When Trying to Eat Right Goes Very Wrong

Or, Valter Longo is Not Impressed

Amazon is supposed to deliver At Longevity’s Table: Based on the Book by Professor Valter Longo. It’s a 2022 publication originally written in Italian, his collection of recipes garnered from centenarians living in Italy.

In some quirky twist of fate, the parcel goes missing, but another unexpected one shows up at the door instead. It’s a care package sent by a friend from Taiwan-teaching days, a person so thoughtful that I question her loyalty to someone like me for whom the notion of sending a care package is as remote as a South Sea island.

In what universe does a book slated to assist with proper nutrition go missing and a parcel filled with processed sugar arrive in its stead?

Care packages. One or two arrive in the Adirondacks at Girl Scout camp in the 1970’s, brownies made from scratch— a stick of butter melted with two unsweetened Baker’s chocolate squares in the top of the double-boiler, cooled, then poured into the pale yellow CorningWare bowl with its two beaten eggs and cup of sugar. A combination of flour, baking powder and salt mixed in, and afterwards, a half cup of chopped walnuts which go unappreciated back then.

My mother is not a baker per se, but brownies, always from scratch, are her go-to. The problem is that at least one of my siblings and I cannot stop at one, or two, or even three brownies. Once they come out of the oven and cool, my mother, in a peremptory move, hides the batch, but like a dog on a hunt, I know where to check— the highboy in the living room, the silver drawer in the dining room sideboard.

Over decades, nothing changes when it comes to my relationship with treats, except that now, when the hand-addressed care package arrives, there is no public mail call at the camp trading post. There are no tentmates to help monitor my consumption, no one I need to worry about sharing the shoebox filled with brownies and homemade Toll House cookies with. I am not at camp anymore; there are no restraints.

The Taiwan-teaching friend bakes special cookies. Ginger maybe? Softer than expected. (Crisp cookies take more effort to consume and somehow feel more virtuous.) Tucked underneath the sweet confections in the care package sit a bag of Dot’s Homestyle Honey Mustard Pretzels, sent only because I erroneously proclaim them unavailable on the East Coast, a mistake I register with a quick stroll down the salty aisle of the Safeway up the street.

The sweet/savory orange Dot’s pretzel residue fingers me as she who consumes the bag within two forays.

I re-order the Victor Longo book of Italian centenarians’ recipes. Unlike his The Longevity Diet, it’s poorly produced and sits un-consulted on the shelf.

If only the junk food would too.