NOW YOU’RE COOKIN’

Many people think that because I teach more than four fitness classes in a week, I must be adept in the kitchen. They reason that because I’m in such good shape that my culinary skills should give me and my family a variety of tempting, nutritious, and (above all) low calorie meals.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Just the other day, Cecelia asked me to cook some scrambled eggs for her. I swear, I followed the old 1952 Betty Crocker cookbook to the letter, but that was when were from a different species of chicken. While not burnt, the meal’s texture reminded me of shoe leather, and Cecelia said it tasted like my foot was still in the shoe.

My microwave cooking skills are no better. Once I used it to warm up some coffee in an enamel metal cup. The resulting kitchen calamity resembled the bombing of Pearl Harbour.

Once, as a world-famous archaeologist, I wrote a research paper on what people thought was a new source of food. I found traces of blood on a three thousand-year-old stone tool. Reporters from around the world surrounded my lab thinking the world food crisis was over. Squeezing blood from rocks means rock soup.

Then the say my lab. I was working on a reference collection of skeletal remains so when I found them at a site, I could identify whatever critter was on the menu some 2000 years ago. That would tell me a lot about the site, but having a dead beaver in a bucket and a skunk in a drying cabinet called my methodology into question.

But that’s  beside the point. People always say, “But you’re so fit. Why don’t you eat properly?”

“I stay fit through teaching,” I say. “I teach so I can indulge in my bad eating habits.” Most of the time, the healthiest meal I eat comes Saturday morning at Safeway. I chew my way through shopping day by browsing on all the free samples.

Now I realize there must be life beyond standing in line waiting for a slice of wiener on a tooth pick grilling on an electric frying pan by a matronly demonstrator offering 20% off coupons. I should be able cook too. I just need your help.

I need recipes. I need recipes for low calorie and high energy foods that I can post on the web site for everyone to read, try, and eat.

INTRODUCING: THE SPIN DOCTOR’S RECIPE CONTEST

Recipes don’t have to be tried and true. They can be inventive. For example, I heard that the guy that sold Mr. Tubesteak wieners from a cart on the University of BC campus netted $10,000 a week for his efforts. (They threw him off campus because he wasn’t a union member. With income like that, who needs the union?)

I always thought that they could make a fortune from smokies made of chum salmon. (Of the pacific salmon, the chum salmon still survives in BC waters.) Think of the money one could make. Set up in front of Ron Zalko’s Sports Club in KitsIlano, an entrepreneur could net $10,000 per day. Everyone there craves the omega-3  fats only the salmon can give.

E-mail your favorite recipe. I’m going to award prizes in four categories. Winners will receive a copy of my book, “Awakening the Hunk Within.”

1) Simplicity.

I don’t have time to spend eight hours in front of the microwave oven. Keep it simple.

2) Originality.

Give me a recipe that will make me a world-famous chef as I flog it to some big hotel chain.

3) Nutritional Benefits.

Natives of the Southeast region of the USA used to grow corn, squash and beans in the same patch. This gave them all the nutrients they needed. Game was for gravy. Keep it healthy.

4) Sources.

Tell me where you got it. Tell me a story to go with the ingredients.

I’ll post all entries on the blog. Until next week, happy cooking.

Mike Broderick is an Employment Specialist for the Neil Squire Society in Burnaby where he finds employment for people with physical disabilities. Part of this work means affiliation with the Vancouver Board of Trade where he is a member of the Ambassador Club, the Burnaby Board of Trade where he is a member of the Labour Task Force, the Tri Cities Chamber of Commerce where he is an active member of the 10X10 initiative, and the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce. He does some work as a field Archaeologist and is a fitness instructor and frequent contributor of fitness humour articles to alive magazine in Port Coquitlam. You can reach him at home at michael_broderick@telus.net or at michaelb@neilsquire.ca. or at 604-464-4195.  If you’re looking for a career change, he is the Spin Doctor and can give you a resume makeover at competitive rates When he is not doing all this he lives in Port Coquitlam with his partner Cecelia.