I'll Have What She's Having: My Adventures in Celebrity Dieting by Rebecca Harrington Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rebecca Harrington
bought apricots at the same store she did! I feel like we were practically neighbors, except she lived in a beautiful castle on the East River and I do not.
Day 3
Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm in 1905. Although she got rid of her original name, she always said she “missed” the food of her native Sweden. She once brought what was probably lingonberry jam to Italy and flummoxed the Italians when she put it on her cornflakes and then poured coffee over it. In honor of Garbo’s affinity for her own country’s cultural heritage, I eat waffles with lingonberry jam on them. Then Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam on them. It’s delicious!
Day 4
Back on the Hauser regimen, I start the day with his notorious “pep breakfast” – two raw eggs beaten in orange juice. Hauser describes it as a “creamy drink fit for a King’s table.” I do not feel the same way. This is so much worse than the raw eggs in milk that I drank for the Marilyn Monroe diet. If pneumonia were a food, this is what it would taste like.
Later, I go to a bar with some friends. Garbo enjoyed the occasional drink, even in the depths of a diet. When she transitioned to the talkies, her first line on-screen was, “Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side, and don’t be stingy, baby!” That is an awesome thing to say, but I don’t say it. I have a hamburger, a Hauser favorite, but I am still hungry. I also drink a beer.
Day 5
Today is a special day. It is the day I will finally make the thing that has been ruining my life since I first heard about it: the celery loaf. Around 4:00 p.m., I psych myself up to do it. I puree the celery in my blender until it is a green mush. Then I add walnuts, parsley, onions, mushrooms, butter, eggs, and bread crumbs. The whole thing becomes an awful brown goop. I pour this into a baking dish and cover it with a lot of milk. Then I bake it. While it bakes, it smells like a rotting body. Finally, after thirty minutes, it is ready. Now, I am no baby. I have gladly eaten peanut butter with steak. I drank raw eggs in milk for several days. I even had tofu cheese.
Yet, when I open up my oven to get out my celery loaf, I start to dry-heave. It smells like I just put vomit in a baking pan and baked it for thirty minutes. I slam the oven door shut, spray the entire place with Lysol, and leave my apartment.
Day 6
Today is the day of the Oscars. (Greta Garbo never won one! She just got an honorary one.) The people I invited over to watch the Oscars are eating popcorn and sushi. I am eating this weird Hauser recipe for “Swiss Steak,” which is steak you dip in bread crumbs, fry, and then boil in water. It is incredibly soggy and bland, and I am so hungry. Sometimes, I see the celery loaf peering at me from inside the oven, since I haven’t cleaned it out yet. My guests ask me what is in there. Maybe they can smell it.
Days 7 and 8
In the next two days, I devote myself to “wonder foods.” I follow Hauser’s reducing plan, which has me drinking buttermilk with yeast (this tastes like yogurt mixed with something oddly breadlike and mealy), milk with molasses and yeast (this tastes like the worst milk shake of all time), and wheat germ on cereal (wheat germ tastes like quinine). For dinner, I have hamburger patties and liver. Liver, which used to disgust me, might be delicious. This diet might have broken me. It reminds me of the time Garbo just didn’t even go to her own wedding. She was probably overwhelmed.
Day 9
I attempt the first diet Garbo ever tried. According to legend, Garbo ate nothing but spinach for three weeks to lose the weight Louis B. Mayer told her to lose. I am sort of relieved I don’t have to eat weird substances anymore, but I am really starving and it is extremely hard to eat only spinach when you already have been dieting for a while and there is a celery loaf that is still in your oven. But Garbo had tremendous willpower. Once on a trip to Italy,
Day 3
Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson in Stockholm in 1905. Although she got rid of her original name, she always said she “missed” the food of her native Sweden. She once brought what was probably lingonberry jam to Italy and flummoxed the Italians when she put it on her cornflakes and then poured coffee over it. In honor of Garbo’s affinity for her own country’s cultural heritage, I eat waffles with lingonberry jam on them. Then Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam on them. It’s delicious!
Day 4
Back on the Hauser regimen, I start the day with his notorious “pep breakfast” – two raw eggs beaten in orange juice. Hauser describes it as a “creamy drink fit for a King’s table.” I do not feel the same way. This is so much worse than the raw eggs in milk that I drank for the Marilyn Monroe diet. If pneumonia were a food, this is what it would taste like.
Later, I go to a bar with some friends. Garbo enjoyed the occasional drink, even in the depths of a diet. When she transitioned to the talkies, her first line on-screen was, “Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side, and don’t be stingy, baby!” That is an awesome thing to say, but I don’t say it. I have a hamburger, a Hauser favorite, but I am still hungry. I also drink a beer.
Day 5
Today is a special day. It is the day I will finally make the thing that has been ruining my life since I first heard about it: the celery loaf. Around 4:00 p.m., I psych myself up to do it. I puree the celery in my blender until it is a green mush. Then I add walnuts, parsley, onions, mushrooms, butter, eggs, and bread crumbs. The whole thing becomes an awful brown goop. I pour this into a baking dish and cover it with a lot of milk. Then I bake it. While it bakes, it smells like a rotting body. Finally, after thirty minutes, it is ready. Now, I am no baby. I have gladly eaten peanut butter with steak. I drank raw eggs in milk for several days. I even had tofu cheese.
Yet, when I open up my oven to get out my celery loaf, I start to dry-heave. It smells like I just put vomit in a baking pan and baked it for thirty minutes. I slam the oven door shut, spray the entire place with Lysol, and leave my apartment.
Day 6
Today is the day of the Oscars. (Greta Garbo never won one! She just got an honorary one.) The people I invited over to watch the Oscars are eating popcorn and sushi. I am eating this weird Hauser recipe for “Swiss Steak,” which is steak you dip in bread crumbs, fry, and then boil in water. It is incredibly soggy and bland, and I am so hungry. Sometimes, I see the celery loaf peering at me from inside the oven, since I haven’t cleaned it out yet. My guests ask me what is in there. Maybe they can smell it.
Days 7 and 8
In the next two days, I devote myself to “wonder foods.” I follow Hauser’s reducing plan, which has me drinking buttermilk with yeast (this tastes like yogurt mixed with something oddly breadlike and mealy), milk with molasses and yeast (this tastes like the worst milk shake of all time), and wheat germ on cereal (wheat germ tastes like quinine). For dinner, I have hamburger patties and liver. Liver, which used to disgust me, might be delicious. This diet might have broken me. It reminds me of the time Garbo just didn’t even go to her own wedding. She was probably overwhelmed.
Day 9
I attempt the first diet Garbo ever tried. According to legend, Garbo ate nothing but spinach for three weeks to lose the weight Louis B. Mayer told her to lose. I am sort of relieved I don’t have to eat weird substances anymore, but I am really starving and it is extremely hard to eat only spinach when you already have been dieting for a while and there is a celery loaf that is still in your oven. But Garbo had tremendous willpower. Once on a trip to Italy,
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