Open Letter to Tim Noakes: A fun open letter to Tim Noakes written by a member of the public, published in the cape times on the 27th of February Dear Tim I am sad to say, but you have single-handedly killed the allure and fun of the weekend dinner party with friends! Gone are the days when we could sit around the 12-seater table eating, drinking favourite tipple and laughing until the early hours while engaging in varied entertaining topics without resorting to sleep-inducing dietary dialogue, focused obsessively on abc (anything but carbos!). Gone are the days when gracious, generous hosts could present a menu and array of wines without fear of alienating some of their guests. (Of course, friends with allergies and vegetarian preferences will always be catered for accordingly.) Gone are the days of spontaneous “pop over for a casual supper tonight” invites. You have created a new genre of diet obsessed, paranoid, anal, halitosis plagued, baby boomers who have, thanks to your preaching, degenerated into what can only be described as social misfits focused solely on their weight and next fat-laden, carbo- and sugar-free meal of eggs, bacon, chops etc. with a smattering of vegetables and a few strands of lettuce garnished with slices of thinly cut cucumber!Followed by an ‘abs’ (anything but sugar) desert of sugar-free, colourless, flavourless, plain yogurt sprinkled with a few tartish red berries! In an attempt to cope with these ‘abc’ and ‘abs’ dinner parties you have spawned, I find myself sneaking a precooked potato, stuffed with delicious spinach and feta, into a specially modified pocket in my wine carrier and slipping out into the garden for my carbo load. Hopefully, without the hosts or anaemic-looking Noakes devotees noticing! I am working on a way of smuggling in my favourite pasta dish, but this is a little more challenging! Not to mention my own crème brûlée or ice cream and brandy tart desert! These might sound like drastic measures, but I am desperate to stay in touch with old friends who have lost their way. Friends with whom I used to run umpteen marathons in the ’80s and ’90s with your first book, The Lore of Running, permanently beside our beds for inspiration and guidance. A book that mercifully encouraged us to eat pasta, potatoes, bread, carrot cake, croissants, muffins and be merry! The merry bit included one’s favourite beer! Tim, having just spent six weeks holidaying at Kenton-on-Sea, I should warn you that the farmers in the Southwell region of the Albany district in the Eastern Cape are going flat out working on a counter-revolutionary movement to bring their “tatoes” back to the dinner table! I look forward to the day when AbN (Anything but Noakes) dinner parties start making their comeback on the social calendar. ‘Yores’ in running
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 04:12:22 +0000
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