A Balanced Diet

My verbosity does not even approach the furthest outskirts of my wife's, so don't expect many Allison-style, multi-paragraph narratives from me. I love Allison, and one reason I love her is that Allison = Different. For Allison's birthday, as she described in the previous post, she and her bosom buddy Megarino threw themselves a shindig (or was it a hoohaw?). At said shindig the guests were not-so-gently prodded to present some sort of talent. Now I have talents, but most of them are not of the performance variety so I had to stretch the definition of the word talent. Allison says one of my talents is being a brat, so I thought, "Ha! I'll be a brat for my talent and roast the love of my life at her birthday party!" It was probably better live, which isn't saying much, but here is the online version of the roast. The original was in PowerPoint format, which being a graduate student, is another one of my "talents".

Now remember, different does NOT mean bad! In the case of Allison, it means good, fun, lovable, unexpected, bright, shiny, smart, beautiful, etc. As an example I thought I'd illustrate how Allison's view of the food pyramid differs from the traditional view of the food pyramid.

Now Allison has her own take on the food pyramid. The base is a solid foundation of M&Ms. To be honest it's actually peanut M&Ms, but under duress she will dabble in other varieties.A casual tour of our apartment reveals how deep her love affair with the M&M goes.Here's a commemorative M&Ms shopping bag on the floor of her closet.Let's see, we've got lightbulbs, a bike lock, a garden hose nozzle and oh yeah a couple bags of peanut M&Ms. Of course! That's a very logical place for the M&Ms! Candy bowl in front entry....check.
Peanut M&Ms in candy bowl....check.
"Uh oh, we're almost out! Get another bag--I think there are some in the garage next to the lawnmower."Phew, in case you finished those M&Ms you snacked on when you first came in the house there's another bowl of them on the dining room table (20 feet away). Mmmm, this time it's the dark chocolate plain M&Ms.On our way back from a Utah Thanksgiving we stopped in Las Vegas to see "Mamma Mia". We were stretching our little legs after a long day's drive when Allison noticed someone carrying a shopping bag emblazoned with the M&Ms logo. It's almost as if the earth stopped rotating, Allison made a bee line to the unsuspecting purchaser of M&M's paraphernalia and blurted, "where did you get that?" Surprisingly unshaken, the man gave us directions to M&M's World, a few blocks down The Strip. Now we had an hour or so before the show so Allison made an executive decision and we were off--off to see the wonderful wizard of M&M. I've rarely seen Allison move faster, we were like the crowded masses rushing into some New Jersey Wal*Mart at 5 am on the day after Thanksgiving. I think the highlight for Allison was being able to, um....er....grope (is that the right word?) a bigger-than-life model of Yellow, the peanut M&M.
The next layer of Allison's food pyramid, and only mildly secondary in importance, is chocolate. Yes, yes I know...M&Ms consist of chocolate, but Allison's devotion to them truly transcends merely lumping them in with the entire pantheon of chocolate. So keep your quibbles to yourselves--in Allison's food pyramid, M&Ms and chocolate are two discrete layers.

As indisputable evidence of Allison's love affair with all things derived from the cacao bean, I took a snapshot of her recipe books. Let's browse the titles:

1000 Chocolate, Baking and Dessert Recipes
The Art of Chocolate
The Essence of Chocolate
Chocolate Cakes
A Passion for Chocolate


and


The Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook


Just in case we couldn't find the right recipe in "1000 Chocolate, Baking and Dessert Recipes", heck! there are only 1000 of them, it's good to know we have 5 other cookbooks dedicated to the subject. I must make a confession, however, one of the books was a Christmas gift from me, but hey, a man's got to know his woman.

Next on the pyramid, and again only slightly less important is Trader Joe's. You know, that unique grocery store that has a unique place in Allison's heart. Once while we were dating I made the 'mistake' of asking Allison what her favorite Trader Joe's item is. 3 hours later the conversation topic was still going strong.

We've got more TJ's bags in our house than the TJ's on Lake Avenue.

Guess which Rose Parade float Allison was more than game to pose in front of?

Oh yeah, and then there's that tippy-toppy-tiny little part of the pyramid. I can barely read the fine print but I think it says something about bread, cereal, rice, pasta, vegetables, fruits, milk, yogurt, cheese, meat, poultry, fish, beans and nuts.

I love you Allison! Happy Birthday (again)!