I did not mean to do it. I did not want to do it…..but i did it. I ate 2 lbs of asparagus last night and 1 lb of strawberries (with 1/2 cup of yogurt)  for dinner last night.

My very thoughtful and well-meaning husband decided to surprise me and brought home 2 bags full of fresh fruit and veggies from Chinatown. Those of you who are familiar with Canal Street in NYC know that this part of Chinatown is FULL of street vendors hawking everything from batteries to bow ties and often at obscenely low prices. Some of the reasons why these items are so cheap, is that:

1. There is little to no overhead as these “shops” only consist of a makeshift table covered with a plastic tarp.
2. There is no staff per say, other than the extremely grumpy and often very unpleasant salesperson.
3. The quality of the items sold tend to be… well,cheap. 

Unfortunately, very often, the same thing applies to the sale of the fruits and vegetables that are being sold by some of these street vendors.

 My husband proudly told me that the asparagus that he so lovingly purchased for me were only 2 lbs for $1.00! As he knows me so well, and as many of you have now realized, I LOOOOVVVE a good bargain and certainly 2 LBS of asparagus for $1.00 is unquestionably a steal. He also brought home 1 lb of strawberries , 2 lbs of Bok Choy and 1 lb of cabbage – all for $1.oo per pound.

However, as the famous idiom goes, “you get what you pay for,” and these bargain bounties were true examples of that saying. I quickly inspected the loot and determined that the asparagus and the strawberries were the most in peril. The other veggies could hang on for another day or so.

The tips of the light green stalks were mushy and borderline rancid. The bottom of the stalks were wrinkled, dried up and straw-like. I knew what I had to do. I had to eat them all right then and there, lest risking them go completely rotten by the night’s end.

I chopped off most of the soggy tips salvaging as much as I could of the still edible parts. I peeled the asparagus to the brink of dissolution, scraping off all of the dried up skin and revealing the fresh green interior of the stalk. The 2 lbs actually wound up to be more like 3/4 of one pound as I ended up discarding most of the rotten mess. I quickly steamed the asparagus in salted boiling water with a generous dollop of olive oil. When I drained the salvaged vegetables, I simply squeezed a wedge of lemon on them, sprinkled them with a little more salt and a few twists of black pepper and gobbled the whole thing up.

The strawberries, while delicious was another exercise in natural selection. Only the strongest and in the case not dead and moldy ones survived. I plucked through the clear plastic clam shell package quickly discarding any berries showing any traces of mold or other growths. I cut off the squishy parts and chopped off the stems. The one pound ended up more like 1/2 lb and just like the asparagus, I gobbled them up.

Although fruits and veggies contain carbs, on the I LOVE FOOD DIET, I eat them anyway. How can one possibly deny oneself the pleasure of fresh fruits and vegetables – natures bounty?

In order not to have any backlash from the heavy protein and fat laden breakfast and lunch that I enjoyed earlier that day (Breakfast was 2 eggs and bacon, lunch was a cheeseburger (sans-bun) with just a FEW onion rings), I did not eat anything else for dinner, other than the salvaged “natures bounty”.

In all honestly, I could not eat anything else for dinner because I was FULL. A pound of asparagus and 1/2 lb of strawberries (with 1/2 cup of greek yogurt and 2 tablespoons of sugar-free maple syrup – only 6 carbs!)  was  very filling and left me fully satisfied. 

Sooooo if you are ever in the same situation as me and are confronted with pounds of rotting fruits and vegetables, then eat it quickly, before it goes rotten.

Chow for now!