellow nine-year-olds. I raised my hand.

"Yes...let's see...Tim, do you have a question?"

"Can I go to the bathroom, Mrs. Prick?"

The class erupted. Miss Prique wrote down my name on the board and probably still hates me.

Kids have to deal with other below-par choices, too. Since they don't have the means to select their own food, they're constantly bombarded with inferior substitutes for the good stuff:

"No, it's not an Oreo, it's a Hydrox. But they taste the same."

No they don't.

"No, it's not Heinz ketchup, it's Hunts 'Catsup'. But it tastes the same."

No it doesn't. And I know you added water to it, Grandma. For God's sake, this isn't the Depression anymore.

And why was it that a company called Dolly Madison made the exact same stuff that Hostess made, only much worse tasting? Plus, they only advertised during Charlie Brown specials. I took the bait once, but after barely choking down a Zinger, I returned on bended knee to my steady girlfriend, the Ding Dong.

So let's be patient with these guys, eh? Everyone knows they're not as good as the real thing, but what replacement is? We'll keep watching because that's just what we do.

Just ask Leno.

Family dinners: Try one tonight!

Like most families, we're a busy lot.

Okay, this is starting out like a One-a-Day Vitamin commercial.

Anyway, my bride and I decided way back before starting our blessed quartet, roughly around Seattle's grunge era, that we would eat dinners as a family.

Having both grown up dining within the radioactive RGB glow of the Motorola, we resolved to sit down, at a table, and savor our daily bread while absorbing one another's workday testimonials.

As a child, I indeed supped at a table with my DNA squad, yet the sole orator in the dinnertime conversation was Walter Cronkite. We were forbidden from talking, lest we miss the grandfatherly Cronkite's confident oration of the day's casualties in Southeast Asia.

I felt kind of sorry for my sister since she had to crank her kielbasa-stuffed gob a full one-eighty to register the slaughter, while I could effortlessly and simultaneously bite into my buttered white toast and watch a napalm-induced jungle inferno.

I think that was right around the time the letters "CBS" began representing "Carnage Before Substance."

So yeah, later on during the Nineties, when I still had a ponytail and John Lennon glasses and my wife savored the tail end of the eighties poodle perm craze, we resolved to sit at the table as a clan to enjoy our fish sticks and tater tots with no external distractions.

But not until kids came along, of course. As a childless couple, we could perch ourselves in front of "Entertainment Tonight" and I'd have already downed all my pot stickers and half my Kung Pao Chicken before the end of the Winona Ryder shoplifting story.

Dessert? Usually Ben, Jerry and Alex (Trebek).

And then our first daughter arrived . Time to put up or shut up. We scooted a chair out of the way, pushed her high chair up to the newly purchased IKEA table..and it was game on.

Sixteen years later, I'm happy to say that the game continues. Sure, there are exceptions—Friday night movies, major sporting events, The Oscars—but family dinners have proven to be the most grounding and entertaining exercise in which we engage all week.

A snippet of typical table talk:

Younger Daughter: "I let Autumn borrow my deodorant in gym today. I know I probably shouldn't do that, but I sort of feel sorry for her because she smells like..."

Older Daughter, interrupting: "Seriously, you guys, I was looking at my stomach in the mirror this morning and my two-pack is looking so good..."

Younger Daughter, interrupting: "You just interrupted me."

Older Daughter: "Sorry. But really, check this out (exposing her bare stomach). Is this not a highly-defined two-pack?"

Younger Daughter: "I don't care about your stomach. Can I finish talking please? Thank you...I forgot what I was talking about. Anyway, Ashley and Jonah are dating now, so there making it Facebook official tonight and then they're...

Older Daughter, interrupting: "Ewww! There's something in my Au Jus!"

Younger Daughter: "You just interrupted me again! And it's a piece of bread. Stuff gets in your Aus Jus all the time! Look at mine. It's got stuff in it, too. Now listen to what I'm saying!"

Older Daughter: "I think I need a bang trim."

Okay, so it's not always riveting dialogue, but hey, this band won't be together forever, either.

America's infatuation with deviation.

We Americans love us an oddball.

We exalt the exotic, we fancy the freaky, we petition the peculiar.







Why else would this cornflake shaped like Illinois...

have been sold on eBay for over thirteen hundred dollars back in 2008?

It's because we love anomalies—always have. And Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks is just the guy to fit comfortably and without the aid of supplemental lubrication right into the heart of America's alomalistic wheelehouse.

You see, Mr. Lin is the first American of Chinese descent to play in the National Basketball Association. Not only that, he received no athletic scholarship offers out of high school, went undrafted after graduating from Harvard in 2010 and was waived by two NBA teams.

New York signed Lin out of desperation to replace an injured player, where he quickly became a solid offensive contributor. But it wasn't until early February, when he began playing significant minutes, that "Linsanity" began. And oh, did it.

Through his first five starts, Lin averaged twenty-seven points per game and lead the Knicks on a seven-game winning streak. Now, fully ensconced as a cult phenomenon, the six-foot, three-inch, two-hundred pound anomaly has graced two consecutive covers of Sports Illustrated and claims the best selling NBA replica jersey since February 4.

The athletic world is an aberrational breeding ground; we celebrate those who defy the odds to achieve success at the highest level. Arthur Ashe dominated a sport which largely excluded his race due to socioeconomic conditions and institutionalized racism. Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues enjoyed fourteen solid seasons in professional basketball despite standing eye-to-eye with my grandma at five feet, three inches.

And who can forget the poster children of the word anomaly: the 1980 United States Olympic Hockey Team?

It's not always, however, the monumental aberrations that we seek. We crave the smaller departures from normalcy as well. Although I wouldn't have even noticed an Illinois-shaped cornflake prior to its swift journey down my pie hole, I always find time to appreciate corn dogs with noses:

 











An image of Jesus on a grilled cheese:

or Halle Berry's face in some beef stroganoff Hamburger Helper:














Other anomalies are impossible to detect, such as someone in the elevator who genuinely cares how your weekend was or a Republican with an IQ greater than that of a burlap moo moo.

And I'm still waiting for a weight loss plan which guarantees you'll only keep the weight off for three weeks.

Can I get something started for you?

"Good evening, sir. Welcome to Applebottom's. My name is Misti and I'll be your food and fun facilitator tonight."

"Well, hello, Miss Misti. Go ahead and call me Hank, or just keep calling me sir, because I am more than willing to be your knight in shining armor."

"Yes, well, Sir Hank, would you care to start out with something to drink? Perhaps one of our signature Applebotinis with a twist of cinnamon?"

"Darlin', I am already twisted enough. Mm mm. Why don't you just bring me an Amstel Light and sit your little Applebottom down right here next to Sir Hanky Panky."

"Sir, this is hardly appropriate behavior for a restaurant setting. Please contain yourself. Now, how about an appetizer? Maybe something like our Leaning Tower of Onion Rings. It's a four-star customer fave!"

"Misti, you bring me those onion rings and I'll provide the tower for a little ring toss, if you know what I mean, sweet cheeks."

"I'm not sure I do...but I'll take that as a yes. Have you decided on a main course? Our special tonight is sizzling beef fajitas, with your choice of flour or corn tortillas. Just look at this beautiful photograph of it on my specially laminated vest."

"Honey, I'm looking right through that beautiful vest of yours to a main course I'm much more interested in. Now, how about it, doll? Just back it on up over here and I'll definitely order up something!"

"Oh, Hank baby, here I come!"

"Wait a minute, you're not supposed to say that! Remember, this time you're supposed to be a clueless, but sweet, waitress, and I'm the boorish, obnoxious customer."

"I know, honey, but you're just so hot, I just couldn't hold back any longer. Maybe we should try the policewoman writing the speeding ticket for the confused foreigner or the Russian soldier barging in on the peasant girl."

"We've already done those, baby. Let's try the other idea we had. Okay, ready? Knock knock! Pizza delivery for the newly widowed socialite!"

"Do come in..."