No different than River Oaks Baptist

Ginnifer Goodwin's real engagement is to Weight Watchers: Defending a constantdiet

Ginnifer Goodwin
Is it all about portion control?
Photo by Ruthie Johnson Miller
Tofu for vegan lettuce wrap
Photo by Joel Luks

Big Love's newly engaged Ginnifer Goodwin has come under fire recently for telling Health Magazine that she's been a member Weight Watchers for 23 years — since she was 9 years old. The star told the health magazine that although she has never had a dramatic weight problem, she had a tendency to indulge.

She went on to say that she had identified a "shooting weight," a weight at which she noticed her energy up, felt good about herself and liked the way she looked on camera.

Plenty of commentators are crying "eating disorder," but I don't see much difference between Goodwin's near-lifelong participation in Weight Watchers and the red light, green light program that was recently instated at River Oaks Baptist.

Both programs aim to teach people about portion control and selecting healthier, more filling foods. Both do it by assigning a value to different types of food based on their nutritional value. At ROB., elementary through junior high schoolers are able to select foods that are marked red light, green light, or yellow light items, with red light items representing heavier, high-calorie foods and green light items representing healthier choices like raw vegetables. Kids are portioned a certain number of items: they can have one red-light food, two yellow-light foods, and as many green-light foods as they want.

It's not unlike the point system pioneered by Weight Watchers. In fact, it's the same.

If Goodwin or her parents felt she could be making better choices when it came to eating and gave her more control of those choices early, who's to say they were wrong? She's an actress who hasn't experienced dramatic weight gain or loss throughout her career, and one could argue that it's because she learned early how to sustain herself healthfully and kept on top of it.

What do you think? Is 9 to early to "diet," or did Goodwin just use one means of many to eat consciously?

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Meet Tristen Epps

Top Chef contestant reintroduces himself to Houston at new pop-up dinner series

Courtesy of BuBoy

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Even the most engaged Houston restaurant obsessives may have been surprised to see chef Tristen Epps listed as one of two Houstonians competing on the new season of Top Chef. Although Epps grew up in Houston and began his culinary career here, the bulk of his professional experience is in New York and Miami, where he led a restaurant to a Michelin Bib Gourmand award and earned a James Beard Award semifinalist nomination for Best Chef: South.

Having returned to the Bayou City in 2024, Epps will take another step towards reintroducing himself to Houstonians in February. As part of the process of opening BuBoy, a tasting menu restaurant inspired by Afro-Caribbean culinary traditions, Epps will host pop-up dinners on February 11, 18, and 25. Held at Jūn in the Heights, each night will devoted to a different region that was part of the transatlantic slave trade, moving from West Africa to the Carbibean to the American South.

“My goal for this pop-up is to showcase Black diaspora foodways in a unique and elevated format,” Epps writes in an email. “I want guests to experience this cuisine in a way they never have before. While the tasting menu format is nothing new to diners, featuring neo-African flavors in this context is unfamiliar, creating a special opportunity for storytelling.”

The six-course tasting menus will blend techniques from the night’s region with ingredients sourced from Texas and the Gulf Coast. On February 11, the menu will include dishes such as grilled oyster with rundown stew, “Dasheen Dumplin’” with groundnut stew, Texas wagyu with smoked peanut suya, and grilled Gulf fish with plantain pudding and oxtail spinach stew.

“This experience with the element of thoughtful storytelling is exactly what I intend to offer at BuBoy. I’m thrilled to provide a glimpse of that through this pop-up at Jūn during Black History Month,” Epps continues.

Each night will have two seatings of 16 people at 6:30 and 8:30 pm. Tickets cost $95 per person with a wine pairing available for an additional $45. Reservations are available via OpenTable.

As for BuBoy, Epps says he’s still searching for the right space to bring the concept to life. Until he finds it, the pop-up dinners will continue.

Still on the fence about attending? Epps picked up a major endorsement this week from one of his mentors, celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson via this Instagram post:

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A post shared by Marcus Samuelsson (@marcuscooks)

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