Tuesday, March 3, 2015

I EAT MUSHROOMS!




I am ready to report that my most recent durable dietary change—eating organic mushrooms—has made “a difference” in my life. I don’t even know what to call them, white mushrooms, basic mushrooms, simple mushrooms, bland mushrooms, little mushrooms?, but I purchase said fungus in a plastic-wrap container at the organic food store, squeezing one of the assemblage through the plastic in the sake of outcomes assessment. If nice and plump, a good outcome, then I place container in basket. They’re always nice and plump. Mostly, I just cut a few mushrooms (raw) into The Daily Salad. Why didn’t I eat a mushroom earlier in life? Perhaps I fretted over its silly appearance, or I worried that it would taste like paste, or maybe I figured that friends would poke me with accusations. Now hear this, smart aleck: I’m not talking about a “shroom”, the mystical, elusive medication that ostensibly matures beneath a cow-pattie, whole bags of which have failed to enlighten a single thrill-seeker. No, I’m not talking about a “shroom”, but a plain legume that has bestowed upon me what I will call “a difference.” First, before I describe “a difference”, I must insert some science. Namely, I have made no other durable changes in dietary endeavors of late, my intake otherwise continuing to involve the basic food groups: fine stouts and ales, The Daily Salad, coffee, snacks, and protein. Thus, the addition of a mushroom must be the cause of “a difference.” O, rubbery toadstool! O, noteworthy contribution! O, neutral texture! But I digress. I am, in a word, better. This is “a difference”. Sure, it could be a phase, this betterment, it could be an error in accountancy, it could be an intoxication borne of a sudden enthusiasm, but it’s not. I am—in a word—better. Sitting there, during Rockford Files reruns a few weeks ago, I had to ask myself: What accounts for this smoother existence, if not the mushroom? In a world where television and doctors insist that you must have a moderate-to-severe pre-illness, and you probably don’t (believe me) you probably don’t suffer from a moderate-to-severe pre-illness, I am here to say, as a fellow who felt fine to begin with, why not institute a trial mushroom regimen? The organic mushroom, my friends, contains a respectable loveliness inside every little cap, O yes.


Cultural Affairs Week Editorial Schedule

March 2: Crows & Owls
March 3: I Eat Mushrooms!
March 6: Kits

4 comments:

M. C. Zito said...

I might have initially owned a better, smoother existence to a Rockford rerun--but no, I dig, it's the mushroom. But what does the mushroom worry 'bout runnin' outta: mush or room?

Anonymous said...

profoundly wrong about thrill-seeking cow-patties.

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

I think it was the Rockford where someone threw a hand grenade into the chimney of his trailer. I'm like -- chimney? Trailer? I dunno about all this Rockford movie magic. But that's when I had the mushroom revelation, M.C.Z. I heard Nina Simone ("... I Feel Good ...") and I suddenly knew what she'd been saying, all these years.

Only thing mushroom worries 'bout runnin' outta -- cow pattie. You heard it here.

-----------------------b.a.

DAN / DANIEL GUTSTEIN said...

re: "profoundly wrong about thrill-seeking cow-patties"

hi, casey.

ah, well, i've seen whole bags of "shrooms" fail to produce one single coltrane hologram. i'd settle for any hologram. i'd take a cyndi lauper hologram, or a barbecue bob hologram, or, shucks, a wendell willkie hologram. he was the inspiration for u2's "one love" by the way.

there's a cartoon witch who ate a dopey fungus -- yeah, Shroom Hilda.

yrs,
b.a.