October 13, 2004
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On my way home from the hospital, I drove to Zupans, in pursuit of the organic. As I stood there, clutching a small bouquet of spinach, I suspiciously eyed the tag. It had that foreign look about it. The one that screams, “I’ve been sprayed within an inch of my life. Don’t eat me.” I saw no organic spinach, so I took it. It’s a tradeoff. This is why shopping takes so long, there are so many decisions to make. Take maple syrup. After that cooking class, where they insist that the only sugar which should be passing through your lips is honey or maple syrup, I was quickly able to choose a honey. This is only because of previous time invested resulting in known preferences. Because they didn’t have the brand that I used to buy, and because there were a million choices, I bought the most expensive, forgetting that I had left that affluent life, promising myself that I would create dishes around this sugar. ……. I’m back. I just put two yams in the oven. Now if I can just keep this pace up. Anyway. In my pursuit of health, I am on my way home with a full load of things like rabbit, soy milk and a lot of green stuff. I notice, like radar beaming through my window, the cake store. I have seen it several times but can never remember the location when I’m at home wanting to go there. I quickly pull into the parking lot and enter a store from another time. They must sell wedding cakes, as there are notebooks at a long table. There are lots of little tables, not like a restaurant, but like a living room with couches and chairs. The place is dingy with lots of doilies; tired but quaint. As I near the counter I see a sign boasting gluten, wheat-free cake. Behind the glass case, though, stand the decadent. I decide on a yellow pound cake, with lemon curd between the four layers, and a buttercream icing. This woman, clearly a baker, slices a gargantuan piece, too big to balance. It falls inches from my plate, onto the counter. But she retrieves it and slides the plate over. She assures me the counter is clean, but is willing to slice a new piece. I act like I don’t care a whit about germs and bravely sit down in one of the old chairs. As I bite into the cake, I find it has almost the consistency of a New York cheesecake. Thinking of my wilting greens, in the hot car, I quickly make my way through the layers. Back in the car, I am remorseful. Granted, the cake was superb, but the flower and sugar do not agree with me. Like I don’t know this. Like I should have paid more attention to the sign.
