You’ll want to write a blog, people said.
I will? I said. But, I’ve said all I want to say in the book. This is it. I’m finished. I have nothing more to say.
Oh, but blogs are good marketing tools, people said. There’s plenty you can say on health, and wellness, and diets, and so on.
I’m not so sure, I said to myself. It had, after all, taken me quite some time to distill my thoughts into this book…
And so that is why this page and this blog (yes, I have decided to try) is called The Occasional.
Occasionally I will try this. And here’s goes with my very first one.
It all came about because I took a walk downtown this week, looking for new walking shoes.
Yes, it is absolutely true. As I say in Living Slim, I am a walker. And, what I don’t say is this: I am not a shopper.
I have worn my trusty walking shoes to a thread, all while avoiding the shopping required to replace them.
But travel is coming up. And fall is coming up. And I may make it through summer with my threadbare pair, but not much beyond that. So, off I went to Mountain Equipment Co-op in its new location on Queen West. And, because of that excursion, I passed by and remembered the venerable and wonderful Queen Mother Café – the first place I ever sampled the pleasures of pad thai.
Worth a trip back, I said to myself. So, before I forgot this lovely thought, back I went yesterday for lunch. And in I tucked to a quinoa salad in the beauty of their charming back-of-resto patio. I soon realized, again, that The Queen Mum is nothing if not fresh and delicious and reliably wonderful, each and every time.
As I munched through the salad, I also soon realized that I couldn’t finish more than half of all that yummy deliciousness. In fact, I soon realized I was somewhat re-living the salad-munching memory I relayed in my book, when my young lunch companion, in Edinburgh, informed me that one should “always consume only two-thirds of what’s on your plate.” I smiled then at the comment, since my frugal mother, my book’s slim-living muse, would have been horrified to “waste” purchased food like that. I smiled now at the memory. And I smiled even more deeply at the realization that, ten years on, plus ça change plus ça reste le même chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Fortunately for me, I was not travelling abroad for this lunch. I did not have to waste it or stuff myself too full. I would be able to enjoy the rest of this deliciousness at home!
And I did.
(Taken home, thank goodness in in a biodegradable container. Thumbs up to them!)
#LivingSlimandLovingIt #LivingSlimCanadian #QueenMotherCafe
