"Salad Daze"

It appears as though Dumpie is taking his obsession with his proud, high, round little tummy a touch too far these days.  As I placed his little blue rucksack and tiny scooter helmut in his cubbyhole at school this morning, waving goodbye and forcing a sloppy wet kiss on his delectable little cheeks (only to watch him scrub it off furitively moments later), I caught a bevy of Balinese teachers gathered round the little man, taking it in turns to stroke his belly.  The fact that he was wearing his bright red and black 'I LOVE Bali' t-shirt only served to make the mental snapshot all the more poignant, as I heard a chorus of bemused, "You no fat!" issuing forth.  Oh dear.

Meanwhile, I'm having to deal with bigger issues at home.  Such as a massive salad backlog.  Nyoman our cook/housekeeper has discovered that there few better ways to illicit gasps of amazed gratitude, than by  fashioning ever bigger and elaborate salads for the woman of the house (umm...that's me).  I think I've inadvertantly hit her repeat button, and whipped her into a frenzy of culinary self-competitiveness.

Ingredients such as apple, bean sprouts, feta cheese, arugula, and fresh basil are daily being incorporated into these gourmet worthy concoctions.  Homemade salad dressings, ever more creamy and piquant - fashioned primarily from our herb garden and whizzed up on the mini CuisineArt, only serve to up the 'yum factor' to such a degree that I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever tasted better.

But here's the problem.  The monsters don't eat salad.  And the husband isn't a big fan (he loves a Ceaser it's true, and is quite partial to a rocket & parmesan, but that's about it).  So that leaves me, little ol' me, to somehow get through gigantic wooden bowls of salad, painstakingly prepared and left for me on a daily basis.  

Having lived here for over a month, that's a fair few salads.  I remember boasting to an envious mate several weeks ago, "Yes, I know i'm so lucky.  I could eat this every day!"

Turns out I am.  And I'm starting to tire of it.

To make matters worse, the past few days the husband has completely opted out of even the 'polite portions' of salad I've been trying to sneak on his plate.  Add to that the fact that we've had a couple of days of almost exclusively eating out, and my current conundrum is becoming more pronounced.

The only way I could imagine getting through all this salad (both the prepared variety and the soon to be harvested fresh ingredients threatening to burst out of the fridge) would be if I hosted a giant 'Ladies Who Lunch' convention, inviting all the female ex-pats on the island to come and sit around little wrought iron tables and have a salad luncheon whilst discussing animal rights or something.  Or I could make a bunch of new gay male friends who might love nothing more than to join me for a luncheon, decked out in crisp summer whites, pick at a salad, sip chardonnay and have a proper old bitching session.  But then again it's hard to fuel a proper bitching session without appropriate lubrication.  And the 200% alcohol taxing system here in Bali make that scenario rather unlikely.  And the laundry service here makes the thought of crisp summer whites laughable.

So I suppose there's only one option.  I'm going to have to start eliminating other foods from my diet, and focus solely on getting through some of this salad.  Maybe I should set my running alarm to go off every two hours (goodness knows with all this healthy salad eating I can probably stand to lay off the running a touch), or maybe start having late night dvd and salad sessions.  There are a lot of movies I've been meaning to watch.

Maybe I should just tell Dumpie that the best way to lose a tummy is to eat lots and lots of salad....