Picture eating a seriously decadent meal so rich that you swear you couldn’t consume another bite (not even a wafer-thin mint), and then a few hours later, you’re still awake, shocked that you’re actually hungry. This is the Thanksgiving meal at 2pm scenario. Had you eaten at 4pm instead, you probably could have skipped the decision to partake in that 9pm encore, which, by the way, tasted better than the 2pm main event.
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The Thanksgiving
at 2pm scenario when you couldn’t possibly eat another bite…until 9pm.
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I’m not a big breakfast eater. Occasionally when I indulge in a late morning meal, my hope is that the energy it packs carries me through to the afternoon hours or even to dinner. Wishful thinking…but usually it’s an epic fail. The plan completely backfires, the engines start cranking and I’m hungrier than if I had skipped breakfast altogether. I know the goal is to ingest enough slow-release healthy foods at peak times so that my metabolism remains steady most of the day and not only am I not starving, but I have solid energy. (Sounds so convincing, eh?)
So I gotta tell you that at 8:45am today, I had oatmeal with sliced strawberries, a few bites of cheese (ok, ok more than just a few bites if you want to be a stickler about it), a generous handful of oven-roasted cashews, and possibly a cookie. (I made sure there were no witnesses to positively identify consumption of said cookie, making the idea complete conjecture, hence no visual representation is displayed). Right now it’s only 9:28am and I’m already fantasizing about eating a slice of pizza before lunch.
Is the question could you do a slice or should you?
Many well-known NYC restaurants have a reputation of serving small portions, so it‘s not uncommon to leave dinner and be temporarily satiated, but not really full. When I was married, one of our post meal jokes on the walk back to our apartment was, “Could you do a slice?” The game forced us to decide if we were too full to attempt a slice of pizza. If we came up no, then man, we must have been really stuffed. The general rule of thumb was that even though we both claimed to be over the edge, yeah, we could probably manage a slice if we absolutely had to. It was a theoretical conversation for the most part, but we did occasionally end up at Little Italy Pizza locked in a serious game of Should We Really Or Is This Wrong?
I’m sure many Penn Station and Port Authority commuters can relate to this late-night, post-event decision, especially if more than a six-minute gap cushions the departure time. It’s a no brainer. You fold the slice, ditch the plate, wad of napkins firmly in the other hand, slip a soda into the outside jacket pocket and hightail it to the platform barely breaking a sweat. Yeah, now that I think about it, I could totally do a slice.
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