Author Paul - The Wry Eye Guy

Best One-Pot Cooking Appliances

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Best One-Pot Cooking Appliances

Slow-cooker makes a meal of it!

Over the course of my “career” in the kitchen, I think I’ve had just about every small appliance that ever showed up in the stores. Or on a TV infomercial. And over time, I found myself dropping off most of them to the local thrift stores. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now, wouldn’t you?

Not!

Just splurged on a slow-cooker the other day. Don’t know why, but this might be the only one I have never tried before. It was on sale, so my “big splurge” cost me $29.95. And that was Canadian dollars. How do they even make the box & packaging materials for that kind of money? Never mind ship the thing to Canada from …. oh, never mind, you know what I mean. It’s just a silly price. And if this thing stops me getting take-out … just once … it’s already paid for itself.

The first meal was an eye of round roast. I know, I know … mea culpa … but I’m surrounded by skinny people who like lean meat! Now for a guy who drives an induction stove, because it’s so fast, this thing was a just a little frustrating starting out. No action. Nothing. C’mon pot, give me some sizzle or something!

Nothing. Nada. Nil. Is it even working!?!

I’ll be eating steak tartare come evening time, won’t I?

Came home after work to one sweet-smelling kitchen. Or should I say savory! And to a lump of beef that was falling apart. Yet, the potatoes hadn’t turned to mush. How’d it do that!?! This is an interesting little pot. I think I’ll be spending some more time playing with the thing.

And when I’m done, I’ll talk more more about why a guy like me needs so many one-pot cooking devices. I sense a head to head coming up between the programmable multi-purpose pressure cooker, the air-fryer, & this new slow-cooker.

And we’ll see what it does to my waistline at the end of the month! 🙂

Easter Eggs, Bunnies & Piggies

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Easter Eggs, Bunnies & Piggies

Ever wish you liked tea!

If you check in on this blog for weight-loss tips, this is probably not the best month to do it! When I was a kid, the best part of Lent was getting fish ‘n’ chips on Fridays. My rebelliousness has only grown with age!

Though now, with Easter behind us, I wish fish ‘n’ chips was the worst choice I made over the Easter holiday. Sadly, I must confess to a little indulgence in the commercial chocolate-fest that is the product marketer’s version of Easter too!

Though to be fair, I tried to be good while I was being bad. The eggs on offer weren’t free range so I decided to go with the healthier wild game option … I ate chocolate bunnies!!! Unfortunately, they were milk chocolate. So help me, I never realized that ’til I was on the 4th one. 🙂

This month, I was hoping to reverse some of last month’s gains. But spring can’t make up it’s mind whether it’s sprung, or not. Skies are grey, drizzle is constant, the morning fog is thick. Even the trees can’t decide if they should bud. An occasional good day makes me believe. And then it’s all snatched away again.

I wonder why there are only chocolate eggs, ducks & bunnies for Easter?

Are chocolate piggies too big a marketing challenge!!!

Bento’s Take on Weight Loss

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Bento’s Take on Weight Loss

Anchor

What’s Weighing Us Down?

I ran into Bento at the pub the other night. Bento is an old friend of mine & he often has a quirky take on things. Sometimes, Bento’s view of things can give me pause for thought.

He was rambling on about how remarkably similar American politics are, to what Irish politics were in the old days. This was all by way of him complaining about winter dragging on & he mused out loud (with the odd expletive to accent an important point): was spring ever going to arrive? Bento wondered if he could get away with saying that his father was born in a warm country somewhere? The idea being that he could claim citizenship there, without all the usual bother, & just head off to the sun for a few months ’til things warmed up. Modern politics gave you great freedom & flexibility these days, he thought.

Bento’s meandering tone, as he muses, has a way of making you believe the unbelievable.

Almost mid-sentence, he asked me why I was trying to lose weight!

He continued …

“Aren’t you better off just enjoying yourself, Paul?”

“It’s not like you’re out night-clubbing & chasing women or anything, is it? And even if you were, sure couldn’t you just find a woman that might like a nice fat fella, like yourself?”

Bento doesn’t necessarily always run his thoughts through a filter to make you feel any better about some particular challenge you might have.

“Is it the health?”, he quizzed aloud.

Not expecting me to fill the silence with what I thought, no answer was required. He then went on to reminisce about a few of our friends who had gone to the great pub in the sky. Undeservedly & well before their time, Bento adjudicated.

“You won’t be running any four-minute miles in the few years you have left, will you?”

Another question that he would undoubtedly answer for me. I sipped my pint. Again. Despite his silent pauses, there was no point interrupting him while he was in flow.

“You’d be better off doing things you’d like to be doing.”, he opines. Him looking up, under raised eyebrows, at me. The creamy froth of the pint still on his top lip. Then promptly removed with a practiced twist of the bottom one.

“And then maybe you’d spend less time thinking about what you would & wouldn’t like to eat, wouldn’t you?”

He’s different. But sometimes, Bento has a way of recognizing the anchor below the still surface of the water.

I was missing dinner. We had another pint. Bento carried on musing. All very enjoyable.

Down about a pound & a half this morning!

Results … Month #9

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Results … Month #9

Results Month 9

I changed this month’s animated pic. Typically it would have proclaimed that I was “Down 32 lbs“, since I started the program. Instead, this month’s says that I “Gained 8 lbs“. I am keeping the Results post heading consistent but I didn’t want to hide the fact that this month’s efforts resulted in a pretty big weight gain. The first time that’s happened.

Of course, what I really wanted to do was scream out …

What a total loser! Or maybe it should be … What a total gainer!

What I said, after stepping on the scale this morning, was a tad worse. I won’t repeat it here. But you might be surprised to hear that I deliberately brought this all upon myself.

I had scheduled June for a bread test month. A couple of opportunities for some good bread eating turned up at the beginning of last month, so I flipped it to March. I have managed to work a lot of things back into my diet & I really wanted to see if I could integrate bread again. Why?

Because I love bread, of course!

For an entire month, I ate bread. Sometimes in controlled doses, at other times with abandon. And that wasn’t quite what my original intention was. It got so messy, so quickly, that I really haven’t learned anything new from what should have been a month of measured bread eating. I was so out of control that I was blaming eating bread for the slice of chocolate cake that followed. And for the bag of chips I scarfed while watching the big game on Saturday morning. For most of the month, bread was being blamed for everything. It was a total fiasco. I was, all at once, stressed, depressed, anxious & furious. And stuffed. It was all bread’s fault. It certainly wasn’t mine!

Was I anxious & depressed because I was eating all that bread? Or was it the anxiety that had me eating more bread than I intended? The whole month was so out of control that I didn’t know which came first … the chicken or the egg?

In fact, I didn’t care if it was the chicken or the egg, so long as they were between two slices of well-buttered bread!

Not only have I gained 8 lbs over the past month, but I’ve learned little to nothing from the experience. So I’ll have to do the bread month again. Properly this time. Just not anytime soon!

Now, a new month, a new start. It’s April. Maybe I’ll quit bread & smoking at the same time for the day that’s in it!?!

Happy Fool’s Day to all.

Unfortunately, I’m not foolin’ about the weight gain for March. It’s real.

Trying to be Kind in an era of Anti-Social Media

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Trying to be Kind in an era of Anti-Social MediaAntiSocial Mediea

If you’re thinking I’m avoiding talking about my diet because I’m not doing so well at the moment … you’d be right! 🙂

For the purpose of this piece, I’m going to blame my current, & hopefully temporary, lack of dietary success on the stresses of social media. Some folk are posting & sharing thoughts & beliefs that I could never have imagined coming out of their mouths. These are nice, kind, feeling, thinking people. I’ve spent time with them, eaten dinner with them, had a beer with them, & I can absolutely say that they are nice people. So why would such nice people flip out every now & again, to spread unkind thoughts, memes & tropes?

We seem to be pretty tribal by nature. We prioritize our family, our friends, our neighborhood, our city, state & country, over those of others. Maybe that’s okay up to a point. But it’s not so okay when we start belittling or taking action to lower the “others” position. If, without changing our own position or circumstance, we somehow feel elevated when we take down another, we are in a bad place.

Today’s social media platforms are an amazing way to stay in touch with family & friends around the world. They can be used to spread fun, joy & happiness. They can also be used as tools to denigrate each other, with the safety of that digital distance & anonymity between us. I have been so surprised by some of the posts & comments in recent times, that I renamed my social media app folder “AntiSocial”. Each time I open a social media app, it’s a quick reminder for me to think before I post.

Remember that old saying: if you don’t have something good to say, say nothing. It’s probably still sound advice, isn’t it? Now, I wish I could claim the high moral ground here & say that I am that kind of person. I wasn’t always & indeed, I’m sometimes not. But I think it’s worth trying to be that guy. And I am occasionally reminded of that, most often when someone has higher expectations of me, than I have of myself. We all have the capability of being good people.

This is a great day to remember all this because today, March 20th, is the International Day of Happiness. And spring arrives today!

Now that sounds like a great day to share a little of the good stuff on social media, doesn’t it!

Peace, love, happiness & all that sloppy, mushy stuff (Cut me some slack, I have to preserve some of my bad boy image here! ) to all of you. I hope each & every one of you finds an extra ration of happiness today, tomorrow, & beyond.

PS … I will get back to the diet talk, please bear with me while I battle my demons! 🙂