Listening To My Body

“You have to listen to your body,” my new personal trainer tells me. I don’t tell him that if I was listening to my body, I wouldn’t be floundering like a dugong on a gym floor doing ridiculous things with my legs and a Swiss ball early on a Saturday morning; instead, I’d be at Babka having a strong café latte and the café's brilliant casalinga BLT (I’m sure they make their own mayonnaise), or at Balzari where I’d order the “triple cheese toastie” (grilled cheddar, fontina and fior di latte mozzarella on toasted sourdough) with the Saturday papers. I tell him instead that I have been listening to my body – after wearing insanely high heels to work two days ago, followed by even more insanely high heels to a black-tie awards ceremony that night, my body, my feet, are telling me very clearly that they won’t be tolerating that conceit again for some time.
My new personal trainer is trying to explain to me why I might have hit the wall with training this week. A week ago I was a demon on the cross-trainer: tapping the incline and resistance levels higher and higher, turning the volume on my iPod up higher and higher (I’ve found The Cat Empire's Two Shoes and The Cloud Room's anthemic Hey Now Now to be fine, crescendo-ing tracks for cross-training purposes), and watching with great satisfaction as the calorie count and my heart rate increased. But the past two days? Bang. Not a scrap of energy. Complete exhaustion.

I Know About Diet

My new personal trainer asks me about my diet. Oh, I know all about diet, I tell him smugly. I may not always be disciplined about it, but I know all about diet, I tell him. What did I eat yesterday, he asks. I think back. Coffee and two slices of sourdough with Vegemite for breakfast. (I was running late for work; no time to cut up the fresh fruit in the fridge.) A cheese and tomato toasted sandwich and some yoghurt with fresh berries at lunch. (No cash and had left my cashcard at home: the simplest work-caff lunch was all that I could afford.) For dinner, a can of sad, sad, smoked oysters, two glasses of white wine, and an after-thought salad of cos, tomato and fetta. (I was exhausted when I got home from work. Not a scrap of energy to do anything else.) My new personal trainer studies me. And I realise I’m hopeless. Where’s the energy for a new fitness regime in all that? All bread, and all of three “serves” of fruit and vegetables (if you can even call them “serves”).
I’ve got to work harder at this.
My thoughts turn to lentils. Vegetarian Action's website tells me: “Lentils are an excellent source of protein, iron and zinc and a good source of dietary fibre, pantothenic acid and potassium. They also supply vitamins of the B complex and various minerals.” According to my neglected WeightWatchers Points Guide, 75g of lentils is 3 points (WeightWatchers allows a total of 20 points a day, give or take a few). As a point of comparison, 50g of rice of any description is 2½ points. Even with my disgraceful mathematics, I can see that, point-for-point, the lentils are looking good; that I’d get brownie points from my new personal trainer if I had a simple but substantial lentil salad for dinner the night before a session with him.

Lentil Salad, Poached Egg, Fetta and Roasted Garlic Dressing
(serves 1, or 2 as part of a meal)

15 cherry tomatoes (or 8 slightly larger tomatoes)
1 bulb garlic, halved
1 tbsp olive oil
sea salt
100g Puy or high-quality brown lentils*
1 onion, quartered
1 bay leaf
sprig thyme
sea salt, ground black pepper
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
3 tbsp walnut oil (or olive oil)
1 red onion, finely diced
1 small hot chilli, sliced
½ cup mint and parsley, chopped
80g fetta, crumbled
1 egg, poached
rocket

Roasted garlic and tomatoes: Preheat oven to 180ºC. Put tomatoes and garlic bulb in a small casserole and toss with olive oil and sea salt. Roast tomatoes until they are soft, but still holding their shape – about 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside. The garlic bulb halves will need a little longer – around 30 minutes. Remove from oven when the garlic inside is squishy.
Lentils: Thoroughly wash lentils, checking that there are no stones or grit among the lentils. Place lentils in a saucepan with onion, bay leaf and thyme and cover with cold water. Put a lid on the saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for about 20 minutes. (*It’s easy to overcook them, so make sure you watch the clock and check them as they get close to done. Save your supermarket-bought lentils for soups or dahl – a lentil salad needs something finer. The French Puy lentils seem to be hard to get in Australia but Simon Johnson sells high-quality, well-graded Australian lentils.) When cooked, drain lentils in a colander, remove onion, bay leaf and thyme and set aside.
To make dressing: Scoop the squishy garlic out of one bulb half. Mash in a bowl with the back of a spoon until it is creamy. Mash in salt and pepper. Stir in white wine vinegar, then whisk in walnut oil until dressing is emulsified. Taste to check you’re happy with the vinegar-oil proportions and the seasoning.
To assemble: In a large bowl, combine lentils, dressing, roasted tomatoes, red onion, chilli, mint and parsley and fetta. Spoon on to a serving plate. Poach an egg and put on top of the salad with a pile of rocket leaves. Serve with remaining garlic bulb half at the side. It's all just gorgeous when the egg yolk dribbles over the lentils.

Comments

[Lucy]

You're depressing me with all your exercising... but I like the idea of the lentil salad! Nice pic too.

[bea at La tartine gourmande]

Oh funny, I just made poached eggs today with veggies and prosciutto on cooked dough, as I have been obsessing about them. I love your variant with lentils! Gorgeously delectable.

[Size 16, Prahran]

Hey ES, you rock! fabulous tasty food for the fuller figure, no lettuce leaves and ricecakes here, and more power to it. Can't wait to read the next family installment, how did the poor little suckling pig fare? What wines were served? New Year? a special dish?...and now read on.

And, who is that unbelievably cool illustrator?