The pork chop diet (and other secrets of cooking for one)

I just finished "BLT week." This was a week in which I ate one bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich every day. By doing so, I managed to consume one 16-ounce packet of bacon, most of two slicing tomatoes, and a ball of iceberg lettuce in eight days.

This is the price you pay when you’re single and live by yourself. When the extra fancy bacon goes on sale at your local supermarket, you can’t resist buying it. And then you hurriedly pick up a tomato and lettuce.

People have urged me to invest in a quality freezer. But I don’t want to live a freezer life. I watched my Boomer father give his best years to the freezer ethos.

And then it’s a race to eat all that bacon before it goes bad, or gets relegated to the back of the refrigerator, where it will eventually go really bad.

I know you can use bacon in a lot of different ways, but I’m not that creative. I stick with the BLTs. And maybe a couple of strips with breakfast.

But of course, familiarity breeds contempt. And so after a week of constant bacon, I’ve had enough.

Pork for dorks

Last month, I did a "pork chop week." It was the same scenario as the bacon: I bought a packet of five pork chops on sale. But then I had to make sure to eat one a day, lest I forget about them and they end up in the back of my fridge, where I would rediscover them months later.

This is a standard practice for me. Since I’m rarely cooking for someone else, and I can’t resist a deal, I end up buying family-sized portions of different food products — which I then feel obligated to eat continuously until they're gone.

I suppose I could buy a “grab-and-go,” single-person meal from the deli section of my supermarket. These meals are designed for chronically stressed-out single people, who have given up on life.

Typically, they consist of one sad pork chop, a pathetic glop of mashed potatoes, and three scrawny green beans, all encased in microwaveable plastic, for the outrageous price of $20.

No thank you on that. Instead I buy the pork chop family pack. Five pork chops for $5.

Those five pork chops are intended to be one meal for a family of five.

But for me, it’s a week’s worth of pork chops. At the end of which, I’d rather not see another pork chop for a while.

A friend in need

I have a friend who is also single. She lives alone in another state. She gets caught in the same trap, buying too much food, much of which is perishable.

But unlike me, she doesn’t force herself to eat it all. She throws the extra in the fridge and forgets about it.

This is where I come in. I go visit her and spend a week eating all the leftovers in her fridge. The fish sticks she didn’t eat. The remainder of a takeout pad thai order. Half of a tuna casserole she forgot about. Or part of a stale Sarah Lee cheesecake.

Recently, I found slices of cold pizza that had spent weeks in the back of her fridge. Fortunately, using my advanced single-guy microwave skills, I was able to bring these deceased pizza slices back to life and make a nice meal out of them.

Singles going steady

Some people refer to these food portion problems as a “singles tax.” It’s that extra bit you have to pay because you have not coupled up or don’t have a family.

You especially get gouged by the singles tax when you travel. I travel a lot, and the amount I spend on hotels ... yikes! Or paying for gas on long driving trips when I’m the only person in the car. Such trips feel very wasteful.

But this is becoming the norm: Solo travelers, solo diners, solo apartment dwellers — more than ever, people are living by themselves.

According to Pew Research, “About 38% of adults aged 25 to 54 in the U.S. are unpartnered, which includes those living alone, a significant increase from 29% in 1990.”

Alone again, naturally

So where did this trend away from couples and toward singletons begin? For myself, it began in my 20s. I knew that I wanted to be a writer, which is, of course, a precarious profession.

In my case, that seemed to preclude a wife and kids. How would I support them over the inevitable lean years? I wouldn’t want to force my “starving artist” lifestyle on a family.

But nowadays, you don’t have to justify being single by your choice of jobs. People just prefer it.

Men and women no longer have a “yin and yang” relationship. They are no longer considered two different types of humans who complement each other and need each other’s different abilities.

No, men and women are increasingly the same. They both have jobs. They both own homes. They both have cars and gym memberships and credit cards and food preferences.

As they have become more isolated and less dependent on one another, men and women increasingly live alone, shop alone, dine alone.

Everyone can take care of themselves. Nobody needs anybody. It sounds good in terms of personal freedom. But you can’t help wonder about the long-term societal effects.

And really, how happy can you be when you’re forced to eat yet another BLT, after you just ate six of them?

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Cold, cold heart

And yes, people have urged me to invest in a quality freezer. But I don’t want to live a freezer life. I watched my Boomer father give his best years to the freezer ethos: putting stuff in there and then digging it out, five years later, covered in ice and snow, and not remembering what it is or why he bought it.

No, I want to live now. I want to eat now. I want to go to the supermarket and feel the thrill of finding a jumbo pack of gourmet chicken apple sausage at half price!

If that means I’ll be eating chicken apple sausage every day for the rest of the calendar year, that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.

Hope, always hope

In the meantime, I remain hopeful that change is possible. That men and women will come together, embrace their differences, and learn to live with each other again. (And increase the birthrate?)

Only then will we create the kind of families who can easily consume five pork chops in one sitting.

In the meantime, if you need any chicken apple sausage, I’ve got extra.