For one reason or another, I have been on a diet my whole life. There is the New Year’s Resolution diet, the “only eight more weeks until swim suit season” diet, the perpetual ten pounds that never seem to go away diet, the “I refuse to buy bigger clothes” diet. By the time I turned fourteen years old, my younger sister and I were skipping meals and eating lettuce with no dressing in our struggle to uncover the jutting hipbones and sharp elbows displayed by every model in the fashion magazines, which we bought with our school lunch money and drooled over at night before bed. My mother often lectured my sister, Debbie, and me about balanced eating; she feared that we teetered on the brink of malnutrition. In my seventeenth year, I began my first formal diet – the Scarsdale. At that time, the Scarsdale Diet enjoyed the popularity that previously belonged to Weight Watchers and would later catapult Fit for Life, Beverly Hills, innumerable over-the-counter appetite suppressants/metabolism boosters, and the current South Beach and Dr. Atkins Diets into multi-million dollar corporations. I knew only that the fashion magazines assured me that if I wanted to attract Prince Charming, I had to be thin enough to wear his wrist watch as a belt.

I followed the Scarsdale Diet faithfully for two weeks, never mind that it demanded me to eat cottage cheese, spinach, and canned tuna in the same meal. During the second week of the diet, I coped with a constant foggy sensation in my head, and I began feeling weak, lightheaded and dizzy.

Since Prince Charming had not yet arrived, I agreed when my parents invited me to go with them to the Belvedere on the Ohio River in Louisville for the monthly cultural festival. I read in the newspaper that the festival was honoring Italy, Greece, Japan and Morocco that month; I thought I might see something interesting and maybe have some fun.

                Morocco fascinated me, because my father was stationed in Tripoli when he was in the U. S. Air Force in the early 1950s. He told me stories about soldiers in his unit, so desperate for a drink of alcohol, which was illegal in the Muslim country, that they drank jet fuel, which they filtered through white bread. The only person I had ever known who might go that far for a cocktail was my mother’s older brother, Russell. My mother would pitch a fit, even now, twenty-two years after his death, if she knew about his taking me to the horse races at Churchill Downs when was a little girl.

                I would hardly have recognized Uncle Russell without his props – a transistor radio in one hand and “The Daily Racing Form” in the other. He knew everyone on the backstretch at Churchill Downs, which meant that I got to go inside the barns and pet the horses. We also got to go the jockeys’ locker room, where their bright yellow, blue, red and green silks hung from their lockers, the colors reminding me of birthday cakes and Easter eggs. At ten, I was already taller than most of the riders at the track, which ruled out my first career choice. I didn’t want to ride the horses as much as I wanted to wear one of those colorful silk suits.

Mother, Daddy and I stopped at a Chinese restaurant called the Golden Dragon for dinner on the way to the Belvedere . Chinese food had never crossed my lips before, and I did not intend to start that night, since I was on the Scarsdale Diet. I wanted to lose fifteen more pounds on that diet so that I could weigh one hundred pounds, the same as my sister. After almost fainting as I walked into the restaurant, I felt even weaker when I smelled the food inside. We sat down, and my parents ordered a family style meal for two. I ordered a cup of hot tea and watched the red and gold paper lanterns swaying in the breeze from the air conditioner vents. The waiter placed four domed silver platters on the table in front of us. My resolve was fading fast, because of the hunger pangs in my stomach and the tempting smell of cooked carrots, onions and green peppers drifting up from the sweet and sour pork. Mother placed white steamed rice, sweet and sour pork, beef chow mein and chicken chop suey on all three plates and handed my plate back to me. After one bite, I realized that the food was delicious and I was famished. I had never been so hungry, and no food had ever tasted better.

                We left the restaurant and drove to the festival, where the three of us ate Baklava for dessert. The dancers from Morocco moved gracefully, their faces mysterious behind gold silk veils. The Greek gymnasts tumbled and somersaulted, and the Japanese dancers hid their faces behind fans and heavy white makeup. All of the dancers wore flowing silk costumes in bright yellow, blue, red and green, the colors of the jockey silks that I coveted as a child.

           I had a wonderful time with my parents, and I felt stronger and more energetic that I had in days. I never did go back on the Scarsdale Diet. Later, when Jean Harris went to prison for murdering its author, I wondered if she killed him because he was unfaithful to her or if it was because he coerced her into trying his diet.