On Eating - and Living - Like a Hobbit

Part I: The Hobbit Diet

Hobbits are, as Tolkien writes, lovers of creature comforts and the simple pleasures in life. And their grandest simple pleasure is food. A lot of it. And not being heroic. But that's another topic for another day. It only comes naturally to one such as myself, then, to follow a similar love of confections and baked goods. I like food. I like when food is well made and it tastes good. Sometimes I even like junk food and fast food, because it's easy or (in the case of the junk food), it's strangely comforting. Take the Boyardee pizza-in-a-box, for example. I can make a from-scratch pizza crust and put fresh, high quality ingredients on it, toss it on the pizza stone in my oven, and have some really good, homemade pizza. I've done this before. But instead, I often make a boxed pizza from a kit that features cheap canned sauce and parmesan cheese as the toppings of choice. Because my dad used to make this as a snack and would share it with me, so it reminds me of being a teenager. Life is very short, even shorter potentially when you are on an epic quest against the forces of evil, and there are so many good things to eat, how does it make sense to not eat food you enjoy?

Part II: Getting There and Back Again

I'm also Hobbit-like in my preferred physical activities and hobbies. I don't mind light gardening or taking nice strolls around the Shire (or the neighborhood park, in my case), but too much adventuring and exerting isn't of much interest to me, like most Hobbits.* I love reading and lounging, music, and sitting quietly. However, I will get out and move. In fact, I walk about a mile every day at work. Fro  where my car is usually parked, to my office, it's about three blocks, and I walk to that area twice a day on most days, in addition. That's around 18 blocks, which is just over a mile (approximately). And I have a gym membership...which isn't really being used right now and I'm feeling the post-holiday flub.

“If more of us valued food & cheer & song over hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

*Obviously, the Tooks are notoriously the exception to this rule...