Post #15: The one where I eat some salad

Today's exciting challenge: my colon VS. arugula

I have eyebrows again! There was a Russian lady at Clinique who drew them on for me, and said, "I used to have a problem with plucking too." ha.

But this is a post about eating, not tweezing, although I guess they are both compulsions of a sort (awesome transition? check). Crohn's, and IBS (to a lesser extent) have led me to have kind of a jacked up relationship with food. I used to eat for pleasure, for comfort, for fun; food could be soothing, or exciting, or challenging. It was about discovery: finding the BEST place to eat banh mi sandwiches, or seeing how much heat I could tolerate at the sushi bar, or discovering that when it comes down to it, no, I don't enjoy the iron-y tang of runny egg yolks and prefer my eggs cooked to the point of crunchiness. Food was also about connecting: a way to cement friendships, a way to break the ice when meeting new friends, or dealing with difficult family. Right now, when the weather is nice, I think about summer foods: the taste of freshly made pesto, the squeak of fresh mozzarella against your teeth in a caprese salad, the sweet cool lushness of mint chocolate chip ice cream pooling in the bottom of a crisp cone.

I don't eat those things now. And, until I stopped eating out as often, I never realized how much of my social life revolved around the sharing of good food. For me, food has become about safety, not about taste. It's become personal, and not social. My dietary restrictions are self imposed, the result of years of trial and error. I know that cheese is not my friend. I know that fried foods make me sick in a specific combination of heartburn and nausea that is usually not worth the few minutes it takes to eat fries or a donut.

Knowing how things will effect your body, however, and choosing to avoid those reactions are two very different things.

Today I went to a restaurant I used to go to a few times a month. They have great sandwiches and they serve you warm sourdough bread before your meal, and chocolate mints after. I was there today and had the chicken paillard, which is essentially a piece of chicken that someone has pounded the shit out of and arrange artfully on a plate. It also comes with accessories: a giant steak knife (although the chicken is like 1/8 of an inch thick) and a lemon encased in yellow cheesecloth, tied with a green string. At this restaurant they put a little pile of arugula and red onions and tomatoes on top.

I ate the whole freaking thing, and it was delicious. As I cut the salad into little tiny pieces with my giant manly steak knife, a part of my brain was shouting "alert! alert! raw greens! fibrous raw GREENS! abort consumption, I repeat: abort consumption."

This is not the most relaxing inner monologue to have at a restaurant, and the outcome of this meal remains to be seen, but when I walked out of this restaurant after cleaning my plate (and not feeling sick) I did feel a little triumphant, like I had claimed back a little of what I had lost.