Day 3, Wednesday: In Which Our Heroine Addresses Durkee and Dorothy Lynch

Today I felt that I finally hit my stride, eating approved foods at appropriate times in combinations that were harmonious and satisfying.

Breakfast at a normal hour was 2 hardboiled eggs. Nothin' fancy, but it was quick and got the job done.

Lunch was chicken salad over greens at Grid Iron Waffle House at an appropriate hour with the excellent company of one of my students, Bob.

Snack was green apple with peanut butter. Even here, as early as Day 3, I am seeing the phenomenon that everyone talks about, that I always doubted, but that turns out to be REAL. Normally I hate green apples. By Day 3, that green apple with almond butter tastes so, so sweet, and the almond butter is so rich, that it's an indulgence. Yes, this really happens. In fact, ten minutes after I ate it I was sitting around tasting the remnants of it on my tongue and thought, "Wait--did I slip up and eat a peanut butter cup?" True story.

I actually feel that raw almond butter with salt has a taste and texture that is somehow reminiscent of the raw cookie dough you buy in the tube. Remember when that first came out and it was so, well, miraculous? Now there's cookie dough in so many things the very idea grosses me out (chocolate covered cookie dough drops at Staples, cookie dough ice cream, etc.). Eating the raw almond butter takes me back to Kansas in 1992, when eating raw cookie dough from a tube was still thrilling. Ah, the halcyon days of youth!*

Dinner is one of my favorites from Diane's Practical Paleo: Lemon Artichoke Chicken. I add shiitake mushrooms and garlic to it, and use boneless skinless thighs. I love thighs--because of the FAT. I love chicken skin too (again, because of the FAT), but at TJ's the organic free range thighs only come boneless and skinless. Plus half an avocado with lemon. Yumsville. Could have used some more roughage at this meal but I had about two cups of salad at lunch.

*One day I shall take you down a harrowing memory lane of strange shit I ate on the farm in Kansas when I was a kid. Oh heck, why not today? Just two examples: My sister was just today reminding me of Dorothy Lynch salad dressing. It came in an enormous bottle and it was a lurid orange, with flecks of "herbs" in it. It was sickeningly sweet. I said to my sister, "why didn't we just have olive oil and lemon?" She replied, "we didn't have that stuff then." Lemons? We didn't have lemons? Were we on a clipper ship in the 1640s?

Another strange item: Hot dogs with Durkee sauce. I frequently had this for lunch, prepared with love by me (from age nineish onward) in the following fashion: fry up two hot dogs in butter, turning them so that each side gets crusty and golden. In the meantime, toast two hot dog buns. Remove buns from toaster oven, slather with butter. Then a layer of Durkee sauce, and a thin line of ketchup, put in the dogs and BAM! Awesomeness. The Durkee sauce looked like what you'd get if you combined mustard and mayonnaise together, and tasted a bit like that too, but more vinegary. I would kill for some of it now but I have a feeling it's not on the Detox. Dorothy Lynch dressing can drop dead for all I care. I never want to see that bee-yotch again.