Maintaining My Equilibrium

On fair warning, this blog post is going to be about me! Now, before you skip to the next item in your RSS feed hear me out! The success of blogging is built, in part, by creating that connection to your online persona; and while I understand that some of you may have followed me faithfully since the early days of 2005, I'd naively like to think that my renewed interest in this blog is generating new followers. And rather than force them to go back and read about Provencal Chicken, my formula for the ROI of Cooking, or discoveries in Spain I thought I'd provide them with a teaser. . . which, or course, will compel them to look at some of the older posts.

OK, with that out of the way let's move on. I realize that I may be harping on this a bit too much these days, but this is my new obsession - well, one of my obsessions - my new svelte figure. Now, I recognize that I've always benefited from a pretty high metabolism. But I think I've unknowingly tapped in to some brilliant internal gene that allows me to maintain a perfect equilibrium in body fat while indulging in counter-food-culture. I'm willing to admit that daily 15K rollerblades along the Canal has helped - but I'd like to assign more credit to being a medical prodigy!

I suspect that some of you may be ready to move on. So let me give you some hope as to where this is leading. I think there are some distinct advantages to my medical prodigiousness that I'm willing to share.

This morning for breakfast I enjoyed 200 gms of perfectly "creaming" camembert, a succulently dried Hungarian sausage, and a few slices of a baguette from the French Baker. None of this Wheaties-thing folks, this is the Breakfast of Champions! And the other day for lunch, catching up with someone who used to work for me, I indulged in one of the most decadent main course dishes I've had for a long time, at Petit Bills Bistro in Westboro: Lobster Poutine!

Poutine in its own right is just pure decadence. But create a lobster poutine and you've added an exponential element to the dish - uber decadenicity if you will. That's a word, right?! Envision brilliantly made thin golden french fries, bathing in a shellfish, mascarpone and butter cream sauce, topped with fresh lobster. For lunch!

While Petit Bills has been a favorite of mine for a number of years I've always enjoyed lunch there more than dinner. And having been there for dinner just a few nights before my indulgence with the Lobster Poutine I hold to this assessment. Petit Bills is an airy, comfortable restaurant that offers relatively simple fair - for lunch the chef takes typical, simple bistro dishes and steps them up a bit; this makes it easier to absorb the $15 price tag for a mid-day meal. But for dinner, I find their price point just a little more difficult to accept - particularly when there's little on the menu that I believe the average home chef wouldn't feel quite confident knocking out - even mid-week (assuming, of course, the absence of little units scrambling around the kitchen).

And this brings me back to the Lobster Poutine - this is not something I would prepare at home - particularly not for lunch. So, while I'm working on maintaining my equilibrium - in the interests of medical science, of course - I'm going to continue to indulge in cheese, sausage and poutine! And prey to the Gods that whatever I've done to garner their favour, I keep doing it!