Fruit cleanse: the aftermath

If life had gone according to plan, I would have followed up my very cleansing weekend with a super indulgent weekend of pastrami sandwiches at Second Avenue Deli, soup dumplings in Chinatown and roasted meats at Craft. I was going to throw in yoga for good measure, too. New York was on my agenda, but Mother Nature buried the plan in some big, fluffy drifts of snowcrazy.

After all our flights were canceled, my family managed to reschedule my dad's entire birthday celebration, cutting and pasting the plan and moving it to another weekend. I am positive my upcoming New York weekend will still include pastrami sandwiches, Chinatown and Tom Colicchio singing happy birthday to my dad because that is my fantasy and don't you dare ruin it for me.

But in case you were worried I followed up the fruit cleanse with immense amounts of healthy eats, two days after it ended I found myself at Toulouse Petit in Queen Anne for my dear friend Amber's don't-hate-me-because-I'm-moving-to-New-Zealand (but we do, Amber, we do) going-away party. Amber and I started off with happy hour, when we polished off tuna tartare with a quail egg and a bottle of Prosecco. During dinner, I was dazzled by chicken and duck liver terrine with pickled onions and cornichons and crawfish etouffee, then finished it off with hot, puffy beignets dipped in crazy amazing coffee-ish sauce. I also might have had a huge bowl of Szechuan beef noodle soup at Toy's Cafe in Bellevue yesterday. Cleanse? What cleanse?

 

Nice and clean

 
 

Just plain delicious.

I blame it on the fruit-induced hunger. Fruit digests fast and I ate all the time. I couldn't wait to eat filling food again. But despite the cranky stomach, I liked the cleanse. I liked it better when it was over, but I'm proud of me and Angie for pulling through. I'm far more in tune with food cravings, and I've mostly avoided eating cookies at work since, except for the time a coworker brought over a huge, home-baked chocolate chip one. I was just being polite. Aaaaand I might have eaten all the sugar in my house (mochi ice cream, chocolate) just to get rid of temptation. But in one major triumph over my stomach, I bought mangoes and almonds at the store over the weekend instead of chocolate and crackers, though it's highly possible this uber-healthy trend will be short-lived. We are talking about me after all.

Yoga word nerd alert: I missed last week, but I haven't forgotten about the Word of the Week. This week I am fixated on the word rhythm. As in rhythm of the breath. I love listening to the breath in class, and letting the body naturally flow in time. Listen to the rhythm and see where it takes you today.