Desiré Tries To Do Stuff: Paleo

I've hit plenty of lows in my adult life. There was the time my dad tried to set me up with a Harry Potter look-a-like ("What's wrong? I thought you liked Harry Potter!"), the summer I was so broke that I strongly considered working on the Tumblebus (a child's gym on wheels -- AKA a death trap), and the time I went to a concert with my mom and every college aged male around us proceeded to hit on her while I took long, sorrowful sips of my strawberry margarita out of an extra large guitar-shaped sippy cup.

But it was the new low I hit when I was visiting my friends Patrick and Chad at my alma mater in Charlottesville last month that made me realize I should probably reevaluate my life. There are only two things to do when you return to Charlottesville: eat and drink. So after a hearty dinner of enchiladas and a night of bar hopping, I was determined to hit up my favorite late night eateries from undergrad. Since the Last Call Dogs food truck was nowhere in sight, my options were narrowed down to two: The White Spot, home of the famous "Gus Burger" topped with a fried egg, or Christian's Pizza, the best pizza in all the land. Patrick and I opted to go to Christian's while Chad and Cari went to The White Spot.

Me, Julia, Nick, and Laura flashing the "extra mozz" hand signal.

The Christian's run down is that they have a variety of pizzas already made and you simply go down the line, pick the slice you want and they warm it up in the oven for you. But one life-changing night in undergrad, my friends and I discovered that the pizza maestro would smother your slice in extra mozzarella if you asked nicely. This wasn't a secret everybody was privy to, so it didn't take long for us to establish the "extra mozz" hand signal to flash to the maestro when we ordered our slices. With one flick of the wrist, we were like elite members of a speakeasy for late-night cuisine.


So while waiting in line with Patrick, I decided it was time to bring the "extra mozz" hand signal out of retirement. Sure, it's pretty much a creepy claw in which you wiggle your fingers, but it got the job done. While waiting in line with Patrick, I also thought it was a good idea to text Chad over at The White Spot, "Git me a Gus Burg," which is how I wound up eating both a slice of pizza and an egg-topped burger at 3 a.m.

I woke up full (but not too full to eat brunch, of course) and decided that maybe it would be in my best interest to start eating healthier. I settled on the Whole30 Challenge -- a Paleo-based 30 day cleanse. This wasn't an easy decision. After all, I had only used my Wendy's Free-Frostys-For-A-Year card twice and the Whole30 meant no dairy, no wheat, no processed food, no sugar, no alcohol. I had tried Paleo before and two hours in I caved and ate a cupcake, so I knew the odds were against me.

I started out slowly. Eggs and fruit for breakfast, a salad tossed in oil and vinegar for lunch, a meat paired with a veggie for dinner. "This isn't too bad," I thought. And then I tried to switch it up and start cooking. The words "creative" and "kitchen" don't jive well with me, so I'm not sure why I thought I could pull any of this off.

YUM BURN.

First I tried to cook sweet potato fries.

























Next, I tried to make turkey wraps without the wrap...

But they creeped me out, so I added lettuce...

And then I made "garlic mayo" which was the consistency of what I imagine breast milk to be. Needless to say, that's still sitting uneaten in  the back of my fridge.

Next I tried to make an apple cobbler for dessert.

Facing the fact that I simply cannot cook, I went back to making my boring old eggs.

But look closely. Yes, that is a rather large bubble protruding from that yolk.



















A few nights later, I actually succeeded in making Megan's Jalapeno Kale Miracle, but not without some trouble. I washed my hands at least three times after slicing the jalapenos. Approximately four hours later, I went to take my contacts out before bed. I pulled my contact out of my right eye and my eye immediately started burning. "WHYYY?!!" I threw my contact down on the counter. I took my contact out of my left eye and it started burning "WHAT IS HAPPENING?!!" I threw that contact down on the counter. I turned the faucet on and used my fingers to splash water in my already burning eyes, only to be met with more burn. "AHHH!" It was like the outtakes from Home Alone in my bathroom. The next day, I ended up putting my contacts in the opposite eyes because I mixed them up during my jalapeno eye fiasco.

Maybe I should quit trying to do stuff.