There might be, oh, say 40 items on your to-do-before-move list, but clearly many things are best done at the last minute, in a rushed way. Clearly. Plus, there is something to be said about the joys of a quiet Monday spent buying wine, planning a menu for the following evening's soiree, and watching such cinematic classics as What Happens in Vegas. On a non-food related sidebar, the movie was surprisingly cute, and you can turn your brain off the moment you sit down. Ah joyful life of leisure - how I am going to miss you!
My day of leisure began with an early morning Hurenfruehstuck, followed by a toasted Zingermans bagel (the Parmesan and black pepper is by far my favorite) with cream cheese, and then some bulghur pilaf and Swiss chard salad for lunch. All in all pretty healthy.
And now, I am enjoying one of the few vices that I have. Okay, that's a lie. One of the many, many vices, but food-wise, truly one of the few. I know it is not good for me. And yet, there is that intangible pull it has on my taste buds that I have to enjoy every now and then.*
What is this magic delicacy you might ask yourself? Slices of pata negra served with the baguette flown in from my old bakery? Hand-cut french fries with homemade mayonnaise, raw eggs and all?** A glass of France's finest wine and and some cheeses such as a generous slice of Morbier rounded off with a nice wedge of Fourme d'Ambert and some Crottin de Chavignol served with a glass of Chateauneuf-du-Pape from La Bastide St. Dominique, that my friend Veronique's parents make themselves?
My own secret vice is a tad more provincial/affordable and very, very mundane:
A can of ice cold regular Coke.
If an old fashioned glass bottle is available, you have hit the jackpot, but otherwise it must be in a can and not from a plastic bottle. Certainly not Pepsi, and definitely not Diet Coke, but regular ole' straight-out-of-the-fridge-served-on-ice-with-a-straw Coke.
Growing up my parents would rarely (if ever) let my brother and I drink soda or eat junk food. In retrospect, it might be a great way to raise children. However at the time, I felt like the weird little girl with the weird name and the weird spinach pie for lunch. Ethnic hadn't quite become "in" until well after I left high school. And no, I am not bitter.
I have since learned to deal with my inexplicable pull towards Cool Ranch Doritos, which I know really do taste awful and literally chemical. Yet once in a blue moon, just the smell of one brings back a flood of overwhelming childhood memories. I find myself in a frenzied daze either looking down at an empty bowl of chips at at someones party (very, very embarrassing) or a crumbled bag from the vending machine with every drop drained. Fortunately, my friends rarely serve Cool Ranch Doritos, and much like an alcoholic can never drink, so too should I never get near those chips.
My relationship with Coke is less dysfunctional. Somehow sweet sweet Coca Cola still has that zing for me and puts me in a good mood every time. It is the ultimate kick of carbonated sugary hydration and caffeine. What could be possibly wrong with that?
Always Yours.
*"every now and then" = approximately once a week.
** For those of you tsk tsking the addition of mayo to what is already a fatty little treat, let me say you don't know what you are missing. Especially if the fries are just big wedges of British chips doused in salt and vinegar. The Germans have a great saying, "wenn schon, denn schon," meaning if you're going to do it, you might as well do it all the way. Which might be one way of summing up both my Weltanschauung as well as recent diagnosis of hypertension. Hence the reduction of food-vices.
*** Does anyone else find it fantastic that French AOC cheeses all have their own website? Surely there are better ways one could spend one's time then to browse such websites, yet only in France would they value their terroir as much, and you have to give them credit for not letting their food culture be swept up in a wave of global trends.
