I’m sure I have said innumerable times how I tend to eschew the white carbs—pasta, rice, potatoes (fries don’t mostly count!), it is sort of long standing tradition brought on by my past husky years. Yes, that is the term I am going with because that is the section at Sears we ended up in when looking for some Easter Sunday duds I would probably only wear once and not be able to button the next year. Which is kind of how I got to no-carb land in the first place.

When one is brought up in the South and lives up and down the East Coast, you eat because you are supposed to. If your mama makes it, puts it on a plate and sets it in front of you, you eat it. Particularly if there is the promise of a slice grandma’s homemade cake to follow. Thus plate clearing it is! And of course, the genesis of my obsession with cake. It all starts somewhere.

You don’t get picky about what you eat, you eat what you get because kids in Africa are starving! Yes, I heard that more than once. Though I doubt they would be all onboard for that tuna casserole or corned beef and cabbage, things I refuse to eat to this day as an adult.

Not to mention, winters are cold back East so you have to bulk up like beavers and bears. Put on that good layer of warm fat to you get you through freezing cold. It helped you could hide it all with the bulky clothing. Thick sweaters or sweatshirts, big coats and multi layers of flannel. Fun fashion times!

Exercise? Gym? Unheard of. I walk to the Metro and to work, isn’t that enough? People went to the Y though I’m pretty sure they were not going for the weights. And dancing and sweating at the bar every Friday and Saturday night also counts, right? The beer is just for hydration. Oh the lies we tell ourselves in our twenties and even thirties.

Then suddenly you find yourself in California in the late 90s with a waist size bigger than your inseam and looking around at all the “fit” folks and thinking—-ffff******kkkkk. Nothing like a little competition to spur one into action. Which in my case at the time, would be anything since I’d been doing nothing. Since this was pre-internet I had to do some book (you know, those things with pages made of paper) research to figure out the best course of action. It is how I landed on Atkins—all meat, eggs and cheese and visions of bacon in my eyes. This seemed like to way to go since I vaguely remember my mother doing this back in the 70s and having success with it. Though, I did join a gym too because walking from the couch to the kitchen was still not enough exercise. Thus I gave up the bread, the rice, the potatoes and even the desserts which was a shock to my system and mental preparedness for such and a drastic undertaking.

To say it was an adjustment is an understatement. I think I was down for the mostly all meat thing but my first time on a treadmill and running/walking of any kind in years was eye opening and exhausting—after only 30 minutes of kind of a fast walking thingy. But determined I was, since I was paying for the gym, it all seemed to work. Three months and 40lbs later I felt comfortable buying new jeans four sizes smaller.

Not all super fun but for me, it worked how I wanted and these days, while I don’t subscribe to the full on all protein all the time thing (too boring and I missed vegetables) I modified it to better suit me and work in the long run but kept most of the no white carb stuff which I partial out depending on the day and whatever restaurant I feel like trying. You know, spreading things around instead of gorging on them everyday. By spreading around it works out to around once a month even though my blog makes it seem like more but in reality, the dining out is spaced farther apart than it seems here. And I am not going to get into cake here, because…CAKE!

Which is what brought me and Ms. O to my current not review of The Italian Homemade Company to try some old school Italian specialties, which yes, include some pasta and bready things, but still lots of meat and cheese. I’d walked by their place in North Beach a number of times and was like, I need to try them, eventually and Ms. O always said they were good. Thus here we were on a November Friday a week before Thanksgiving walking into the somewhat tiny Hayes Valley location which was already jumping.

I guess if you are going to hit up an Italian restaurant you should try at least one pasta dish and why not go all in with something they specialize in like lasagne. Six layers of meaty tomato sauce between six layers of then wavy pasta covered in more meat sauce and a generous spattering of parmesan cheese. It is a hefty, weighty slice and thank goodness it was mostly on Ms. O to have most of this (and take the rest as leftovers). It was amazing how easily a fork cut through it. I would say it was just like grandma made but my grandma deep fried everything and baked cakes for money on the side so…….

What better way to get your Atkins/keto meat on than with two giant beef and pork meatballs covered in meat sauce and a still generous smattering of parmesan. Yeah, I know, there is some breading in all meatballs to help hold them together, but there is also egg and the bread is just a minor ingredient that doesn’t take away from the meatiness of it all.

Ok, here was more bread in the form of a traditional yeast free flatbread stuffed with house made sausage, onions, bell peppers and mozzarella with a side of meat sauce for dipping. The meat sauce comes with everything! Think of this as an Italian quesadilla if you will. Or a folded over small pizza. Just smaller and not as cheesy or as interesting, though that meat sauce helps.

If you are heading for a place with Italian in the name pasta, bread and carbs, carbs, carbs are gonna be on the menu, there is no avoiding them, even in the meatballs. But it isn’t like I completely deny myself all those forms of flour, rice and potatoes, I just pick and choose when I consume them and sometimes will pass them up in favor or something on the dessert side instead of the savory. That is how my tastebuds roll. Though if I want to try a spot people like a lot, I will plan ahead and dive in when the occasion arrives.

Yeah, I know it sounds like too much work, yet for me I think I am just used to the trade offs at this point and comfortable with it. All part of the balance of eating food, enjoying food and trying to maintain some kind of healthy-ish food intake. And let’s be honest, if I really want to try something, I will and then just make other adjustments down the line. Not for everyone, just for me.

And heads up, I see more fried chicken on the horizon…….stay tuned.