No one joins Weight Watchers and gains weight the second week in. Not Jennifer Hudson, not anyone I know. Except me. I accepted long ago that I am the Bad Girl of Weight Watchers, a person who actually cheats and steals her points, who, like Betty Anderson in Peyton Place, is just from the wrong side of the weight loss tracks. Show me a diet, and I will show you a way to get around it; give me a shot at Key lime pie and I am all over it. And then I lie.
Perhaps my worst transgression this week was also my favorite. I had a hankering from God Knows Where for linguini and clam sauce, a slightly out of fashion dish I never make and I never order. There it was, in that thought balloon over my head, a shining bed of noodles in a bowl, lightly steaming, dotted with plump rosy Middleneck clams. “Pasta is your red light food,” the Weight Watchers voice said as I drove to Captain Frank’s, “the exact food you can never resist.” “No it’s not, ” I said in my sultry Betty Anderson voice. ” I’ll only have a tiny bit.”
But Joey at Captain Frank’s made that nearly impossible. When I said I was there for clams he knew just what to do; he marched into the back, broke out a dozen clams from their shells, added clam juice, and sent me home with the fresh makings of what would be the best linguine and clam sauce I have ever tasted. I mean. who does that? Who breaks clams for you, talks recipes and then throws in a bunch of fresh basil just because?
That’s what it means to live in a small town, with a great family-run store like Captain Frank’s Seafood. Even the Betty Anderson in me, the one who blew her Weight Watcher’s points to smithereens over a plate of linguini, can appreciate that.
So call me a cheap tramp; some things are just worth it.
