The Joy of Rotundity

The food nannies just never let go, never give up, never retreat, despite the overwhelming evidence that their pleas, exhortations, recommendations, and downright threats are falling on deaf ears. An article in today’s New York Times adds yet another faggot to the kindling pile by publishing new statistics that indicate that Americans are eating fewer veggies than they were a decade ago, thus cocking a snook at the entire nanny industry and its chorus line of wagging fingers.

It really all gets down to broccoli when dealing with food nannies. Sooner or later, no matter how they begin, nannies will always bring broccoli into the conversation. They’re all queer for broccoli, down to the last washed-out rabbity twit of them. Heck, one might encounter nannies who come over all vinegar and thistles about yoghurt or tomatoes or dillweed, but mention broccoli to them and watch those bunny eyes light up.

The problem: broccoli is vile, even when subjected to oh-so-careful steaming techniques such as leaving the lid off the steamer for the first few minutes, thus allowing that putrid skunky smell to waft through the kitchen instead of permeating those nauseatingly spongy flowerets. That isn’t to say that broccoli can’t made palatable; it can be done. All you have to do is chop it up very fine, sautée it in copious amounts of butter, then fold it into a casserole filled with yummy cheese and maybe a nice cream sauce. But somehow I don’t think that’s what the nannies have in mind. They want us eating it steamed or stir-fried, all of its obnoxious noxiousness intact.

Screw broccoli. And screw the nannies. I am a middle-aged man with a penchant for fine food. I had an absolutely lovely dinner last night at a mid-posh San Francisco restaurant (Absinthe at Hayes and Gough), featuring a charming salad made of heirloom tomatos, melon squares, some assorted spiky greens, the whole sprinkled with bits of nuts or sliced thingamabobs and some nice tart cream-cheesy something. That was followed by a stellar plate of short ribs, cooked to perfection in a simple liquid with a mirepoix of aromatic vegetables, all fresh and bright and good. There was a lot of it, too. We started the evening with well-made, simple pork meatballs in a delightful tomato-ish sauce. Add to that a glass of excellent Northern California cabernet and a charming dinner companion, and follow it with the all-Mozart season opener of the Philharmonic Baroque Orchestra (for which I have the privilege of serving as program annotator and scholar in residence), and you have an evening of San Francisco perfection indeed.

There was nothing of the nanny about my dinner. Nor were the nannies consulted for my lunch the other day at Hayes St. Grill, featuring a downright spectacular tomato-eggplant soup and a winsome petrale sole with a buttery sauce, fragrant greens, and fingerling gold potatoes. Or my dinner at home two nights ago, for which I made myself a robust pot of chili, using all high-quality ingredients but otherwise nothing fancy, just your basic tomato sauce, beans, onions, ground beef, chili powder, cumin, and oregano. Delightful. No broccoli.

I am physically active in the sense that I am a teacher who spends a lot of his day on his feet, working a classroom. I also have to travel around quite a bit vertically at the Conservatory—and I’m pretty good on the whole about taking the stairs instead of the elevator—and horizontally at UC Berkeley, where I have a nice brisk walk from parking to my building. And I like to go on walks during the weekend when I have some free time. Now, that’s a far cry from the jog-and-gym routine the nannies would like me to be having, but at least I’m not sitting on my fanny 24/7.

And I’m a hell of a lot healthier than a lot of men my age. I enjoy a stainless-steel immune system, forged by years of proximity to students bearing an appallingly wide variety of viruses and pathogens, so I am rarely plagued by colds or flu or such. Those used to hit me regularly when I was younger, so from that point of view my health is considerably better now than it was when I was in my twenties. However, I am a middle-aged man; my mouth is filled with crowns and one inlay; my left anterior descending coronary artery is propped open with a stent; I take a blood-pressure pill every morning.

And I’m not skinny. I’m not sure if I qualify as fat, though. I just have that solid pear shape common to so many guys in my age group. It’s a shape of distinction, if you ask me. We’re the guys who are running the whole shebang, you know. We are the CTOs and CEOs and the managers and the presidents and the college professors and the bankers. Damn few of us look like Neil Caffrey on White Collar. But neither are we a bunch of Jabba the Huts oozing about in our slime trails. My body is softened by an extra covering, like so many of my brethren. I could lose some weight, but on the other hand, why should I bother? I’m happy and healthy as I am, and I look just fine for a guy my age. There is no power on Earth that will turn me back into a guy in his twenties or thirties, nor am I at all sure I would want to do that. My lanky frame of yore was powered by an excess of nervous energy, largely jettisoned at this point in life and not missed in the slightest. On the whole I feel better and live more happily than I did when I was younger.

And the men’s retail world is oriented towards us middle-aged, rotund guys, and not those wasp-skinny kids. Just try to find a pair of 28-inch-waist slacks at Macy’s, just try. You’ll wind up buying the lime-green-with-gray-checks because that’s all they had. But 36 inches? Abundance beyond imagination. They stock tons and tons of 34–40 inch slacks, because that’s what most of the grown men with real money need. Ditto suits and sport jackets; I still shudder at the memory of trying to find a nice jacket when I wore a 34. But now, as a 42 Regular? The clothing world has become mine oyster. Ditto shoes: with age my feet have expanded, and it’s a damn good thing too. A size 7 is a bitch to find. But a 9 or 9 1/2? Piece o’ cake. And I go into Macy’s, I get service. I’m the backbone of their men’s department, and they know it just as well as I do.

As regular readers of Free Composition know, I’m an audiophile, not the sex-crazed type who gets an erection contemplating a $5000 AC power cord, but quite a afficionado of fine audio equipment and its pleasures nonetheless. I enter one of San Francisco’s fine audio emporia—AudioVisionSF, HarmonyAudio&Video, MusicLovers Audio—I get quick, respectful, and very attentive service. They know what a modestly-rotund middle-aged man means, a guy with some substance to his body and therefore presumably to his pocketbook as well. They know that they probably can’t sell anything more than an iPod dock to that razor-thin 20-something. But they just might be able to interest me in a pair of Sonus Faber speakers, or a Bryston pre-amp, or a Boulder DAC. And they know that I know the difference between Sonus Faber and Sony.

It’s an image, a physical trope if you will: middle-aged man, a bit of strategic gray (perhaps kept in check via discreet assistance), nicely but not ostentatiously dressed, sporting some flesh around the jowls and a distinct bowl shape in the middle. The image means arrival. It means professional success not requiring ostentation. It means mature. It means got better things to do than sweat out my life in a gym, trying to look like some twink without a pot to piss in and only a vague idea of what he’s going to be when he grows up. I went to lunch with two gentlemen of my acquaintance, all three of us approximately the same age and all highly successful in our respective bailiwicks (conducting, guitar, and my concatenation of activities). Three pears with a salting of gray at the temples, all wearing somewhat scuffed but high-quality shoes, Dockers or the equivalent slacks, solid-quality but not absurdedly expensive dress shirts. Comfortable with each other, comfortable with our world, comfortable with ourselves. And the maître d’ snapped to attention when we walked in. “Right this way, gentlemen”, she purred, whisking us to a comfortable table in the best part of the joint.

Of course the nannies would love nothing more than to scare the hell out of me and convince me that I’m going to drop stone cold dead sometime in the next 24 hours because I sprinkled some (organic) sugar on my (organic, whole-grain) breakfast cereal with (regular) banana and (organic) soy milk. Or because I intend to finish up that chili for dinner tonight. Or because I will be making myself a lovely Reuben sandwich at some point during the weekend, using high-end Kobe corned beef, fine sauerkraut, and an exquisite imported Swiss cheese with organic Rye bread.

While I may die during the next 24 hours, it won’t be Death by Chili. But Death by Broccoli: there’s a slow, lingering demise for you, one filled with angst and worry and constant furtive scared glances over my shoulder to see if the nannies are wagging their fingers at me.

No. Right this way, gentlemen: that’s what I want to hear. Not Could I see some ID please? when I order a cocktail. Rank and rotundity hath its privileges, and I’m enjoying those perks to the max, as I should: I’ve earned them.

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