What actually possessed me may be forever locked in the chamber of my subconscious (a place, apparently, where all Facebook status updates go to die), with many of the other unknown origins of my bad thought/action duos (mostly crap I read on the internets). But for whatever reason (namely my sister's Facebook updates), I decided that I needed an internal adventure called the Master Cleanse, a "lemonade" fast created by Stanley Burroughs some fifty+ years ago.
Today marks my sister's 13th day on the cleanse and I have been following her progress via Facebook, like all other happenings since she decided to desert me three years ago for the hippie utopia of Austin, TX. I'm not bitter. Her posts are reminiscent of someone who's received a miracle, via a strike of lightening or a Joel Osteen sermon. Okay, maybe the Evangelicals don't do it for me but who doesn't want to be struck by lightening and not only live to tell about it but have some physiological upgrade because of it? 20/20 vision or a sixth sense anyone? My point is, her posts had me foaming at the mouth for lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper and H2O. Any Foodie that can prepare a gourmet meal for her kids on day 5 of a liquid regime and not even lick a spoon is an inspiration of will and I want to be that person. Add to this the fact that I had been in the UK for a week filling my pores and arteries with frying oil and starch. I needed a detox.
But no great glutton goes out without a bang...or a bender.
Saturday, September 5th was a day inclusive of all things I love to put in my mouth: Fresh cage free eggs prepared al la Elle (TM) in a no holds barred amount of salted butter with fresh Mexican Mint Marigold (or Texas tarragon) and spring onion, served perched on a bed of toasted multi-grain bread. Polished this off with a french press of cheap-o Colombian medium roast by Folgers and held tight until dinner, by which time Weasel and I had decided it would be our last meal for 10 days. We dined that evening at Dolce Vita, home of Houston's most authentic Neapolitan pizzas and one of our favorite eateries where there is no shortage of indulgence: Stemware of dry, flinty Italian white wines, verdura of shredded Brussels sprouts evenly tossed in olive oil and perfectly partnered with pecorino cheese, sided but not upstaged by juicy beet root with walnuts and speckled with finely chopped horseradish. Two delicate pizzas, the Sciciliana and Margherita, were the taste bud grand finale. Not only mouthwatering combination of flavors but texture, texture, TEXTURE! Thin crusts brick oven fired to perfection and topped with saucy marinara, oozing mozzarella, olives and capers for the Sciciliana and fresh basil for the Margherita, both lightly dusted like a blessing from the Food Heavens with flecks of sea salt. The result is an oral orgasm in your Parotid glands and complete submission to the enoteca.
And like no great glutton goes out without a bender, no last night of solids is complete without their fair share of liquids and debauchery. It was on to Dean's Credit Clothing on Fairview for a frozen Cosmo (in the rain but on some really cool bamboo woven patio digs no less) and then one cocktail later we were couch-side some friends at Anvil, where we disclosed that we would be unavailable for social interactions for the next week due to our diet. I wasn't expecting applause but I also wasn't expecting or prepared for the blank stares, batting eyes and raised upper lip snarls of confusion and bewilderment. "What about protein!?" "What about essential nutrients!?" they picketed with their words. Some 80's remix at Etro with several gin and tonics resulted in me kicking some pin ball-ass at Poison Girl and no hard feelings.
Game day, game face, day one, drink one, perplexed expression and a squeeze of qweezy. It wasn't a bad mix but it may have been better under other circumstances, say, sans hangover? Yeah. Two glasses into it and three hours into a deep purge of the apartment, I was light-headed, moody and in a fog that wouldn't allow me to decipher either of the two. And poor Weasel, enduring caffeine and nicotine withdraws on top of sustenance deprivation. We needed something to keep our minds off food, coffee and cigarettes and that, my readers, is when our cleanse took a turn for the worse. Eleven blocks of zombie-like strolling later we were at the Angelika purchasing tickets to see Julie & Julia. A quarter of the way through the film Weasel was whispering in my ear that his mouth was watering and halfway through, I could smell the beef bourguigon. Less than 15 minutes after the credits rolled we were next door at Migalone's devouring fresh bread, olive oil and insalatas. (Note to self: when you are trying to suppress the desire to eat, don't watch a movie about food.)
Not all is lost on a failed cleanse, however. It turns out that I don't need a fast or a strike of lightening for a stroke of genius (or 20/20 vision, thanks to hindsight). I just needed a taste of anorexia and a movie to determine what exactly was missing in my life: Blogging: The Gateway to Writing. I know, I just invented an entire new genre of cliche: Wannabe-writer-and-corporate-slave-by-day-with-foodie-passions goes on fast, sees movie about wannabe-writer-corporate-slave-by-day-and-foodie-by-night who starts a blog about Julia Child and becomes a writer.
The truth is, I invented blogging (and if you know me, "duh" is resonating in the cavitites of your upper body) just as Al Gore did the internet, as Julia Child did French cooking for the servantless American. In the days of Leap Frog on DOS, I was dreaming about uploading my daily thoughts to a world where people appreciated my humor, where the boundaries of intellect were beyond the Kerr County line and where I might actually be good at something in the realm of things.
Some thing(s) in the makeup of yesterday's events, mostly my appreciation for eating, empathy for career struggles, the aching desire to write and the magical connectedness of them all, cleansed me of whatever fears have kept me from creating this account and gave me the courage to construct a first post.
Yes, so not all is lost. Welcome to the hellacious ramblings of Elle.
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