The Ron Swanson Saturday Night Special

Once a week, usually on the weekend, I agree to eat a totally unhealthy dinner.
It's a compromise, and I'm usually disgusted by the outcome.
Last night, we ate a Buffalo Wing-style pizza from McCain and chicken wings the size of nuclear test turkeys.
It was a totally bleach blonde mess with not one speck of green.
Don't get this brand of pizza, I'm warning you.
It is the most disgusting piece of shit I've had in sometime. The only discernible taste is that of Frank's Hot Sauce, which apparently is its selling point.
The wings weren't bad, though they were breaded to look not unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, all puffed out like peacocks, bursting with water and steroids.
Because I eat healthy, my palate is not used to such excesses of salt, sugar and Frankendough, which usually leave me with a hangover that can be vanquished only by a gallon and a half of water at 3 a.m.
As I said, the Saturday Night Special is a compromise, my effort to appease the husband.
Thank God barbecue season is nigh. I am sick to death of these fast food dinners.
Scott is a Ron Swanson doppelganger who distinguishes himself around the barbecue by cooking the best damned meat on the planet. His sides include: potatoes, ciabatta buns, mushrooms and carmelized onions. His barbecues are legendary and feature meat porn of all varieties: pulled pork or "comforting beef" sandwiches, Bourbon-soaked ribs, hamburgers stuffed with blue cheese, leg of lamb marinated in Dijon and red wine and ooey, gooey chicken.
These meals are pretty hard to resist.
Over the years, I've managed to insinuate healthy sides into the menu: wild rice salads, coleslaw, Thai rice noodles and veggie rolls.
Guests have sometimes been known to be grateful -- particularly for old-fashioned coleslaw with boiled dressing.
But even the best coleslaw and three bean salad dwarfs beside the main event.
I mean, how can you compete with baked beans, twice or thrice baked potatoes, barbecued corn with jalapeno butter and garlic bread?
In the battle of the Iron Chefs, Scott leaves me smoked every time.
Fortunately, with Scott back to work full time, I am poised once again to dominate.
The world is my carefully shucked oyster.
I am the Queen Bee of the kitchen. The house is no longer filled with the scent of marinating mystery meat. The air smells instead of bread made from almond and garbanzo bean flour and golden flaxseed.
The sides, once again, rule -- except for Saturdays.
Sigh.
Truth be told, I can't wait for barbecue season.
I savor every morsel as the carcinogenics coat my virgin esophagus and the sugary sweet sauce drips down my elbows and leaves me vulnerable to a three-dog swarming.
I eat healthy not by choice but by necessity.
If I were to search my heart it would tell me that it would rather beat a few beats less.
Let's face it. If I were on my death bed, I'd be wishing I'd eaten a lot more steak and a whole lot less grainless bread.
As Ron Swanson would say -- and he is a God in this house -- grainless bread really truly, tastes like ass.