I'm enjoying my first glass of wine in several weeks and it's very, very nice. My fave, Fetzer Gewurztraminer. I've backed off all alcohol considerably and it's nice to come back to, at least for tonight.
I've always complained that there's no good denatured wine out there. Vintners refuse to ruin perfectly good wine by denaturing it so just about everything I've tasted tastes like diluted prune juice, and the exceptions are flat, and remind me of vinegar without the sharpness that makes good salad vinegars interesting to sip.
My love of wine, unfortunately, will have to be celebrated with the real stuff. Same with cognac and rum (how I loooooooove a great rum--I will make recommendations on request.) I've had pretty good luck with virgin mixed drinks, though. The mixture helps disguise the flatness, usually via sweetness, saltiness, sourness, sparkle, or a combination thereof.
I've voluntarily retreated from my indulgence for several reasons which will, over the course of time, lighten up and allow me a little more leeway for indulgence. Firstly, I have no adult backup after dinner to comment should I start drinking a bit too much. Second, although I don't feel depressed or anxious I know I'm going through a stressful time and that will make my self-monitoring of alcohol intake suspect. Third, I'm hoping to lose a little weight this summer and alcohol has tons and tons of calories. I know a couple who stopped drinking and lost most of their excess weight in just a few months with no other change in diet or activity level. Wow. Fourthly, I'm going through some mild medical side effects of a TMI procedure that will only be aggravated if I indulge due to dehydration (not to mention that I won't be able to take ibuprofen if I start cramping bad.) And last, alcohol (with the exception of my beloved Fetzer Gewurtz) is pretty darned expensive and I'm trying to be relatively frugal until I'm no longer living off of savings. Even if it wasn't expensive it's a luxury item. Of my luxury yummies--booze, chocolate, ice cream, cream, red meat (especially ribeye steak,) cookies, cream cheese, pre-sweetened breakfast cereals, juice, bacon and/or ham, and white/sweet breads in all their myriad and tasty forms--I don't need to have all these things on stock at all times. Certain times of the month, chocolate is valuable for the survival of my offspring. Occasional juice is healthy for the raw vitamin supplementation. The rest I can (and do) take or leave. And alcohol is the one that's left out in the cold first and the most often when things are tight or I start feeling unhealthy. It's a poison, after all. It's a happy poison with some health benefits, but there are health risks too and none of us need it.
For tonight, however, I'm happy to enjoy my fave wine and do a little late night writing. No school tomorrow, so I can have a bit of a late start with no bad repercussions. I can't stay up too late or go overboard with the wine, though, because I have a long day of writerly activities and I don't want to be groggy, dull-witted (at least not more than usual) or short-tempered. I also plan on having my fave (yes, I have many faves) pear cider tomorrow and I don't want my liver to be screaming for mercy. It comes in pints!
5 comments:
After many years of not drinking due to the meds I'm on, I finally broke down last year and bought some liquers last year so I could have a relaxing drink ocassionally with Rick. Sondra
I hope this is a good sign! Have you tried Navan?
Nope. What's Navan?
Not much of a good sign, but I did cut the aspartame out of my diet almost 3 months ago and have been excited because I actual had ONE day where the pain level (on a 0-10 scale) didn't get above a 6 until well into the afternoon! And I was running errands all over Hood River that day which normally kills me in about 30 minutes!
Hmmm....maybe Rick had a point about toxins in my diet affecting me?...It hasn't been a miracle change, but to have almost a whole day's respite for the first time in 3 years was incredible. I'd forgotten what a 1 or 2 on the scal e felt like!
Navan is a vanilla-flavored cognac. Unlike a lot of liquors it's not super sweet. It's still tasty and it is sweet, but not cloying. Even R likes it. I also like it because it has a built-in limit for me like Irish Mist does. I'm sensitive to one of the herbs or infusions or something in both of these liquors (as well as Celtic Crossing and some others) and if I have more than just a wee bit (like two shots worth) my body tells me about it in the morning, sometimes even the same night. So I'm motivated to be good.
Gee, all this talk about me limiting my alcohol is starting to make it sound like I have a problem! LOL
I keep forgetting to add things.
I think Rick is onto something too. I think additives are the main issue with places like McDonalds and things like pre-seasoned sausage, pre-sweetened cereals and the like. The closer to scratch food is, the better. Unfortunately it's more perishable that way, so that involves shopping more and cooking more often. It's a balancing act. Going all scratch cooking would make me psychotic in short order. But I do look at pre-prepared stuff with more awareness than I used to. And there's some unexpected crud out there. Like farm raised fish. Much, much higher levels of mercury and other toxins in their meat because of the way they're raised, enough that 'healthy' fish turns out to not be very healthy. So when I can find it I get wild caught fish instead, and preferably caught and processed in the good ol' USA. I don't even want to know what's in the water off the coast of Asia. And I don't get fish at fast food places anymore.
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