Meatless Fridays

Netnet Camomot .

IT’S back to meatless Fridays for Lent. Which a Catholic may forget. As he burps after feasting on burgers, roast-beef sandwiches, and steaks, a delayed thought bubble appears overhead: Uh, it’s Friday.

And so, last Friday, there’s this Catholic who had corned beef and hot dogs for dinner. Oops!

Breakfast for dinner is the best of all as you slowly savor the fats and oils of bacon. This is not possible for breakfast as you rush from bedroom to office each morning. Rush is not exactly the word to describe cars stuck in morning traffic but you still have to rush to reach the office on time. The uptowner in Cagayan de Oro, for example, has to leave at least an hour before his downtown office opens, especially if he’s not the boss yet. A biometric attendance system does not encourage tardiness. Once he’s boss, though, he can always say, Client call.

A resto that offers an all-day breakfast menu is the best of all. Imagine having bacon, tocino, tapa, chorizo, sausages, ham, corned beef, hot dogs, and eggs for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yum!

Imagine all that processed food invading your veins. Oh. Nah. Not a nice thought. That may evoke memories of “The Shimmer” in “Annihilation.”

“The Shimmer” is a place that, well, shimmers with flowery trees that resemble human beings, deers with flowers sprouting out of their antlers, and a bear that says, Help me, using the voice of its last female victim. If shown in the ‘60s, it would have inspired some people to LSD pa more. But it’s a 2018 movie and all we could think of was, Aliens. That may or may not need breakfast.

But at least an early-morning menu is limited to a few food groups if your idea of breakfast doesn’t include food usually served for lunch and dinner. There was a time way back in 1999 when I had tinolang isda for breakfast, and that was like, What the…? There was fresh fish at a stall nearby, thus, the tinola.

Health experts say processed food is bad, and that makes tinolang isda the better choice compared to bacon which used to be a target of extremely bad press until the ketogenic diet arrived and change the dieter’s health habits.

Billy Crawford, Mae Paner, and Halle Berry are among those who have lost weight or maintained their ideal weight through the keto diet.

But Crawford’s diet is not the focus of breaking news nowadays. Instead, there’s his prenup photos’ floral suit being compared to a tote bag and a sofa. Four words for his stylist: You had one job!

Hmmm. I can relate with Crawford. Once upon a time, the merchandise store downstairs had excess curtain fabric not enough to cover all windows of a house, and that morphed into clothes for me. Good thing I never entered a house whose curtains were the same as my dress, otherwise, well, talk of blending in.

That’s probably the reason why I now prefer plain black or navy. No flowers, no stripes, no plaids, no printed whatever, and most especially, no polka dots, please.

It’s easier to shop for clothes once you’ve reduced possible choices to two colors. A woman armed with scaled-down choices may not yet behave like the man whose shopping direction is a straight line from the mall entrance to purchase target, but simplifying her wardrobe means she doesn’t have to go through mountains of clothes during a sale. All she has to do is to look for black and navy.

The ado on Crawford and Coleen Garcia’s prenup photos didn’t end with the floral suit. They were also bashed for racism, with netizens saying they used Ethiopians as “props.” The couple recently released a statement which included an explanation on the presence of Ethiopian kids in the photos: “Yung shot with the kids, actually patapos na kaming mag-shoot noon na kaming dalawa lang and we just needed to get a few shots in, but naaliw ’yung kids (who were already there) and they really wanted to be part of the photo so they kept coming into the frame hanggang sa sinama na.”

Ethiopia as the venue for the prenup photo shoot was a bad case of, It seemed liked a good idea at the time. The couple said they “were invited and sponsored by Ethiopian Airlines to do our shoot there for their tourism and capture their natural environment because we were told that tourism helps their economy. That’s why we were in Ethiopia.”

Oh. So, it was a subtle advert. Public image, anyone?

The advert truth behind the prenup photos would have remained a secret if not for Crawford’s floral suit.

A celebrity’s endorsement can mean instant popularity for a product. That’s how Kris Aquino continues to earn big bucks despite her lack of a regular TV talk show. Even Bimby’s height—taller than mom—is breaking news for their fans. Could that height be attributed to a diet sans processed food? Does Chowking, which Kris endorses, sell processed food?

But with Lent, Fridays may mean the tuna pie sold at Chowking’s sister company, Jollibee. In case you’ve been hibernating in Siberia in the last few years, here’s FYI: Jollibee Foods Corporation is the umbrella that hovers above Jollibee, Chowking, Greenwich, Mang Inasal, Red Ribbon, plus 54 percent of Burger King. Yes, Jollibee and Burger King are both buzzing in the same group.

Does “The Shimmer” have bees? You know, with all those flowers there.

Well, some diets do allow honey instead of sugar. And honey is non-meat, good for Lent’s Fridays and even on Good Friday. You can add that to coffee whose wishful thinking is to help digest the burgers, roast beef, and steaks.

But before diving into meatless Fridays, learn to savor each bite. As Julia Child used to say, Bon appetit!