Friday, June 15, 2007

Craving your indulgence

Nowadays when I go out to a restaurant for an evening meal, I have a main course and two glasses of wine. That's it: no starters, no desserts, no lingering coffee-and-liqueurs.
Last night, I ate the SoCal equivalent of kleftiko, and delicious it was, washed down with two glasses of an Argentinian red called Kaiken.
While waiting for the check, I glanced at the dessert menu, a list of killers of which tiramisu was the most innocuous, and underneath a recommendation for digestif liqueurs: Irish coffee, Bailey's, Sambucca, Amaretto, etc.
I have no regrets: In my time, I have put away enough Strega, Sambucca and various Amari to sink a battleship, I have soaked up enough Courvoisier and Cointreau to refloat the Titanic. I just wonder now how I ever managed to do it, and, even more puzzlingly, whatever happened to all that gargantuan gourmandise.
My brontosaurus theory is that if we are wise we listen to our bodies. My body seems to have set definite limits to my indulgences these days. That's cool. No regrets. I even flirt with vegetarian dishes these days, but without the politics.
Mind you, I can still put away a fair few glasses of the bonny red when the mood is on me.
PS My thanks to Angit for the cartoon.

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