I've had various food blogs over the years, and some of what I wrote on previous blogs was a) hilarious or b) good information. To avoid losing all that to the abyss of the internet, I'm sharing some #tbt posts on Fare by Clare. This was originally posted in July 2015, but it is quite likely that I would do this detox again.
I'm pleased to announce that this past week, I set a S.M.A.R.T. goal for myself and achieved it: I resolved to complete what I now call the Barb Kellner Detox and I did just that. I'm not one for diets, detoxes, or really any eating rules, but this one was actually quite nice as it involved 90% pizza. Read on for the chronology of my Barb Kellner detox! Maybe you'll try it someday, too.
Disclaimer: this detox most likely does not have any positive health benefits.
Wednesday: It Begins
After missing dinner due to kickball, we went out to the bar which happens to be next door to Pizza Luce so naturally I found myself grabbing a slice or two for a very late European dinner. When I go to Pizza Luce I always order two slices: one meat and one veggie. This is a great strategy because you have one for dinner/bedtime snack and one for breakfast in the morning. The following morning, I had my second slice. Pizza for two meals in a day is pretty normal for me especially considering my Luce strategy, but by the virtue of more serendipitous occurrences my pizza consumption was about to increase ninefold...
Image: @carley_kiyoko
Thursday: It Gets Real
My boss happens to love Toppers Pizza, which means that often ends up being the chosen cuisine for work lunch meetings. It just so happened that on Thursday for lunch, when I had brought a nutritious meal of yogurt, fruit, and a granola bar, she ordered Toppers. Bam! Pizza meal #3. At this point, I was getting a little crazy in terms of pizza consumption, and maybe it was my cheese-addled brain, but at some point on Thursday afternoon/evening I wondered, "How long can I continue eating pizza for all my meals?"
At this point, my dear roommate and friend Carl agreed that if I could eat pizza for all my meals until Saturday dinner (when we had already made plans to have a non-pizza dinner), she would present me with a prize of her choosing. Now I'm never one to turn down a prize or a surprize, so I accepted the challenge and resolved to have many more pizza meals.
That night, I had Galactic Pizza's The Thailander, a non-traditional pizza featuring peanut sauce, chicken, and Thai spices. My "personal" pizza lasted for Friday's breakfast, lunch, and post-work snack. While it was a welcome change from the more traditional pizzas I had been eating, by the fourth meal of it I was struggling a bit. However, I knew I couldn't quit so close to the finish line.
Friday: Losing Steam, but Persevering
Friday's dinner was a custom order from Luce with sausage and wild mushrooms. It was delicious, albeit difficult to truly enjoy as I was beginning to tire of pizza at this point. I managed to gobble down two slices and proceeded to wash down the pizza - and the strange combination of pride and disgust with myself - with a few beers.
Saturday: The Home Stretch
On Saturday morning, I originally intended to make a bagel pizza but sadly our jar of Ragu tomato sauce had grown mold. "No problem," I thought to myself. "I'll just make a white pizza with alfredo sauce!" No dice: the alfredo had molded too. I guess we haven't been eating pasta much lately.
Luckily I had a frozen DiGiorno in the freezer (as I nearly always do), so that became my breakfast and lunch on Saturday. As Saturday's lunch was my final pizza meal, I froze the second half of the DiGiorno and will bring it out at a much later date.
On Saturday I also attended my recreational kickball tournament powered fully by pizza and Michelob Golden Lite. Surprisingly enough, I felt great aside from a small interlude where someone ordered Domino's and put it right next to me and kept offering it to me. Even though I knew I still had one more pizza meal ahead of me, I couldn't bring myself to add an additional pizza snack to my repertoire. I will admit it made me slightly nauseous.
After finishing my final pizza lunch on Saturday (brought in a ziploc to my parents' house where I was doing laundry), I excitedly returned home to claim my prize. It did not disappoint in the least: a single penny taped to a handwritten congratulatory certificate.
My Barb Kellner Detox was complete, and I felt great.