Today was the day I was allowed OFF the diet as was going for dinner at Le Caprice with Odile who is my high rolling hard hitting city lawyer friend. I decided to be a vegan until 8pm when I met her so I had the usual fruit for breakfast (banana) and a hummous and vege wrap for lunch.
Gay John emailed me at lunchtime to tell me that some breads and wraps have dairy in them. MORE research and work to do to work out if that's true. It's so TIME consuming being a vegan. I am starting to hate veganism and everything it stands for. Experts and everything dont even agree on things either. It's so confusing.
I was really excited about Le Caprice becuase I've recently been reading the Jeffrey Archer Prison Diaries and he kept talking about how he wished he wasn't in prison but was at Le Caprice and going on about how it was his favourite restaurant and he always goes there with Mary.
So I met Odile there at 8 which was a bit early and we went and sat at the bar and Odile said 'please bring us a bottle of what your best champagne is'. She is like that. I like being with her I just nod as if ALWAYS order the best bottle. As we drank through it, a waiter approached us and said that we couldn't sit at the bar as we hadn't booked seats at the bar. 'Fine' said Odile, looking at him steely eyed. She is more aggressive than I am and when I am with her I am the quiet mellow one with no rage. It's a weird experience for me. 'Show us to our table' she said.
'It is not ready' he said.
'Well where shall we go to drink our champagne?' she said with a voice like ice. ' Over there' he said gesturing to a tiny space in the same corner as the cloak room. Odile stared at him and then loudly rang Claridges on her Blackberry to see if there was a table there free, and then announced to the waiter that we were going there to dine in their private dining room. Suddenly, they had our table ready.
We were the only women in there - everyone was indeed Jeffrey Archer types slightly corrupt looking politicians. The waiters never brought us a wine list nor asked us if we wanted drinks, so Odile collared a nearby waiter and demanded to know why. 'You had a drink at the bar' he said. Odile was getting her own personal version of the rage by that time and she said 'I'm sorry - did you just answer me back?' and he looked frightened for a while and then brought us some wine. The evening went on like this, I had scallops on pea puree which was nice. Then I had pollack on chorizo and broad beans and it was tasteless and small and I was still hungry. I was enjoying eating meat again though, so that was fine, I was happy with the champagne and wine and also the simple pleasure of putting butter on my bread again. Odile, however, hated all the waiters and still thought we should have gone to Claridges. Her hackles were up, which scares me, and I was laughing nervously. We decided it was a feminist issue and that they assumed we were not valuable customers as we were women. We got more indignant as the wine went down. At the end of the meal, she cornered the maitre'd and lectured him for a good long time about how the food was average, the staff were rude and sexist and that we wouldn't be back. I stood behind her muttering the odd helpful word like 'patriarchy' and 'oppression'. The scariest bits were when she asked him questions he wasn't allowed to answer. 'Me and my friend here think we were treated badly because we are women is that it? Is that what it's like here? is it? Is that what this establishment is about? Because that's what we think.'
He just stared at her with wide eyes, and then glanced at me. 'Oppression' I muttered. 'Patriarchy'. We left huffily and swore never to be back.
I am thinking re Jeffrey Archer that maybe it just seems like really good food at Le Caprice if you are in prison.
Day 10 being a vegan
The next day first thing at work I was not only missing Dario like a limb had been removed, but I DESPERATELY needed cheese. MEAT and cheese, that was it, that was all I wanted. I emailed Sally to tell her that I wanted a triple layer cheese burger. 'There it is' she said knowingly. Turns out she was smugly waiting for me to give up lecturing her on veganism being the greatest diet in the world and waiting for the chronic meat cravings to kick in. So here they were. According to her, right on time.
I had my usual soy cappuccino and turns out the lady in the canteen isn't even CIVIL to me when I'm not accompanied by Dario. Interesting. I had a banana but it took all my will power in the world not to order a round of all the greasy fried breakfast food sitting under the lights that had been there since 7am. Dario and I used to snigger at each other about what disgusting things the English will eat for breakfast. We would be fresh from our morning runs (Him: every morning; me: once a month) and would laugh and joke 'blood pudding to go - any takers?' then snort derisively. Actually, just thinking that MIGHT be why the canteen lady hates me. Anyhoo, by lunch I was DYING for a steak with cream. I started thinking that maybe I could go on the Atkins Diet instead. One of my workmates on it and she had steak and cream for breakfast.
To re-motivate myself I went to a health food store at lunchtime and bought 'cheesely' tofu cheese slices, and 'not bacon'. I also brought some Linda McCartney veggie chilli and some vegetarian sausages. I'm not going to lie to you though, NONE of it looks like food.
Finally I went and bought 16 pieces of sushi. Well NOONE said vegans can't eat loads of the stupid tasteless vegan food. It was all tofu and cucumber and disgusting other food which has no taste. I humphed back to the office and snarled at everyone for the rest of the day.
In the evening I went home and thank GOD flatmate was out, and I mean thank God for HIM as was in a foul mood and needed a target. I was thinking I might dredge up the old throwing out my wine thing again. He being absent, there was no one around to have the rage against, so I had to call Jake. However it was like he had some kind of psychic power because he opened the conversation by saying that he had seen a photo of me on Facebook and that I was looking thin. So then I COULDN'T be mad at him and felt marginally less angry with veganism too.
I heated up the Linda McCartney 'Chilli'. It had soy mince. It doesn't taste like mince. It really really doesn't. I had it with no rice and some fruit. Felt a bit thin when i was lying in bed so I figured things were OK again.
I had my usual soy cappuccino and turns out the lady in the canteen isn't even CIVIL to me when I'm not accompanied by Dario. Interesting. I had a banana but it took all my will power in the world not to order a round of all the greasy fried breakfast food sitting under the lights that had been there since 7am. Dario and I used to snigger at each other about what disgusting things the English will eat for breakfast. We would be fresh from our morning runs (Him: every morning; me: once a month) and would laugh and joke 'blood pudding to go - any takers?' then snort derisively. Actually, just thinking that MIGHT be why the canteen lady hates me. Anyhoo, by lunch I was DYING for a steak with cream. I started thinking that maybe I could go on the Atkins Diet instead. One of my workmates on it and she had steak and cream for breakfast.
To re-motivate myself I went to a health food store at lunchtime and bought 'cheesely' tofu cheese slices, and 'not bacon'. I also brought some Linda McCartney veggie chilli and some vegetarian sausages. I'm not going to lie to you though, NONE of it looks like food.
Finally I went and bought 16 pieces of sushi. Well NOONE said vegans can't eat loads of the stupid tasteless vegan food. It was all tofu and cucumber and disgusting other food which has no taste. I humphed back to the office and snarled at everyone for the rest of the day.
In the evening I went home and thank GOD flatmate was out, and I mean thank God for HIM as was in a foul mood and needed a target. I was thinking I might dredge up the old throwing out my wine thing again. He being absent, there was no one around to have the rage against, so I had to call Jake. However it was like he had some kind of psychic power because he opened the conversation by saying that he had seen a photo of me on Facebook and that I was looking thin. So then I COULDN'T be mad at him and felt marginally less angry with veganism too.
I heated up the Linda McCartney 'Chilli'. It had soy mince. It doesn't taste like mince. It really really doesn't. I had it with no rice and some fruit. Felt a bit thin when i was lying in bed so I figured things were OK again.
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