(Ph)amished!

Phish Food: Chocolate icecream with gooey marshmallow, a caramel swirl, and fudge fish!

Life just got better after Ben & Jerry's!

After months of gyming and watching what went in, London proved to be my testing ground! I lost. One minute we were buying vegetables to begin my culinary experiments, and before we knew it, we were staring ahead at big jars of icecream, packets of toffee, lemon, and cherry tarts, chocolate brownies with chocolate chunks, orange and blueberry cup cakes, marble cakes...........! The memory of sweating it out on the treadmill for an hour everyday, before cycling, rowing, carrying weights and willing myself not to cheat during those strenuous tummy exercises, gradually faded away into oblivion. I had finally given into temptation.

Despite assuring myself that I deserved these goodies, I took only one packet of brownies, and a chocolate cake laced with chocolate icing. I fooled myself into thinking I had self restraint. After all I was only going to indulge in a slice (or two) once every few days. When I didn't live up to these foolish promises, I decided I'd simply avoid going to the super market.

When we came here initially, the supermarkets were just as interesting as some of the popular tourist haunts. Bigger than any I'd ever seen, they housed everything you needed for a house; groceries, wine, movies, books, phones, computers, linen, creams, crockery, furniture, and bread! Shopping had been easy till then, because we didn't have as many options in India. Here, I had to walk an entire stretch before deciding on the kind of bread i wanted; whole meal, whole grain, multiple grain, wheat, white, crust-less, weightwatchers, nimble...! Then when it was time to get vinegar, we stared at another shelf filled with different kinds of vinegar, in different colors, before picking one that seemed closest to the one back home. Setting up home was therefore a lot of fun. We picked pans, crockery, cutlery, groceries, and treats (for all the effort), and we were out!

This initial excitement faded away gradually, as I got more and more used to the supermarket. I learned the art of manoeuvering my cart through all that space, to reach my destination. I even managed to avoid shelves that screamed out for my attention. However, the risk of picking up something I didn't really need was still ever present! So I was going to be careful.

However, as luck would have it, temptation followed me home. R who by then had taken on all marketing chores, came home with a pint of Phish Food. I dived into the jar of caramel and marshmallows in icecream, with frequently appearing chunks of fish fudge, right away. And then it struck me! Why try and avoid these goodies, when i can go for long walks allover London? Wasn't that exercise enough?

"Voila, I'll walk", I decided happily, still enjoying my icecream. "From tomorrow."

The next morning, i woke up to some snow. Now, that's another story.