Zounds! Foiled again!

I had what I thought was a very good idea last night, but when I googled it this morning, I found that it was by no means mine alone.

It all began when we met a couple of Richie's old mates and a wife at the #1 Buffet on Hawthorne, Lawndale (previousl reviewed.) This is an Asian place with an emphasis on shrimp - coconut, boiled, #1 style, garlic, salt and pepper (all of which I ate with gusto.) At the end of each set of steam tables was a steel cylinder full of paper-wrapped chopsticks. I took a pair, thinking, "This time it will be different! This time I'll be able to use them fluently!" knowing full well this wasn't going to happen. So I slipped them into my purse instead. (It would not have been sanitary to put them back.)

Riding home, cold sober (no alcohol served there at all) I thought, "If everyone is as inept with chopsticks as I am, they would be forced to eat more slowly. This in turn would give the stomach plenty of time to tell the brain, "Okay - I'm done; you can turn off the hunger thing." Thus, the Chopsticks Diet was born in a '99 4Runner somwhere on Hawthorne Boulevard.

Breakfast - bacon or sausage, eggs any tyle, toast or an English muffin. Pick up the bacon or sausage with your chopsticks and nibble. Pinch them together to make a shovel and go for the eggs. Okay to cut waffles or pancakes with a knife and downpointed chopstick, but you have to eat the bites with the chopsticks. Don't dribble syrup!

Lunch example -- half a corned beef sandwich on rye (use your fingers -- breads are still finger foods) cole slaw and potato salad. I think cole slaw with chopsticks would definitely be a challenge.

Dinner -- start with a nice cup of chicken noodle soup and eat it as Asians do -- close to the mouth for chopsticking out the noodles and vegetables and then drinking the broth. Whatever the main course you choose, you can cut the meat and/or vegetables as you would a waffle, but then back to using your chopsticks. Salad should be considerably easier; desserts would be well-nigh impossible.

Great idea? You betcha! Too bad I didn't think of it first. Google "chopsticks diet" and swoon, amazed at the numbers presented. At least I'm in good company.