When all else fails... VEGGIES!!

I've been on this rig for nearly three weeks, and it hasn't exactly been a cakewalk in that time as you are well aware from my recent blog posts.

I've been trying to come up with a topic to discuss, but I was having trouble avoiding any subject matter that wouldn't involve a great deal of me whining to you. No matter how low-key work has been lately -- we haven't been drilling for a number of days now -- I still have plenty of spleen that begs venting. But no! I refuse (at the moment) to inflict any more vitriol on you, my beloved readers. So I've decided instead to devote this post once again to vegetables.

I realized in 2009 that despite my valiant efforts to live up to my New Year's Resolution of eating more vegetables that I still failed pretty miserably whenever I was on days off in Lafayette and cooking for myself. I have therefore decided, perhaps quixotically, that I will redouble my efforts this year in a renewed and re-focused resolution to EAT MORE VEGETABLES ALL THE TIME.

It's only the 5th day of the New Year, and I haven't been back on land in weeks, so we have yet to see how well this resolution will pan out for me. It's going to take effort, but all good things do, right?

I'm currently on a jackup-style rig about 120 miles south of New Orleans. It's about half the size of my previous digs, but still offers a good variety of amenities and a very cozy environment. To grade the produce selection of the galley, however, I would have to give them a C+ .

They have a dedicated salad bar with every meal (except breakfast), but the vast majority of items are NOT vegetables! They have potato salad, noodle salad, hard-boiled eggs, grated cheese, etc, etc. I routinely grab a big bowl of iceberg lettuce, sliced cucumber and chopped tomatoes, for they are the only items which I deem nutritional and enjoyable enough to eat.

They will often serve cooked vegetables as side items to various meals, like the standard broccoli on steak days (Tuesdays and Saturdays in case you're keeping track), but they fall prey to that LOATHED southern habit of cooking them with a couple tablespoons of butter! I don't know how I shall survive such nausea-inducing dishes. Every once in a while I get lucky and they've forgotten to butter up the cauliflower, but those are rare and precious days.

Fresh fruit is laid out in abundance, so I use it frequently as a source of dietary fiber (fruit has fiber, right?), but this blog is not named "Vegetable Oil" for nothing, so they get no points there.

So they get a C+. The C is for general blase-ness about vegetables, the + is for the fact that I can always load up on the aforementioned uninspired salad with each meal, so I'm not lacking for greens.

But would you please stop peeling the cucumbers when you chop them? Pretty please?