This started out as the hardest weekend of all. So close to the finish line, yet still too far to go.
I'm ready to be finished. So ready. During my trip to the market this weekend, I found myself stuffing my cart with goodies for my family. A horseradish cheddar. Marinated olives. Steaming, creamy lentil and coconut Thai soup. Then it hit me. These weren't foods my family wanted. These were foods I wanted.
I bought it all anyway. I made them eat it.
That was Saturday. Sunday was better.
Great actually. First I got to meet Joann's delightful sister, Donna, our guest blogger, who was kind enough to walk me around the city with Joann for several hours before our dinner at Pure Food and Wine in New York -- 14 "raw foodies" hooking up for a gourmet meal. Everyone was charming and the food was fabulous. We had three courses, and I had my first glass of wine in more than six weeks. I had a mushroom and white asparagus appetizer; white corn tamales with raw cacao mole, marinated mushrooms, salsa verde and avocado as my entree; and the flourless chocolate cake for dessert. The first two courses were tasty, but the dessert was outrageous. In my limited experience, raw desserts are by far the best of the magic that raw food chefs are able to create. (I even caught one member of our party, who shall remain nameless, licking his dish.)
I can't possibly remember everyone's name, but Joann, Eric and I sat with Glen Colello, Lisa Storch and Frank Giglio, a really nice guy aptly named because of his honest and direct answers to my questions (although the mother in me is a little freaked out by his goal to run 100 miles in under 30 hours.)
It was refreshing to hear from him that each person has to to search for what works for her, that trying to live someone else's rigid dogma is a sure way to fail. He's been eating raw for a while now, and I gathered that he's eating really high on the scale, very few nuts and fats. But he's not grossed out by the smells of grilling food, and it did my mother's heart good to hear him say how fondly he remembers the food from his childhood. His understanding of the world's temptations was comforting and went a long way toward easing some the of the guilt I'm feeling about certain things I plan to eat after Tuesday. (Hey, that's tomorrow!)
We didn't get home until 1:30 in the morning, so I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep today. In my pre-raw life, I would have dragged myself out of bed and been dragging myself around the rest of the day, counting the hours until bedtime. But I feel good. Good enough, in fact, that I'm going to the gym tonight. Not bad for the old gal in the group.
