PUTTING THE “DIE” IN “DIET”

Steve H. Graham, blogger extraordinaire (Hog On Ice), food expert, and humorist, has come out with a new Must-Read book: Eat What You Want and Die Like A Man.

“New” may be overstating it a bit. Steve released an earlier self-published version of the book several years back, featuring cover art by Day By Day’s Chris Muir. A copy currently graces our upstairs bathroom, where it provides amusement for anyone who stops by to drop the kids off at the pool.

But Steve has assured me that Version 2.0 has been more-or-less completely rewritten, which means that if you’re among the Lucky Handful of People who read the original EWYWADLAM, you’ll still find plenty of great new material in Today’s Edition.

Steve is primarily a humor writer, so perhaps it’s best to approach this book as a comedy piece rather than a straight-up cookbook. Nevertheless, the recipes have been tested to death (Steve is a relentless perfectionist when it comes to food) and can be guaranteed to be tasty, if not exactly Low-Calorie. You know you’re going to be having a Serious Meal when you’re looking at items like Chicken-Fried Rib Eye on a Huge Biscuit...especially when you’re frying that rib eye in lard and using bacon grease to make that Frisbee-size biscuit.

I was a bit disappointed that Whale Bacon didn’t make the cut until I thought about it. You eat Whale Bacon raw, so what’s the point of a cookbook?

Some of the recipes look like they’ve been put in as examples of how much Fattening Stuff can be jammed into a single dish: Hash Brown Casserole with Cheddar and Sour Cream, Yeast-Raised Fried Doughnuts With Coconut/Banana Sauce, Grease Burgers. But all of ’em sound delicious, and they range from the homegrown (Cornbread and Navy Beans) to the exotic (Rotis and Jamaican-Style Goat Curry, Doro Wat).

More importantly, they all reflect Steve’s simple philosophy. Use fresh ingredients, and don’t plug in something “healthy” in place of something authentic. If you want to eat Baklava With Cheesecake Filling, don’t make a half-assed version with skim milk and Olivio, because it’ll suck. Make it right, and it will at least taste good...and if you don’t eat big wads of it every day, your ass won’t grow to be the size of Nebraska and your arteries won’t fill up like the men’s room at halftime. Maybe.

Buy the book. You’re guaranteed a good laugh, and a few good meals to boot.