A Pause, A Thought, A Rejigger

Ate a few sinful things the past few weeks, a brick of chinese food here, a little bit too much pizza there. But over all I've felt well, considering the pressure of all the pre-present-post stresses of having a big wedding. Ready to be a bit more hardcore with the eating stylee, start some yoga, take a cooking class, get B preggers, etc etc.... and I find many of the things I've cut back or given up, I don't really miss...

I just reread this blog from the beginning, all the while thinking about all the things that struck me as odd the past week or so. Pancakes - early on I was missing the pancakes and bacon of the diner on my block. I went there many times with my parents, and on my own on weekends as a lazy treat. I struggled with some yucky organic-pancake mix, then hit the jackpot with making my own pancakes from scratch - the best pancakes.

Well, I went down to the diner a few days ago as a treat. They know me by order - 2 pancakes, bacon and a diet coke. I was sorely tempted to order the coke, not because I desired it but for the taste memory of all the other diet cokes that came before it, but I resisted, got a seltzer instead. The pancakes themselves were.....horrible! Yellow, gummy, tasting more of old oil than flour or butter. I enjoyed these?

Ate a lot of lobster-things in Cape Cod during our honeymoon. We had a kitchenette in our salty sea-side shack, the first night we picked up groceries to allow us to not have to eat out every meal. I won't bore you with the details here, but one thing that I wouldn't of done before was I bought a big bottle of grape juice - as a sinful treat! Not chocolate or candy or something obviously indulgent, but a high-sugar processed drink others would regard as 'healthy'. And it was MAD sweet, too, a nice sugar jolt to wake up to. I didn't totally stick to 'one sweet a day', but my sweets were less indulgent than if I weren't thinking about it.

Almost done with the Kingsolver book, really good. I went to the Union Square farmer's market around 9am this past Saturday - DAMN!! It was 2x bigger than it is during the week, with lots more variety. There was a lamb vendor, who had a bunch of coolers with all sorts of different cuts, and surrounding the booth was skeins of wool - how cool is that? Real people with real connections to the whole animal selling all the bits, not just the normal stuff. I decided to start simple, purchased some lamb curry sausage (yeah, I know, too much salt.) Fried it up on a new cast iron grill (thanks Tania!) with market onions - between the light spice of the curry balanced with the sweetness of the pomegranite and currants in the sausage, even Betsy wolfed down her half - she usually shys away from sausage. But in this sausage you could taste the lamby freshness.... I came to the market by bike, and bought as much as I could carry. Next time I will take my granny cart on the bike and stock up on more lamb, the pork vendor, fresh bread, and another huge salad...

The other night made pasta sauce in my dad's style, with vegetables mostly bought in the farmers market. Had Tamar over for dinner, she sheeplishly asked for salt, as she knows I'm trying to cut down. Made pasta from scratch, eggless for the first time, came out surprisingly good.

On the way to and from Cape Cod, we stopped in New Haven to try the pie at Frank Pepe's - in every book about pizza, the main talk is about NYC, but there is always mention of how New Haven is the only real competitor to NYC as the capital of East Coast Pizza. At Pepe's, the original owner is said to have had allergies to both cheese and tomato - so he invented the clam pie. I had the clam pie the first time, and had to have it again on the way back because it was so good - and I don't even like clams! Despite no cheese and tomatos, I had to admit this is reall pizza - the French idea of 'terroir' - you can really taste the place in this pie made of the best ingredients of the area.

Tomorrow, back to the blow by blow.... too busy with work and personal drama (non-Betsy) to even think straight....yep, I wrote this on the last day of my vacation....