— I stumbled across something today, read it, dropped a comment about it some other place, and then left it alone.

Until I couldn't.

I sat there eating my first food in 19 hours—courtesy of an almost daily fast—time restricted feeding, eating window, whatever— and looked down at my 159 baht ($4.15) plate of grilled pork and chicken, with mushroom sauce, green peppercorn sauce, mashed potatoes, smoked pork sausage, and grilled vegetables...then realized I'm eating something that many a diet zealot loves, and that another hates.

...What I'd seen was a head-shaking post by Amber O'Hearn recalling an experience with potatoes she hadn't touched so much as a bite of in over 2 decades. I seem to recognize the name, perhaps from the Paleo Daze—and apparently, she switched trains at the station at some point, in favor of a high-fat, low-protein keto/carnivore dogma approach.

Yep, I'm perpetually straddling dietary salvation and condemnation both, in nearly every meal—all of them falling short of either someone's dietary prescriptions or someone else's proscriptions. And on deeper sociological examination, isn't that part of of the point of different diets as such, and in the first place?

It starts with chocolate and vanilla...but oops, both are proscribed by some dietary catechisms, allowed only in moderation in others. And unless there's an Ice Cream Diet^TM, I don't know that either are prescribed anywhere...unless perhaps the chocolate is 70% or greater organic cacao and then it might fall under the grudgingly allowable for some. I digress.

I'll go into detail over Ms. O'Hearn's post, below.

So what constitutes the ideal inspiration for a jump-to-the-front blog post more than that? I mean, just look.

This was at my favorite place in Rawai, JeePhueng Phochana and Steak House, a hole-in-the-wall owned and operated by a trained-chef hubby & wife team who met while working in a fancy hotel restaurant on the island, pre-Covid. Unique in the world, a "Thai" restaurant that serves only Farang food, but at Thai-normal prices. It's less than 2km from my place, I've walked over and back a number of times. Every time I go I end up meeting Thai folks who've become Farang-food fans, as well as the astute Farangs, and the regulars, like myself.

My friend Jackie, for instance—a former 2nd-baseman for the Phillies way, way on back—eats there every day for lunch. Everyone says the same thing: 'love the prices but we come here because everything is so good!'

And then I thought about the dinners I cooked at home the last two nights and it's the same thing. Love & hate on the same plate, depending upon which dogmatic dietary perspective one pays homage to adheres to...practices. There. I fixed it.

Wait until you see those marvelous, mouth-watering photos. But first, the setup.

Two days ago I was in Lotus Fresh, a Seven Eleven-sized offshoot of the Tesco Lotus chain and I walked past the most beautiful pork filet I have ever seen in my life. And that's the truth. A good inch and 1/2 thick, perfectly marbled, with a thin strip of fat that would turn singed and succulent over a grill flame. I had to have it, though it would set me back 69 baht ($1.80). I pared it with a boiled potato and bathed the entire shebang in a tarragon chicken-stock reduction sauce, dusted with black pepper and cayenne for a wee bit of kick and a Lagasse BANG!

Then down the aisle, an equally attractive, thick chicken breast with its skin called to me at only half the price of the pork. So I got that too, for last night, and that lower-carbohydrate meal was paired with mixed stir-fried vegetables and garlic, tossed in unsalted butter. I did the same thing with tarragon and chicken stock, but added a smidgen of milk for a southern flair.

I trust you'll be able to tell which is which.