Every now and again it’s easy to fall into an expensive food porn hole.
It happens something like this- and it usually happens at Norton Street Grocer.
“I’ll just grab some fruit and veg and be out in a minute. But ooh- those blueberries look good- and raspberries for only six dollars a punnet(!) If I eat them really really slowly, that’s almost good value!”
Then there’s the mandatory mango for The Hungry One so he knows he’s loved and the good yogurt with passionfruit pulp, which nearly found its way into our wedding vows (I promised to get it, he now has to promise to leave a spoonful for me in the bottom of the container).
Then it’s the very dangerous section in the fridge where you have to skeddadle past yogurt cheese (which sounds almost rude but tastes so nippily tart it has to be good for you)the Yulla eggplant relish, the baby bocconcini, the organic hummous, the frozen tortellini and the Homer Hudson Chocolate rock. Then it’s the prosciutto and fresh basil and the 85% cocoa solid Lindt and the organic corn chips and before you know it your trolley is full and the people behind you are looking at you like “don’t you know there’s an economic crisis going on? Do you think it’s Christmas already?”
You don’t want to know how much it all comes to. So suffice to say, after binging on food porn and stacking the fridge until you can hardly see the light twinkling at the back the guilt starts to set in.
The best way to assuage that kind of guilt is to make the best use of what you’ve got.
So the left over rib roast from Saturday night gets slow braised in beef and porcini stock to soften it and topped with the bocconcini, basil and tomato salad that was also left over- instant parmigiana.
The fresh raspberries get saved to be eaten slowly, one by one, chewing each mouthful seventeen times to get the full release of flavour, while the frozen ones get blitzed with the average yogurt, a banana and some AllBran for an earnest, not quite smoothie, eat with a spoon, breakfast puddle-it’s good, I promise.
And on my birthday eve, when The Hungry One comes home from Melbourne Cup, all dressed up in his suit, and offers to take me to Tabou to dinner, I say, ‘respectfully and gratefully, no thank you’.
I say no to the two cheese souffle and the parfait of the day. I decline the frites and sirloin with cafe de paris butter, the Gallic atmosphere and pretty cut glass mirrors.
Instead we stay home and eat tortellini with mushroom and red onion in a red sauce. And a little bit of Homer Hudson.
But the guilt is starting to wane.
