“I could never give up X.” That’s the response when I mention my diet to someone new.
And I think, “You could if it meant the difference between spending all your time in bed and getting to do the normal things of life.” At least that’s the case for me.
I was surprised to discover that I miss foods I never expected to miss and crave foods that I don’t particularly miss.
Toast is what I miss the very most. This is entirely unforeseen. I like toast, I don’t loooove toast. I won’t go so far as to say I could normally take it or leave it. Warm, slightly crispy bread with yumminess on top is hard to resist. But it’s not something I made frequently. I was more likely to let the last half of a loaf languish in the freezer than think to turn it into toast. Now I see a loaf of bread and immediately think of a perfectly toasted slice of bread topped with melty butter. The butter is absolute, the other toppings depend on the day: strawberry jam, honey, peanut butter. That’s another oddity — I don’t have a particular affinity for strawberry jam over any other kind, but it’s the only one that tops my imaginary toast. Despite missing toast so much, I only crave it when I see a loaf of sliced bread.
I crave Golden Grahams a lot. A lot. I have eaten them far less than toast in my lifetime, but I can’t shake the thought of Golden Grahams. This is definitely a craving, not a missing. I don’t think, wistfully, “Oh, how I miss Golden Grahams,” like I do with toast. Instead, I think about how delicious Golden Grahams would taste and the craving grows increasingly fierce. I finally gave in and got a box. They were as delicious as I expected.
At the grocery store, I crave graham crackers and animal crackers. I don’t think of either one any other time, but both call to me every time I’m food shopping. Again, neither have been staples in my diet, except for brief period when I worked late a lot and animal crackers were the most healthful option in the vending machine.
There are five restaurant dishes I crave, mostly from chain restaurants. That in itself is odd, since I used to choose local restaurants over chains almost all the time. The chain restaurant meals that I daydream about are Pei Wei’s honey seared chicken and crab wontons (my migraine comfort foods of choice), fish tacos from Rubio’s, and a burger and fries from Hillstone (formerly Houston’s). I’ve enjoyed all three of those a few times in the last year since the migraines that result from them respond very quickly to triptans. The two local foods I haven’t yet tested are the amazing tomato-mozzarella sandwich made with bread fresh from a wood-fired oven and the best waffle I’ve ever had. I suspect those will be indulgences soon.
There are many other things that I miss and/or crave with less regularity. Boston cream doughnuts have been high on the list recently, as have ginger scones. At first, I craved my homemade cookies a lot, particularly chocolate chip and shortbread. I’ve eaten them several times and they’ve been delicious, but no longer crave them as often anymore. I wish I could figure out how I stopped craving them.
Are you bored to tears by this foray into foodie blogging? If you haven’t given up reading yet, thanks for sticking with me. It’s been surprisingly cathartic to write about the food I wish I were eating. And I’ve realized that the one commonality of all these foods is wheat. Like there was any doubt I loved wheat.
I won’t lie and say I’m OK with the diet. I dislike having so little variety and not being able to cook with herbs or spices. I have to eat way more meat than I’d like. It takes an absurd amount of time to shop and prepare food. Sometimes I have to work really hard to finish the swiss chard, bok choi or fish (and other times I just give up, knowing that if I force myself to eat something I’m really not into, I’ll gag and it will be even harder to eat in the future). Day 2 of the rotation diet was unequivocally terrible until a couple weeks ago and day 3 is full of pungent food that’s hard to eat if I have a migraine. Still, the benefits continue to outweigh the frustrations. Most of the time.