I didn’t have a lot of cravings in my last pregnancy, other than a brief longing for all things red.
That was mostly because I was too nauseous to really enjoy eating much of anything.
I’m a little queasy this time, but I definitely have a craving.
It’s something I’ve craved before.
In the small town of Wolfville, Nova Scotia, there is a tiny little pita and juice bar with about three tables in it. It used to be called The Main Squeeze until they noticed that their pitas were more popular than their fancy juices. So now they’re called The Pita House.
They have this chicken club pita that tastes like God.
This is a picture of a SMALL. The large is DOUBLE THIS SIZE.
It’s a giant pita stuffed to overflowing with chicken breast, and bacon, and cheddar, and onion, and romaine lettuce, just DRIPPING in creamy garlic parmesan sauce.
Oh, and they’re ENORMOUS. An 8 dollar large gets you two meals.
AND I WANT ONE.
Now, mind you, I always want one. Every time I am back in Nova Scotia for a visit I go to get a fix. Last time I was home was a year ago, when my Aunt was sick. I was only around for a couple of days, so I ended up making a desperate phone call the morning I left for the airport. When the manager (who recognizes me whenever I come in) answered the phone I was so relieved.
“Oh GOOD, you’re open!”
“Actually, no, I’m just prepping, we don’t open for another hour,” she said.
“No! I’ll be at the airport by then!”
“Aw, swing on down now, I’ll make you one. What do you need?”
That woman is an angel.
Unfortunately, angelic as she may be, there’s still no way for her to make me a pita from the other side of the continent, which means that I have a PROBLEM.
Vancouver has a LOT of restaurants. Like, A LOT. In fact, I’m really not sure how it sustains that number of sushi joints. In a two minute drive from my house, I can think of FIVE sushi joints, just off the top of my head.
But do you know what I don’t have within a two minute drive?
A pita joint.
You know what I don’t have within a 20 minute drive from my house?
A PITA JOINT.
It makes no sense that a place as obsessed with healthy food as Vancouver (where they even put lettuce in donairs) doesn’t serve pitas.
I stopped a four, count them, FOUR, sandwich places today. NONE OF THEM sold pitas. Only one sold wraps, and those were pre-wrapped things on a glass shelf generically labelled “lunch wrap”.
And do you think I could stand the thought of eating ANYTHING else for lunch?
Nope.
Didn’t want McDonald’s. Didn’t want pasta. Didn’t even want a BLT sandwich.
I wanted a garlicky, creamy, chickeny, bacony PITA.
So I had to drive for a HALF AN HOUR today to find a pita place, because for some reason there are THREE pita places all within a few blocks from each other in Burnaby, even though there are NO OTHER PITA PLACES for a 40 minute drive in any direction.
First there was the awkward explanation to the staff about what I wanted, since they didn’t actually make it.
They were very understanding. The word “pregnant” has that effect on young twenty-something women. They think they’re seeing their future, and it makes them afraid.
Anyway, they sold me a chicken caesar pita but let me personalize it from their subway-esque make-your-own-wrap bar. Then they suggested combining schwarma sauce with caesar dressing, since they didn’t have garlic parmesan.
I tipped them.
I drove another half hour home and gobbled the damn thing. It was good. But it wasn’t GREAT. It wasn’t stuffed. It wasn’t dripping. It had way less chicken.
But I take what I can get.
Problem is, I want MORE. In fact, I want nothing else.
And I can’t drive an hour to get a pita or two every day.
Oh, and I hear what you’re asking – why not make my own, right?
I’m wiped. I’m just, like, completely exhausted all the time. I don’t even have the energy to sweep the floor. The house is a mess. I feel drugged. I find myself longing to curl up on the floor of a run on a dog bed at work (I don’t, though).
Just the thought of trying to put together a pita makes me want to go have a lie down.
…First world problems are hard.
If By Yes 