Sometimes a notion strikes me, and I have to act on it as soon as possible. An idea I’ve known about for a long time and never seemed important (or doable) but it suddenly seems of great consequence.

Years ago, I went to this place called Freeman’s Sporting club, which is actually some kind of expensive young bro clothing shop somewhere downtown to get a haircut. Freeman’s was a clothing store with a barbershop in the back. I mean, how hip is hip, bro? Clothes and hair? I went there because it was written up in the Times as the new place to get old haircuts. Like the ones every man on Boardwalk Empire was sporting. Short on the sides, long on the top, just like the Nazis liked it.
My dad wore his hair like that, slicked back with a ton of Brylcream. I decided to try it out. I made the trek down to Freeman Alley on the Lower East Side for my Nazi haircut. After a two hour wait watching hip young bros get their beards trimmed and hair slicked back, I got in the chair.
“That’s not gonna work for you,” said my tattooed, bearded barber. Your hair’s just gonna fall down. He gave me a short haircut I could have gotten for half the price at a local barber, and I didn’t look like an extra on Boardwalk Empire. He also suggested I not wash my hair. “Takes all the natural oils out of your hair.”
I wondered what it would be like not washing your hair with a ton of “product” in it, but since I don’t use “product” that’s about as far as I got, wondering. I tried it, not washing my hair; and by the third day my head was so itchy I went back to shampooing. That was 14 years ago.
A few weeks ago, I was about to put shampoo in my now thinning hair and thought, “wait a minute! I know what I did wrong.” I thought not washing your hair meant not getting it wet, like I’ve seen women do. Then I remembered the guy saying, “put a little conditioner in once in a while.” A revelation in the shower. I proceeded to wash my hair, but not shampoo it. And it worked. No itching, no natural oil loss.
The next day something else clicked, I don’t need to eat so much meat. My doctor has been after me to start taking statins, despite telling me that my numbers were good. I think he’s just trying to sell drugs like any typical American doctor, so I begged off. But my cholesterol is borderline, and the first thing I did was stop eating so much cheese. Then I started cutting down on eggs. My cholesterol got better, but the doctor still talked about “preventive” measures because of my age. That got me thinking, what else could be preventative without taking any sort of pill? Less meat, of course!

For years I’ve limited my meat intake, I went from having eggs and sausages for breakfast (who can resist huevos rancheros with chorizo?) and any kind of meat sandwiches for lunch and topping it off with a meat entrée for dinner to just meat for dinner. But I figured I can do more- like maybe no meat at all for the day. I’ll never give up meat completely, but I will eat less of it, I can do that.

Years ago, in my early recovery days a bunch of us would fellowship after a meeting by going to this place called “The Sanctuary” on First Avenue in the East Village. It was run by the Here Krishnas and vegetarian. Not my first choice but since I was sad and lonely and needed company, I bit the bullet and went along. After all I’d probably had meat for lunch or breakfast, and it wasn’t going to kill me not to have meat for dinner.
The Sanctuary was where I discovered Tofurkey. Not exactly like a nice greasy turkey thigh but it didn’t make me throw up and it was chewy enough. But only for special occasions.
Last week I was in Whole Foods, and I decided to check out what kind of meat substitutes they had. There’s tofu, of course, but what else? I’ve heard of the Impossible burger, so I looked at what’s in the box. When I read “methylcellulose, cultured dextrose and Food starch modified” among a dozen other ingredients I wondered jus how much better than meat a highly processed substitute is. I give the Impossible burger a pass.
I found something called Abbot’s plant-based ground beef, and reading the label there was nothing modified or methylled, just plain natural ingredients, so I figured I’d give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised, the texture was almost exactly the same as ground beef, and the taste decent. And it cost just as much as real meat! Imagine that!

There’s more of course. After seeing a picture I posted of my ground beef substitute dinner I posted on Facebook a friend sent me a recipe for mushroom and walnut meatballs that “really slap.” I can’t wait to find out how hard. But this being Fourth of July weekend, tonight I’m going to make myself a couple of real beef burgers for dinner. With homemade French fries. I’ll think about tofu tomorrow.