Bacon, Surf Boards, and a Dive Bar

Thursday I had a client luncheon and we went to, surprise, Primehouse steak restaurant. She is a good friend and runs the Bacardi business - although this was not a liquid lunch thankfully. Primehouse is a rather new steak house in NYC and is quite popular. Although I had a delicious lobster bisque to start, my entrée was a large salad with no dressing and a plate of asparagus. It was quite good and very filling. My client ordered an appetizer that consistent of slices of bacon about 1/2 inch thick. It was an enormous plate of heart-killing food, but it looked so good! Why? Because even though my taste buds have changed, and my food desires have changed radically, and my education on food went from 3rd Grade to a Masters Program in 6 months, a big sizzling slice of bacon still looks good! I'm not repulsed by it, and a mouth-watering Pavlovian reaction to it still exists. But, what I do now is simply resist the impulse, whereas the old me would have had a knee-jerk reaction and would have ordered two plates!

Her entrée was a lobster roll that also had even more bacon! She offered me a strip, and I took a small bite out of curiosity. Guess what, it still tastes good, but my mind was able to ignore that rest of the strip and acknowledge how unhealthy it is for me. So, a salad covered in bleu cheese dressing now tastes awful (I used to love it), but eggs and steak still taste good -- it's just I have no desire for those things anymore. It is amazing to me that my mind can change so much. But look at it this way - most people love ice cream or cake, but you don't eat it every day, or even every week. Yes, I still like food that is terribly unhealthy if eating in large quantities, but I have conquered my all or nothing attitude -- at least as far as food is concerned.

Thursday evening I took my assistant, and a colleague to a brand new surf bar called Reunion. My client at lunch was telling me about the bar and a Bacardi rum product that is great in a "Dark 'n' Stormy" (rum and Ginger Beer). Looking to blow off some steam and satisfy a longing for a good "beach" type bar like the one's I would frequent when I lived in Hermosa Beach, we went to Reunion. Also, I wanted to test myself and have just one drink and not dive into an all night session. Remember, total abstinence is much much easier for me than extreme moderation! We had a Dark 'n' Stormy. And then another. OK, time to leave - time to take myself out of the temptation. So, what did we do? We went to the great, famous dive bar Rudy's down the street, also in Hell's Kitchen. Rudy's opened in the 1930's and is famous for their free hotdogs and duct tape holding their booths together. A dive bar amongst dive bars. My two colleagues had never been so I was playing tour guide of my old haunts! Thankfully, I stayed in tour guide mode, and did not dive into a drink-a-thon like I used to.

I ended the evening with a banana and a giant bowl of cherries feeling rather satisfied with myself since the night could have ended up very differently if the old me surfaced. He did not.