Loire 4 - Wine and Winning Tickets

I may be one lottery ticket away from obesity and alcoholism.

Eating at home in Ottawa means leafy, low-fat foods and mineral water – until Friday-night pizza and wine.  The end of the week break from routine encourages relaxation and rewards the good dietary behavior of the preceding days.

It works most of time. 

But on vacation when relaxation becomes a preoccupation, the good behavior part falls to the side and the whole strategy faces a test – one that brought repeated failure when we walked the Loire Valley this spring.  

Our trek ran about 120 kilometres through forests, across fields, and down country roads.

The fresh air and illusion of exercise made it easy to justify indulgence at both ends of the day.  It started with grazing on piles of pastries and pain au chocolat.  Later we hit the cheese plates and chacuterie in cafés ending with multi-course dinners dripping in sauces that demanded the acidic offset of wine and more wine and some beer.

For a few days, this didn’t seem like much of a problem.  Our vacation package included meals and that  made the travel company responsible for what was put in front us and what went into us.

But after a week, we noticed that wine, usually by the bottle, was an automatic addition to dinner – and sometimes along with a “dee-gest-eef,” “an a-pair-a-teef,” and “a what-the-eef.”  We felt stuffed and dozy more often than our ideal. 

“How do the French stay so slim ?”

“They eat small portions and smoke a lot.”

We tried the smaller portion thing and inhaled secondhand smoke for half a day, then slipped back into holding our noses, opening our mouths, and looking for more French food.

“Maybe, we should carry around one of those long baguettes like they do,” I said. “Just in case we need a snack.”

I asked why they didn’t serve wine on the commuter trains and whether melted compté might go good with granola.  At this point, I realized that a problem loomed and wondered how hard it would be to return to a normal diet back home.

As I thought this, we ordered another bottle of wine and talked about the process that leads to problem drinking and eating, when these bad habits take hold, and whether circumstance and money were all that separated us from the drinking and diet abyss. 

The trip came to an end before we ventured an answer to that question – it might have been “Maybe,” “I guess we should start watching it,” or “Who cares?”

Back in Ottawa and our normal setting, we found it easier than feared to get back on the leafy greens and mineral water wagon. I guess you can safely indulge and court excess without permanent dietary damage after all. 

Still, I don’t think I will buy lottery tickets for a while.