Wide Awake

Now having spent a couple of weeks surrounded by the smells, sounds and tastes of Italian eats, I've been keen to expand my culinary horizons and further immerse myself in all things edible. Starting most days off with chocolate coffee is always a solid start, but I'm pretty sweet already and could use a little salt -- apart from the shake I lick before my tequila shot goes down.

Spending most of my time in Kits, home to one of my longtime foodie friends -- who just so happens to be an internationally-renown chef -- I decided to let him work some of his infamous magic on me.

In one meal, I was taken to Spain, France, Italy -- and that was with the olive oil tastings alone. As I've oft seen with anyone who can cook decently well, no matter how perfectly-chosen the oil, almost everything still needs butter.

We feasted on grainy mustard-salt-rubbed flank steak, filleted with artistic flair only someone who truly loves what he does would bother with at home. A shallot-egg-balsamic confection and garnish of home-grown watercress were the final accouterments.

I learned -- among many lessons -- my taste in wine is more finely-tuned than I thought; he paired our meal with two bottles of wine -- both of which I buy on a regular basis, one I brought to complement cheeseburgers at a recent barbecue...my fantastical career in wine sales might be more of an imminent reality than I thought.

The greatest lesson of the evening came to fruition during my noon practice the following day. Taking one of Christian's hotter-than-hell, deeper-than-I-ever-want-until-it's-over classes with a full bottle of wine coursing through my veins -- not awesome; feeling like a human again after final savasana, a cold shower and a smoothie -- divine; reminding my body and mind about the element of balance in all aspects of life -- absolutely necessary.

As I dragged my bittersweet hangover through 26 and 2, it dawned on me I'd been consuming an awful lot of the vine's sweet juice lately and might benefit from a hiatus -- perhaps a day or two, because it's important to be realistic when setting goals.

Realistic: pretending to give up or decrease my consumption of mochas is never anything but pretending -- this is the sweetness in front of me right now.

Realistic: men seem to find it incredibly difficult to be "just friends" with women -- just because I bring dessert, doesn't mean I want to be dessert.

Painfully realistic: actions without words often merit a swift slap and a timely escape; words without actions cease to have meaning, no matter how much we want them to hold -- but those of us who fall hard with open hearts would still dive right in all over again.

Morals of the story: cook alone unless you're looking for heat beyond the kitchen; if you can help it, don't go into the hot room a hot mess; it takes more than one person to keep two people on cloud 9.