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Did Cavemen Barbecue?

I'm on day 5 of the Paleo diet. Being the culinary novice that I am, my diet has consisted of lots of raw fruits and vegetables, nuts (not peanuts or cashews, though), water, eggs, and barbecued meat. I'm drinking more wine now, too. Apparently, Paleolithic man did not combine yeast, barley, hops, and water into a delicious miracle beverage, but he did chow down on fermented grapes.



Eating raw and basically cooked foods keeps you alive, but it's no match for butter, salt, and grease as far as my taste buds are concerned. I've got to get better at making food that tastes good. Luckily, my wife's parents, Don and Jean, are in town for a few months. Jean is a master chef. She loves to cook and she's amazing in the kitchen. My plan is become her apprentice. It gets me out of washing the dishes, too, which was my primary role in the kitchen, prior.

The other night, we (she) made a fish stew. Basically, onion, skinned and chopped tomatoes, fennel, garlic, white wine, chicken broth, fennel seeds, hot pepper, bay leaf, orange zest, with 1lb of fresh salmon and 1lb of halibut. Unbelievable! Everyone else had it on rice (not allowed for me), but it tasted great as a soup, too. The funny thing is I really felt connected to the food. I tasted the whole of the ingredients, as opposed to just wolfing it down. It was a unique experience. I think I could get into cooking.

I feel terrible, though. Probably not as bad as someone coming off heroin, but a similar experience withdrawing from sugar. I feel like I have the flu. I've done a couple of Crossfit workouts this week, and they really beat me up. Sugar was really propping me up. I've started drinking americanos from Starbucks (instead of the black sludge down at Timmy's). Coffee is derived from a bean (which is not allowed), and probably beyond the purview of stone-age man, but Dave down at Crossfit BC is a big coffee fan and he set the rules, so I'm in for caffeine.

Jer

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