This weekend I was a solo diner. Eating alone presents it’s own challenges. It’s tough to cook for one, and eating alone is not comforting it’s only filling. I finally invited my son over to share in the eating, so that it would be worth the cooking. Overall I ended up not doing too bad a job at eating good, but I didn’t try too hard in the end.

From this Thursday I was a bachelor. The first night I had dinner at the airport, bar food. The first night I boiled a beef tongue that I had cured, so that I would have prepared meat for later meals. That was the high point of my eating weekend, as the change in schedule of being alone to cook and eat was more than my meal planner could handle.

I made a corned beef hash with potatoes, beef tongue and eggs. It was a good start. I ate a hamburger salad one night, using home made ranch dressing. Then, when my son came to spend the rest of the weekend with me, I made reuben sandwiches with potato chips and the next night was processed battered shrimp and processed potato tater tots. Oh yeah, root beer. Oh yeah, ice cream.

I would love to blame my son for being a bad influence, but the reality is that I was having comfort food. I wanted to just eat without thinking and having something I could fry quickly, and eat quickly, well…it was comforting. I could have grilled steaks instead of buying the shrimp. I could have roasted a pork roast I had thawed. Instead I heated up some tallow, threw in a pound of artificially flavored battered shrimp, followed by some enhanced potato bites and called it dinner. Each bite was a guilty pleasure.

Back on the wagon.