Authors: Sara Benincasa
“You can’t eat that!” he exclaimed. “It’s gone bad.”
“No, that’s how
real
peanut butter is
supposed
to look, Dad,” I said airily. “Your Skippy is full of artificial ingredients and it’s going to give you Type II diabetes. Mine is natural.”
“It looks horrible. How does it taste?”
“I don’t know yet. I’m sure it’s fantastic. There’s no added sugar.”
“So it’s just . . . peanuts and oil?”
“It is just
peanuts
. Organic peanuts, from an organic peanut farm.”
My father shuddered. “I think I’ll stick with my Skippy.”
He left me to my rudimentary cooking.
My first attempt at a smoothie was unsuccessful. There are a lot of reasons I could cite, but the primary one is that I didn’t put the lid on the blender before turning it on. This resulted in a lacto-peanut-banana splatter show that resembled certain moments in the worst porn I’ve ever viewed. It took me a full hour to clean the wall, the counter, the rarely touched cookbooks on the nearby shelf, the kitchen telephone, the cabinetry, and the floor.
My second attempt went far better. I cautiously dipped a spoon into the mixture and sampled it. It tasted like a milkshake, but healthier. I poured myself a glass, sat down at the kitchen table, and toasted my own creativity. I downed it quickly, surprised at how hungry I suddenly was. I poured another glass and stuck a straw in it, slurping it up with all the delight of a (very simple) child. When I was done, I felt sated for the first time in a long time. It didn’t even occur to me that I’d eaten real food, with real calories, real vitamins, real minerals, real fats, real proteins, real sugars, and real nutrition. If you could drink it, I thought, it wasn’t food.
After I cleaned up my second, far less spectacular mess, I scanned the cookbooks. Mom had an ancient Betty Crocker tome, a few pretty gift cookbooks with photos of food no human would actually have time to make, and then some old healthy cookbook my Aunt Diane in San Francisco had sent my parents years ago. Unlike the other cookbooks, it was an oversize paperback that looked as if it had been stitched together by tiny, hemp-scented elves. It was filled with beautiful line drawings, and it had hardly any recipes with meat. It did, however, have an entire section full of “health drinks.” I began making a shopping list.
The next day, we returned to Basil Bandwagon. I left the store with recycled paper bags full of avocados, lemons, pure pineapple juice, wheat germ, flaxseed oil, unsweetened cranberry juice, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, more bananas, and plain fat-free yogurt with live “good” bacteria that had come from the milk of cows who did yoga or something. My mother cringed and paid $8 for a bag of crushed ice made from thrice-distilled spring water that burbled up at the base of some sacred mountain in upstate New York. I guess when you’re glad that your daughter has decided to obsess over fruit instead of suicide, you’ll spend big bucks on some Ulster County hippie’s frozen tap water.
I experimented a lot over the next few weeks, and I learned a few important things. I’m pleased to share them with you now in a helpful list form. If you are recovering from a nervous breakdown or an eating disorder or just a bad day at tennis camp, these pieces of hard-won wisdom may inspire you.
1. Wheat germ makes you poop. A lot.
2. So does fruit.
3. Fruits are awesome for you and they’re full of natural sugars. Natural sugars are way better than nasty-ass chemically processed sugars like the popular white stuff, but they’re still sugars. So if you’re susceptible to yeast infections, make sure you’re not
just
eating fruit all day long for like two weeks. Which leads me to the following tip.
4. Unsweetened cranberry juice tastes like ass when you first try it. Also when you try it the second time, and the third time. But it’s great at helping you avoid or clear up UTIs or yeast infections. It makes your piss crazy acidic, I guess. I don’t know. I’m a comedian, not a doctor or a nutritionist. Anyway, it’s good to have a bottle on hand just in case. But make sure it’s 100 percent cranberry juice, not some bullshit cocktail from Ocean Spray.
5. If you add lemon juice to milk, it fucks the milk up real bad.
When you’re building your smoothie, always put the ice in first. In order to go easy on your blender, make sure the cubes are small. You can also wrap a bunch of ice cubes lightly in a towel and then smash the shit out of it with a hammer and then put the crushed-up bits into the blender. This is also a great way to get out aggression and/or feelings of self-loathing!
After the ice, put your solids in. Again, make sure they’re of a manageable size for your blender. And finally, add your liquid. Remember that the blender will kick everything up, so don’t overfill the container. If you want a denser, chunkier smoothie, use less liquid.
Once you’ve got it all in there, pop the lid on and hold it down with your hand. It’s tempting to think you can let that fucker do its thing alone, but I’ve been traumatized too many times by blender explosions (yes, even when I actually remembered to put the lid on).
I put together a few recipes of my very own. As you’ll see, they’re clearly too terrible for me to have stolen them from anywhere. Also, they don’t use actual measurements. Feel free to use them and experience the magic of smooshed-up food for yourself. Think of me each time you tip a glass of delicious mush.
Lazy-Ass Lassi
Organic plain or vanilla nonfat yogurt with that good bacteria
Organic mango chunks (fresh or frozen)
Celtic sea salt
Ice
Instructions: Whir this shit up until it reaches sufficient levels of subcontinental Asian-tinged awesomeness. Feel free to break out in choreographed dance moves whilst singing at a super-high pitch. (Racism!)
Citricidal Tendencies
Organic orange juice
Organic pineapple chunks (fresh or frozen)
Organic lemon juice
Organic clementine segments (sans seeds, duh)
Organic lime juice
Whatever other citrus fruits you can find
Ice
Instructions: You know, blend it. This one has lots of vitamin C. You may be a depressed anorexic dancing on the edge of sanity, but at least you’ll never develop scurvy.
The Sexy Mexican
Organic fresh tomato juice
Organic lime juice
Organic avocado chunks
Organic cilantro
Celtic sea salt
Instructions: Vroom, vroom, vroom. Puree the shit out of this liquid guacamole-like concoction. Did you know that avocado is a reputed aphrodisiac? Well, it is, you slut. This tasty concoction may just inspire you to lovingly fellate one of our kindly brethren from south of the border. Surprise! He’s probably uncircumcised. I try to avoid fucking foreigners for exactly this reason.
Of note: You can substitute almond milk or rice milk for cow’s milk in any smoothie recipe (not just my brilliant ones). Don’t use soy milk. That shit is usually packed with weird, gross chemicals and tastes like the inside of a hamster’s asshole. I mean, probably. That’s probably what the inside of a hamster’s asshole tastes like.
I invented these and other fine culinary delights every day in my parents’ kitchen on their marble-top counter. It was the fanciest thing in the house. I liked to look at its swirling, irregular pattern every night when I set out the fruits, the cutting board, the knife, and the blender for the next morning. Knowing I had a new smoothie adventure on deck for the next morning gave me a reason to look forward to waking up.
The strange thing was that as I drank more of these liquid concoctions, I got my taste back for their solid counterparts. Soon enough, it was easy to down a peanut butter sandwich (with all-natural, organic, five-grain, sprouted bread from Basil Bandwagon, of course) accompanied by a glass of (all-natural, organic, free-range, grass-fed, reiki-treated, shiatsu-massaged) skim milk. I learned that you could spread ripe avocado on that same toast, then top it off with a (local organic heirloom) tomato, and the whole thing was pretty delicious. Every day brought a tasty new discovery, or a happy rediscovery. My efforts were tentative, but promising. Because I took tiny bites and chewed so cautiously, I savored my food in a way I never had time to do before.
“Food is actually pretty fucking awesome,” I told Dr. Morrison.
“Most people seem to enjoy it,” he replied. “The Prozac is helping, then?”
I leaned forward. “Totally. Sometimes I put it in my smoothie. It adds this really interesting texture. Peanut butter, milk, bananas, and emotional well-being.”
He blinked.
“I’m just fucking with you,” I said.
He actually laughed at that one. I really liked the way it sounded. His laughter was near-tangible proof that I’d said and done something right in that moment. For a moment, I felt all warm and glowy inside. I decided I could get used to that kind of feeling.
Then he asked, “So how is the driving coming along?”
“Driving?” I repeated. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
“You sound like you’re doing pretty well. Have you thought about just practicing driving around your neighborhood?”
On to the next adventure.
Om Mani Padme Fuck You
While I was learning to eat solid foods and shit in a toilet and drive a car again, I read a lot of Zentastic, organic, free-range, fair-trade, sustainable, sage-scented self-help books, most of which were designed for postmenopausal ex-hippies with a fondness for moon worship and natural-fiber clothing. I wasn’t rich enough to follow my dream of living among noble brown stereotypes, which is why this book isn’t called
Eat, Pray, Love
. I just read books that similarly co-opted other people’s cultural traditions and repackaged them with a neat, lily-white bow on top. I called this “spirituality.”
My foray into the crunchier realm was not entirely without precedent. Flemington is about twenty minutes away from a lovely little riverside gay enclave called New Hope, across the Delaware River in Pennsylvania. When I was in junior high, I began spending free Saturdays and evenings there, taking in poetry readings and organic, locally sourced, artisanal snacks with equal reverence. After my mom dropped me off, secure in the knowledge that no adult male in that town had any designs on a young teen of the girl persuasion, I could get homemade rose petal ice cream at Gerenser’s (it tasted like perfume, but it sure was more interesting than a cone from the Carvel back home) and walk right down the street to the two competing witch-supply stores. One was called Gypsy Heaven and was run by an actual witch with a shock of wild blond Stevie Nicks hair. The other was called the New Hope Magick Shoppe and offered tarot readings by an elderly, chain-smoking devout Catholic named Irene who taught catechism when she wasn’t unspooling the mysteries of the Major Arcana.
Fresh from my Confirmation as a Roman Catholic adult, I saw no contradiction between what I learned in church and what I learned from the woman with the cards. Catholicism is steeped in mysticism, magic, and ritual anyway. And there was nothing in the cards to discourage my belief in the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and the inherent evil of putting it in the butt. I figured Irene and I were safe from hellfire.
When I was thirteen, I loved nothing more than to scarf down my ice cream cone inside or just outside one of the witch stores (Irene didn’t care if you brought your food inside, but Stevie Nicks wouldn’t have it) and breathe in that mystical smell of Nag Champa incense, patchouli oil, and body odor. These stores stocked spell books, tarot cards, mini-gargoyles (to keep the bad vibes away), gemstones that could heal your physical and psychic illnesses, white sage smudge sticks to purify your home, and handmade candles that came with instructions for making wishes and visualizing one’s ideal future. Stevie Nicks made her own magic(k)al herb blends that you could burn to attract love, calm an unruly pet, invite prosperity, and ease menstrual cramps. There was also a
Wild Womyn Mooncycle Journal
designed to help the fertile human goddess chart her sacred ovum’s monthly journey.
Pantheistic earth hippies are obsessed with menstruation. A few years ago, my big gay bear friend Alan told me about some queer spring musical jamboree/fuckfest he attended on an organic farm in the hills of Tennessee to celebrate Beltane, May first. Before they could erect their giant maypole, there was a preparation ceremony. Alan, who was tripping on acid, can’t remember exactly what the rationale behind all this was. Mostly he just remembers the intense, all-consuming fear that enveloped him when some of the organizers dug a hole for the pole. As he watched in horror, a couple of floppy-titted women took turns squatting over it and menstruating. After that, dudes were invited to jerk off into it. This happened during a sacred drum circle,
of course.
Only after the various effluvia had settled into the hole were the hippies ready to plant the giant ribbon pole in the ground. Everyone wondered why Alan stayed in his tent for the next two days.
Sadly, I’ve yet to attain that particular level of enlightenment. But when I was in junior high, I sometimes knelt and prayed in front of a little altar in my room, burning a blue candle (for masculine energy) and a pink candle (for feminine energy) while envisioning straight As and a really awesome date to the next dance.
When I entered Emerson College, I found myself with a pagan roommate. She told me ooky-spooky stories about passing an invisible ball of energy around with her friends, which I would later discover was a common beginner’s level improv comedy game. This makes perfect sense, because Wicca and improv comedy are both packed with dorks who like to play pretend when they really ought to be learning a trade. Anyway, she was really nice and she encouraged me to read up on astrology, which I found at least as believable as the Catholic stuff I was beginning to disdain.
Emerson wasn’t generally the sort of place where one worshipped any goddess other than Fame (and I’m pretty sure Fame might be a sparkly, glittery, fabulous he-god). Once again, my hippie inclinations fell by the wayside as I got caught up in more worldly pursuits, like finding a boy to date who preferred my company over that of cocaine and/or cock. School forced me to read a lot and write a lot, and the urban environment of Boston wasn’t exactly conducive to meditation in nature or communing with a sacred grove of trees. I once passed a very pleasant morning communicating with fat squirrels in the Boston Public Garden, but I’m fairly certain they just hung around and listened to my boy troubles because I fed them a steady diet of leftover Cheetos.
When in the late fall of my junior year I went batty and went home, I found myself truly struggling for the first time with basic, day-to-day tasks. Even my trip to Sicily back in high school could be chalked up to the stress of being far away from home, if I ignored the fact that it had actually been a clear indicator of the mental illness to come. My first weeks in New Jersey were fraught with fear, stress, and strain, even though I was surrounded by familiar faces and places. The surroundings were cushy, but my mind was a minefield that kept exploding.
People in crisis often turn to religion and other drugs for comfort. I was ripe for some kind of new dependency. But instead of darkening the door of a church, I threw myself full-tilt boogie into the Holy Sacred and Apostolic Church of the Barnes and Noble New Age Section. Byron Katie, Stephen Mitchell, Pema Chödrön, Marianne Williamson, Eckhart Tolle, that dude who wrote
The Four Agreements
. . . I gobbled them all up. I accidentally stumbled upon actually helpful information in the form of a book about Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.’s, work at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. I credit
Full Catastrophe Living
and the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program with adding speed and sense to my recovery. Though he was a seemingly devout Buddhist, Kabat-Zinn dispensed with all the gobbledygook espoused by self-help charlatans and provided a workable program that incorporates cognitive behavioral techniques, good nutrition and exercise, and relaxation methods. And his book came with progress charts that you could photocopy. I love homework.
After a couple months of filling out weekly charts and downing all those organic smoothies and reading stories of gentle healing and sitting through marathon therapy sessions with Dr. Morrison, I felt a lot better. I wasn’t totally healthy yet, but I was getting there. I’d learned a few breathing techniques and had begun doing slow, mindful walking meditation in the backyard at night. I saved the latter practice for after dark, when my deliberate perambulation was less likely to freak out the neighbors. I’d gained a little bit of weight and looked less bony. After some helpful reshaping by Gee, my hair was even growing back. As soon as I perceived that I was healing, I decided to start worrying about something else: money.
My parents, glad that I had re-mastered the use of the common bar of soap and ecstatic that I had begun to drive short distances on my own, gave generously without asking for any recompense. They covered the costs of my psychiatric appointments, my medication, my clothes, my groceries, the electricity I used at their house, the gas I put into the car they lent me, and the remaining rent on my old apartment in Boston, which my mother and my uncle Joe had cleaned out once and for all (kindly making no mention of any disgusting things they encountered therein). I couldn’t shake the gnawing feeling that the closer I got to normal, the closer I got to freeloading. It was understandable that an insane, frail wretch of a daughter would restrict her activities to mooning about the house and making all her meals in a blender. In the early days, I had barely been able to generate a coherent thought, let alone an income. However, I was starting to resemble a reasonably sane human again. The new medication had kicked in full-blast, and my appetite improved all the time. I slept better, and it became a bit less difficult to talk myself out of bed, into the bathroom, and into the kitchen in the mornings. I even alternated showers with baths now, because you could read self-help books in the bath.
“You’re doing well,” said Dr. Morrison. “You might consider getting a part-time job. It would add some structure to your day, and you’d be around people. And saving some money is the first step to getting out on your own again.”
“Also there’s this thing called reiki I read about in
Sacred Living
magazine,” I said. “It’s like, someone puts their hands right above you and heals you? Like Jesus, but you have to pay and it’s Japanese? I could save money and go get that done.”
“Well yes,” Dr. Morrison said. “You could also save to do that.”
He suggested I make a list of what characteristics I wanted in a part-time job, in order to help me focus my search. I scribbled one in my journal that evening.
What I Want from a Job
Money
Happiness
Self-worth
Increased spiritual fulfillment
A boyfriend
It was a tall order, and not one I was sure a gig at BJ’s Wholesale Club could fulfill. I decided to think outside the box.
I applied to a garden center, reasoning that the outdoor work would do my mood and my body good. During the phone interview, the owner asked me if I was familiar with the inspirational works of Dale Carnegie.
“Well, Mike, I can’t say I’ve read any of his stuff,” I said. “But I see his books in the section where I buy everything I read.”
“What do you read?” Mike asked. He sounded maybe a decade older than me. His deep, manly voice betrayed his New Jersey upbringing, but only slightly. I’d never expected to be asked about my literary preferences during an interview for a job at a garden center. I pictured a tanned, well-muscled (but not steroid-fueled) outdoorsman who retired at the end of the day to a house he’d built himself. In my mind’s eye, the house’s primary feature was its giant library, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves ( just like in
Beauty and the Beast
). Of course Mike would have put those bookshelves in himself. My intellectual, overeducated side was intrigued. My salt-of-the-earth guidette Jersey girl side was turned on.
“I read a lot of books about . . . philosophy,” I said. “I’m interested in self-improvement. And, um . . . nature. Horticulture. I’m taking a break from college because I’m considering changing career paths.”
“Fantastic,” he said, and it sounded like he meant it. “Well, you’d learn a lot about self-improvement
and
horticulture here. All my employees are required to read at least one of Mr. Carnegie’s books. And my door is always open to discuss his philosophies about winning friends and influencing people.”
“I’d like to do that with you. Talk, I mean. About friends. And people. And influencing.”
“Sounds great to me, Sara. Why don’t you come in for an interview?”
I went in for an interview. The grounds were spotless and immaculately organized. All the employees, clad in green T-shirts and cargo shorts, were as well-groomed as their workplace. A smiling young man directed me to the main office, which was housed in a lovely cedar cabin. As I walked down the hallway, I encountered a dozen framed posters, each emblazoned with a different inspirational message from Dale Carnegie.
I entered the office and saw the handsome, tastefully brawny man of my dreams sitting behind a desk. His olive skin had been gently browned by the sun, and the muscles in his forearms flexed gently as he typed at a computer.
“Hi,” I said sweetly, sticking out my hand. “I’m Sara. I hope you’re ready to talk about books!”
“You’re looking for Mike,” the guy said, ignoring my hand. “He’s in there.” He cocked his thumb in the direction of another door.
Mike was portly, middle-aged, and visibly disappointed by my appearance. He thanked me for coming in, but told me he needed to hire an employee capable of lifting something heavier than a watering can.
“That’s not very inspirational, Mike,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You sounded like a bigger girl on the phone.”
I left with a sourpuss expression and the secret desire to steal a ficus.
Next, I applied to a recently opened New Age bookstore in a nearby town. The owner informed me that he specialized in the books and “inspirational products” of Louise Hay, a wealthy snake-oil purveyor who claims to have cured herself of vaginal cancer through positive thinking. She has made bullshit-loads of cash telling others that they’ve brought their own diseases upon themselves. Even in my twenty-one-year-old fruity daze, I couldn’t see myself convincing cancer sufferers to buy a book telling them that if they’d only thought more about unicorns and rainbows, their ovarian tumors wouldn’t have metastasized. Nor could I see myself explaining to the parents of dead children that their kids would’ve made it out of St. Jude’s if they’d worked harder at generating happy thoughts while puking after chemo.
Years later, when I thumbed through that nuclear disaster of a book called
The Secret,
I recognized a lot of Louise Hay’s influence. My favorite part was when Rhonda Byrne effectively laid the blame for all disasters, tragedies, and crimes at the feet of the victims, basically claiming they’d brought it on themselves via “the law of attraction” and too much negative thinking. I hope they have pens in Hell so that all those stupid, frowny-face Jews, Rwandans, Cambodians, Congolese, Sudanese, and Native Americans can belatedly take a note.