The Girl Who Ate Everything

I was going to email Amy with a reply to her comment in the last entry, but since my drivel went on for a few paragraphs, I thought I'd share with all you...lucky readers.

Do you get strange food cravings too? Sometimes I go on a food fad, meaning I eat nothing but that food for days. Last year it was cottage cheese, this year it's Nutella. Occassionally I must have crepes whenever they're available.

I would usually say that I don't get strange food cravings, but I definitely get into week-long (or shorter) single-food eating modes. This week is all about the scones, as I'm eating one for the third day in a row (Monday: Lafayette Bakery, Tuesday: Once Upon a Tart, Wednesday: Union Square market). Some weeks ago it was sushi. Another time, it was chocolate (or is that a lifelong thing?). Strangely, I haven't eaten much sushi (if any) since that costly (but so delicious) week of sushi hoarding and my chocolate intake has decreased, surprisingly. Not that it's hard to decrease when you can eat 100 grams a day.

So...scone week! What do we have today? [Takes scone out of paper bag; plunks the sugar dusted boulder down on a plate] Wow, this one is kind of huge. I don't remember the name of the vendor but they also sell loaves of bread and have five or so types of scones, all $1.25 each. I've gotten scones from them before but not since this school year started. [Impales the scone with fork, shoves forkful of dense wheat into digestive void, masticates.]

Hm. Not partiularly dancing over this one, but it's not bad. The oatmeal flavor is fainter than I'd like, but if you chew long enough and think about it (which is not something I'm apt to do), you'll get that warm, oatmeal-y flavor. The oatmeal flavor is good, but there isn't enough of it. Besides that, it's a little dry. Mmwell. [Continues eating.]

The unfavorable dryness factor is why pumpkin scones (or anything with pumpkin) never fail: they're always squash-tastically moist. Yesterday I got a pumpkin cranberry scone from Once Upon a Tart and I'd rate it as one of the better scones I've had, although not the kind I'd long to eat again/pay $2.50 for. Yesterday was the first time I had actually bought anything from Once Upon a Tart, and while my eyes darted around the sandwich display case, thinking that perhaps I should get something composed of more than the grain and sugar food groups, I saw another customer buy a scone, thus alerting the scone receptors in my brain and luring me away from the more food group-balanced sandwiches. While looking at the menu, I locked onto the "biscotti" section, resulting in my lunch of a scone and a chocolate hazelnut biscotti. The biscotti was not too soft, not brick-hard, just...good. I'm surprised that all of a sudden I've developed an interest in biscotti. Although I've eaten biscotti for most of my life, my favorite cookies are your basic, round, chewy American discs, preferably containing melty chocolate morsels and un-preferably containing half my recommended daily calorie intake.

Once Upon a Tart loses some points for not letting me take photos inside the store. It has nothing to do with food, but...you know. [BEEP], YOU LOSE. BWAHAHA. Oh, what meaningless power I wield.

I've been eating this scone for 3 hours, if anyone's curious (and it's still on my plate, partially eaten). That also means I've been in blog-writing mode for the same amount of time. I'm at work so obviously, I'm doing other things...not involving studying though. See, that's something I should do, not this blog updating business.

...but I'm not done talking about the food cravings. I think when I develop week-long food themes, it's partially for the sake of trying a variety of things within that category besides fulfilling the desire to ingest food, all the time. I've had three scones this week but each one was one I had never eaten before in that particular flavor from a specific bakery. For better and for worse, there's a ginormous variety of places to get food in NYC, which is why I can go on these food sampling hunts at the expense of my waistline. (INotice that i's not my wallet that's in trouble, it's my CIRCUMFERENCE).

As for Amy's reference to cottage cheese and nutella, I don't think I've ever had a fad with a ...condiment? I like Nutella but can still remember my first experience eating it in 7th grade at my friend's house in Taipei; the first nutella-slathered slice of toast was heavenly, while the second left me feeling a bit queasy. How could something sooo good turn so wrong after one toast surface area's slather's worth? (...Uh, 1 ts², or toast slather.)

I just finished my scone. Bravo. To me.