Many of you know about my weird diet. I blame my damned, hippy wife, Fabulous Publisher Babe(tm).

Over the last whatever, I’ve taken to building out what we call flavor packs, which is usually an odd assortment of meats, individually parceled out, so that I can just dump one in the slow cooker, along with whatever the primary meat is that week. Add every vegetable in the freezer or fridge (about 12-15 different kinds, depending, none of it starch, all of it colorful), nicely chopped up, several flavors of vinegar, and olive, coconut, and avocado oil, and spice. Cook overnight. Throw into a casserole dish and cut into six chunks to nuke for breakfast for the week. (Sunday mornings, I go down to Krain Korner, just north of Enumclaw, for breakfast as a treat to myself.)

In the past, the flavor packs have generally been more pedestrian, but I’ve gotten weirder as time passes, mostly because Uwajimaya Grocery in Renton is close enough for me to drive in and load up on fun stuff, like large chicken thighs, pork skin, and duck confit.

However, we went to the neighborhood grocery on the way home from errands today, and it got even better.

Was down to one flavor pack, so I needed to start new ones. Usually do four at a time. I look at the “leftover” meat on clearance for things I can immediately freeze, since there will be a lot of cayenne involved anyway. Wasn’t anything good to pick from, since I want bone and fat on the meat, and my grocery store is having a “lean meat” fetish right now. (Seriously people? Fat’s good for you.)

But there were other things. Picked up some lamb shoulder chops (2 packs of 2) for cheap to add for the meat and bone to make a nice broth.

Still had a pack of pork skin left over. (1″ by 1″ x 6″ strips, with a little meat and a layer of fat). That went into the mix.

Then I found ox tails for soup. Never had ox tail before, so that’s a new thing to add, just so I don’t get stodgy. (Ask me about “stodgy” sometime, but be sitting down first.)

Dug out the last package of boiled beef tongue, cut into cubes and frozen, and was able to break it down into four lumps to add to my new packs.

Then it got weird. Heh.

The store had chicken gizzards, hearts, and livers. Got one package of each, so just under three pounds of offal. Pulled out my sausage grinder and made “Chicken Offal Sausage,” adding salt, pepper, chili powder, cayenne, and garlic powder in between the first and second grindings.

Split it four ways and shoveled that into my four plastic bags.

That’s a flavor pack. Enough to last me a month. Couple of pounds of stuff with a rotating variety of trace minerals. (No shrimp right now. No duck confit this time. No chicken thighs.)

When it comes time to use them, I’ll throw in a pork loin chop (the 30 or 50% off kind, frozen until I chuck it in the pot) or a bone-in pork shoulder piece.

Maybe dig out one of my cans of Wild Planet tuna just because I haven’t had one in a while.

Still have one package of seaweed noodles. (Don’t try them with pasta. Did. Doesn’t stick. Will have to go back to fettuccine, ravioli, or tortellini next time.) So I need to get some more. Or maybe more tuna. Dunno.

But I’m getting all sorts of trace vitamins and minerals. Eating healthy, because crossing 50 a month ago means I’m halfway, and I’d like to still be churning out novels when I’m 100, just because you people need something to read.

Gotta make the kids look bad, and I’ve got a grandson who just graduated high school this summer. He’s likely to be one of them that takes over the publishing side of the business in 20-30 years, just because he’ll die of old age long before my books come out of copyright. (Y’all do have a will, right?)

Eat healthy.

Yes, you.

I don’t give a shit what excuses you want to make. When the conversation starts off with “I know I should be doing…” I stop listening, because you’re just going to give me a lot of nonsense excuses about why you’re too lazy to take care of yourself.

I promise not to piss on your grave one of these days, but if most of you don’t do something to take better care of yourselves, I’m gonna outlive you. And laugh.

Blame my damned, hippy wife. She’s planning to do the same.