Farewell fries and garlic mayo!

Oh now, as usual I was trying to think of a title to sum up how I feel and so begin my post (at 4.17am on a Saturday morning wide awake again) and by calling it garlic mayo and not aioli, I am immediately taken back to my old stomping ground of the mid-late 1990's, coming out of a suburban nightclub with friends, staggering to the kebab shop up the road - all in various states of intoxication and myself and a great fellow non-meat eating mate, getting not a donor or burger but chips and garlic sauce...... then we would all slowly make our way up a fairly steep hill to our shared house - which sober would have taken 15 minutes but in this state, sometimes the best part of an hour.  In the process we all no doubt got up to all manner of 3am shenanigans (not least dropping half said chips) - our regular arrival time may have indeed been 4.17am!  I am sure the hangovers must have been fairly epic on occasion but I have fond memories of that nightclub, the kebab shop (that hideous neon light that made people who had looked great in the dim club lighting only ten minutes earlier transformed into discombobulated zombies - not least the gals with their grey faces, make-up sliding due south...)

I don't often eat chips and garlic sauce anymore - indeed not even garlic mayo as where I live now it is a sophisticated food obsessed city and one only consumes Aioli which it transpires, is Spanish and not of French origin and is traditionally an accompaniment to seafood - much like the British Tartare which it turns out is French and was developed to be one of the piquant (great word) sauces to accompany Steak Tartare when it was first fashionable in 19th century France but then further research shows that it was a Roman dish and a recipe appears in an Elizabethan cookbook - "Sauce for hens or Pullets to prepare them to roast...Then for the sauce take the yolks of six hard eggs minced small, put to them white-wine, or wine vinegar, butter, and the gravy the of the hen, juice of orange, pepper, salt, and if you please add thereto mustard." - Accomplist Cook, Robert May [1685] although that was actually published in the last year of Charles' II reign. 

Blimey - how did I get here in my musings!  Frankly when I woke up after a few hours fitful sleep around 4am, I still felt like I was digesting and reflected on my diet today and how it made me feel:

Breakfast 8.45am - roll oats porridge, made with water, almond milk and salt - I felt full and fairly uncomfortable until at least noon

12.45am - black coffee followed by two spinach, feta and parsley Boreks.  These come out of the oven fresh and delicious, a fairly simple Turkish street food that is very reasonable and I enjoy every time I allow myself (always two although one is probably enough!) but you have to let them cool down as they can be nuclear on the first bite out of the oven - although not in the vicinity of the Mc Apple Turnover!  So ate these around 1.45pm but had no indigestion.

2.45pm - another black coffee followed by a couple of litres of water.

5.45pm - the first of about 5 red wines. I was conscious that I had to eat to soak up the booze as I was determined not to have a full-on [Christmas/end of work for 2012] session and wake up tomorrow with a hideous hangover.... and so I ordered the first of our pub (although well cooked) junk food - you guessed it chips with aioli man, I can still taste them and they seem to be lodged in my gullet!  This was then followed by another order some 30 minutes later (there were three of us, Sonya and her friend Natasha drinking) they arrived a fair while after S had ordered them and so when ordering the next round of wines, she chased the order up and meanwhile the waitress bought not just portion two of the chippies but also had a delicious looking, fresh from the oven thin crust cheese and tomato pizza - I don't think we actually ordered it but the pub was packed and she seemed convinced it was ordered against our number and so being the greedy guts I am, accepted it - Sonya may have conceivably ordered it - so we gobbled it down very quickly and it was also delicious.   Followed by eat another basket of chips and aioli, we were doing extremely well for freebies and of course - no question - we accepted and ate them. 

So the triology of delights - red wine, chips with aioli and pizza Margarita.  Food of the Gods - what is it about these substances....... what a loaded question - when I was fifteen this would have been my choice of meal every night if I had earned any money - except the red wine would have been swapped for chocolate milkshake!

However when I extracted myself from the party, got on a train and went home (relatively sober).  All I could smell was aioli it must have repulsed the guy in the seat next to me - oh well I have sat next to worse I suppose - but when I got home I didn't carry on drinking or eating I just had pints of soda water and lime cordial over ice as I had terrific indigestion looming.  I managed to get to sleep but now here I am at almost 6am and still digesting.  I am not sure I can say goodbye to pizza forever - as it is just such a classic and I am hoping to visit Italy next year..... but I really do think that I have overdosed on garlic mayo aka aioli and fries for a good long while.  BURP....