My big, fat, American hometown

Like most American guys, I had been steadily gaining a few pounds every year since my 18th birthday. On an annual basis, it doesn’t seem like much. A few decades later, my ass alone would have completely obscured the picture on a wide-screen TV.

Sometime in 2012, I decided it was time to do something. I lost around 40 pounds and have managed to keep a significant portion of it off. It ain’t easy, but it’s possible. My strategy; a pretty strict routine about food. I eat very little, during the week, especially Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I eat almost like a normal person, weekends. But during the week, I’m a food miser. Eating like a bird part of the week, for me, is the easiest way to keep from gaining.

Before I moved to Trenton, I also was fairly successful at skipping beer those three days. I love beer, but it’s fairly calorie-dense. And the more I drink the more I want to eat. Skipping the suds also brings a psychological benefit. If I can reliably go three days every week without alcohol, it’s easier to convince myself I’m not a an alcoholic.

But, like most of our daily routines, this, too has been disrupted. Let’s just say I’m in an adjustment phase. In other words, I’m eating like a pig with a tapeworm.

First, we’re both cooking again. A lot. It’s nice. We both like it, it’s fun and it gives Mom more dining options. But it comes at a price. When you cook a lot, you end up with a lot of food in the house. (Thanks, Captain Obvious.) Not that big a deal, I can still go all day on a half cup of yogurt. On a normal day, I am to food like a Toyota Prius is to gasoline. I have my half cup of yogurt at 6:30 am and I don’t eat another bloody thing until dinner time, with the occasional exception of something high in protein and low in calories, like a grilled chicken breast. The plan works, especially if I can resist splitting beers with Mrs. Emma. New house, old plan; I’m golden.

But every plan has a monkey wrench. Mine is a called Maureen.

A dear friend of the family for decades, Mo is a phenomenal cook. She’s also the quintessential dinner party hostess, among the most loving and generous people on God’s green Earth. She loves nothing more than shoving tables together for friends and family to crowd around, tucking into cuisine that rivals that from the best restaurants. We have always been on the invite list. But when we lived two hours away, we had the experience only occasionally. It would be an understatement to say she’s excited to once again have us within a quick drive. She’s ecstatic.

So, she couldn’t wait to use our recent return as motivation to throw one of her trademark big Mo’ Better Mo’ Food dinner parties. (Don’t worry, everybody elbowing her table was in the same COVID bubble.)

Oh. My. God.

It had been so long since I’d been to one, I had forgot how amazing they are. Homemade stuffed shells, eggplant Parm, pasta sauce, hot and mild Italian sausage grilled in a bed of onions and the best damned green salad I’ve had this calendar year.

That was before her legendary baked treats came out. Chocolate cake and some pumpkin-cookie-custard thing that was simply sublime. And I’m not even a pumpkin guy. (That girl can bake.)

Wine flowed. Beer flowed. Bailey’s flowed. All on a Monday. A no-food, no-alcohol Monday! Oh, well. The best laid plans.

My ace-in-the-hole; Trenton has hills. I burn way more calories riding my bicycle here than I ever did at the shore. I can compensate. I’ll just ride an extra 17 hours, Tuesday. Good plan. Except for the fact that I had to work Tuesday. And it was raining. And the wind was blowing 30 knots. Not exactly ideal bicycling conditions. I did get a quick ride in just before the rain started. But I didn’t want to get soaked (or become one with a truck grill, in poor visibility.) I stabled the bike early, without burning a fraction of those Mo’Fest calories. Forget it. Tomorrow’s another day.

Wait. Tomorrow’s a problem. We’re headed to Kenny’s.

My brother, Ken, lives in Ocean Grove, N.J. Like our old hometown beach of Ocean City, Ocean Grove was founded by Methodists and remains “dry,” with no bars or liquor stores. You’d think it would be a cinch to spend a few days there mid-week without beer, especially if you restrict your transportation options to bicycle. After all, in Ocean City, it’s an investment of nearly an hour to ride your bike to beer, over the bridge in Somers Point. By the time you get there, you’ve burned enough calories to earn it. And you still have to ride home, burning more.

This is where the similarity ends. Kenny’s house is about 10 feet from Asbury Park. It’s not only a three-second bike ride, Asbury Park is the kind of place where you can get a bloody Mary at 4 a.m., if you’re so inclined. (I’m not that guy. I can usually hold out until at least 8 a.m.) And he’s about 20 feet from Bradley Beach, in the other direction. A place with lots of bars, restaurants and even its own little brewery.

Suffice to say, it’s virtually impossible to spend any time in Ocean Grove that doesn’t feel like vacation. And when you’re on vacation, it’s easy to have a few more beers than you might on a normal day. And while you’re at it, you might as well sample fare from some of the simply phenomenal eateries in his part of the world.

We’re from northern Cape May County. Not where the good restaurants are. They’re in southern Cape May County (the city of Cape May, to be precise.) The restaurants in our old neck of the woods are notorious for mediocre food. Not necessarily bad or of poor quality, but simply uninteresting. Not so in Monmouth and Ocean Counties. Pizza, rivaling Philly and New York. Barbecue, rivaling Tennessee. Ethiopian, Brazilian, Korean. English meat pies. German. (Well, you do German for the beer, not necessarily the food.) You name it, it’s all there, minutes away, ready to fuel my attempts at shattering my pre-2012 weight record.

And even if you steer clear of all those restaurants, staying at my brother’s house is like being at a four-star bed and breakfast. He’s a great cook and an accomplished baker. My sister-in-law, Tatiana, knows her way around the kitchen, too, creating uniquely delicious treats from recipes she brought from her native Brazil.

I could eat and drink there, 24/7. And I’m happy to attempt it.

It’s OK. We can’t stay there forever. We head back to Trenton, where my sister Michele is visiting Mom. We weren’t together long. Michele was ready to head home about the time we arrived, so we had only a few minutes overlap. “I brought you chili,” she announced. She always brings something and it’s always good.

Michele isn’t just a superb cook. She’s a chef school graduate. She consistently blows our minds with the quality and quantity of her culinary output. No matter what she makes, it’s usually better than what you would gladly spend your hard-earned money on eating out. If she opened a restaurant in northern Cape May County, she’d need a baseball bat and tear gas to control the riot.

As she gathered her things and headed for the door, she said, “Don’t forget. You’re coming to my house for dinner Sunday.”

I am so screwed.

TO BE CONTINUED

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Photo: WikiMedia Commons

2020 move