Resolutely turning over a new green leaf to start the year with a clear mind
‘HERMIONE, oh fairest, I have a New Year’s resolution.’ ‘Yes, darling?’ My heart’s desire greeted the announcement with a tone of suspicion, ceasing briefly from her exertions at the stove. She looked over to where I was reading my newspaper in the easy chair by the range, her finely pencilled eyebrow raised in scorn.
‘I thought you never made New Year’s resolutions. I thought you said New Year’s resolutions were strictly for the foolish and the deluded. I thought you believed that New Year’s resolutions never last beyond the third week of January.
‘If I recall your last New Year’s resolution correctly, it was a solemn undertaking to do more work in the kitchen – and look what happened that. Ha!’ She rolled the sleeves of housecoat further up her shapely arms, adjusted her rubber gloves, and returned to her pot-walloping.
‘That was 2005,’ I stammered. ‘This is different.’ I waved the paper at her, or at least I waved it at her back. ‘This report says that a portion of salad every day helps to ward off Alzheimer’s.’
‘Ha! I think I preferred the report which suggested that a glass of red wine each evening wards off Alzheimer’s. ‘And what about your theory that solving crosswords wards off Alzheimer’s? Or a daily four kilometre walk? Or french kissing?’ She tossed the pot aside and began scrubbing potatoes.
‘French kissing? I hadn’t heard that one but I can see how it might improve blood supply to the brain. I’d be happy to give it a try…’ No response. Not even a Kerr’s Pink fired low and hard at eye level. Just a blizzard of potato skin as Hermione switched her energies from bristle brush to peeler.
‘Anyway, this business about the salad seems to have plenty of scientific backing. So I have resolved to sprinkle lunch with salad leaves from now on. This is not just a January thing. This is serious lifestyle management. As of now, lunch and leaves are synonymous.
‘Perhaps you would care to join me? And perhaps you would be so good as to add rocket and spinach to your shopping list.’
When the potato came it was actually a Rooster, and it caught me full on the forehead before I had any chance to defend myself…
It turned out that my nearest and dearest had her own New Year’s resolution. Hermione decided that I must be the one to do the shopping. And so it was that I found myself, list in hand, wandering around the aisles of the Our Town supermarket and peering through shop windows along the main street.
Brown rice, tick. Brown bread, tick. Brown sugar, tick. Low-salt rashers, tick. Low-fat milk, tick. Low-calorie fry spray. Yes, that really did read low calorie fry spray, not fly spray. The flies are far too busy buzzing around to count calories. Tick.
Sugar-free cola – who drinks this muck? – tick. Gluten-free porridge, tick. Additive-free soy sauce, tick. High-energy drinks, low GI bread. It struck me as I went through the list that we appear to be eating increasingly for effect rather than for mere taste.
It is, of course, the case that the correct balance of foods will assist in achieving good blood pressure, sturdy bones, improved night vision – and maybe even delayed onset of Alzheimer ’s disease. My New Year’s salad leaves were just the latest addition to a diet which comes dripping with all sorts of worthy intentions.
A blend of rocket and beet foliage, they came, by the way, in an impeccably sealed plastic bag, all the way from Staffordshire in the UK of all places. Lobbing them into my shopping basket, I immediately added a second resolution in the interest of saving not only the planet but also Ireland’s balance of trade. My firm intention is to grow a steady supply of green leaves for as many months as our climate will allow.
Walking home, I recalled a joke to tell Hermione. I thought it might cheer her up as she seems to be working awfully hard in the kitchen these days…
College is not what it was. You can take a degree in just about anything now. A BA in baloney, a master’s in mistresses or a PhD in codology. There’s even one university offering a course in salad studies. That’s right, you spend three years on campus and then graduate with lettuce after your name.