Pitaless Cravings

Tags

cravings, food, pitas, pregnancy, restaurants, the pita house, Vancouver, wolfville

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.

Eating Out With A Toddler: A Survival Guide

Tags

dining, eating, parenting, restaurants, toddlers, travel

This pie-chart has been floating around lately:

It’s funny, and to a certain extent it’s true. When I was a newlywed, PH and I went to dinner with an old friend of his and her 18 month old. The child threw crayons, ran amok through the restaurant, and basically destroyed the meal while his mother went “Oh, you little monkey!”. This pie chart totally applied, and I thought “I’ll NEVER let my child behave like that”. Then I questioned myself.

Thankfully, I am now a mother of a 22 month old and I never let him throw crayons at people.

Eating out with Owl isn’t too difficult for us, and it’s a good thing, because we don’t have a bar fridge in our crappy Excalibur hotel room (in fact, for the first five days, we didn’t even have a door that locked. It took us two days to notice this, and then three days of wheedling to get someone to fix it).

Ordering into the room didn’t work.

So we do have to go OUT. To restaurants. With humans in them.

It hasn’t been nearly as much of a hassle as the pie chart makes it sound.

We even took Owl to a fancy steakhouse and were hardly humiliated at all. Part of that is probably Owl’s sunny disposition and the fact that he is a good eater.

Yes, he has TWO FORKS in his hand.

I notice, though, that there are a few key things that other parents are doing differently from us, and I think that they may be making some mistakes.

You see, we have Strategy.

And so, I bring you…

How To Eat Out With A Toddler And Survive It

(Or, “The way that works for us”)

1. Bring toys and books.

Do not expect your dazzling conversation to entertain the child. I see a lot of parents trying to wrestle a toddler into sitting still with no distractions. It makes me wonder where their brains are. I know that Owl is a little perpetual motion machine and if we want him to remain in place, we need to at least give his little gyrating brain something to hover around.

2. Let the kid run around first.

Do not bring a child who is filled with energy to the table. Toddlers need to move. You keep a child in a stroller for most of the day and try to plunk them down at the table and let me know how that goes. Owl needs to MOVE, so we try to make sure he gets some running and climbing time in before we try and sit him down.

3. Don’t bloody order a kid’s meal unless you really have to.

The average toddler eats just a couple of spoonfuls of food at each meal, and kid meals are aimed at the 6 and 7 year olds of the world. What a waste of money. Besides, if your kid is like our kid, he’ll just want to eat whatever you’re eating anyway. Owl thinks it’s suspicious if we feed him something we aren’t interested in eating ourselves. If you know for a fact that your baby won’t touch a bite of your meal, then fine, go ahead, but you have been warned.

4. Take your baby for a walk once dinner has been ordered.

Once you’ve picked your meal, take the kid by the hand and go for a stroll around (or even outside of) the restaurant. Do not let him climb under other people’s tables, remove other people’s cutlery from the table, or chuck crayons at people.

5. Feed or don’t feed your baby as necessary while you are waiting.

If your child hasn’t eaten for hours and is on the verge of a hunger meltdown, ask for some bread or fruit to be brought out ASAP. Waiters are usually willing to jump whatever hurdles are necessary to prevent a full toddler tantrum at one of their tables. If, on the other hand, your child is not about to perish from hunger, then don’t give him snacks until dinner arrives. If food arrives and he’s full, you’re in trouble.

5. Once food arrives, immobilize the child.

Owl is old enough for a booster seat but we still request a high chair, though we don’t put him in it until his food arrives. If he wasn’t penned in, he’d be scaling me like a try and trying to yank my nipples out of my shirt. Once in the high chair with food in front of him (the food being the key part here) he has something to distract him.

6. The Copycat Trick:

If Owl is playing with his food more than he is eating it, I try this trick – Break off part of your meal (a small mouthsized bite) and put it on his plate. Then pick up your own ocrresponding portion and show it to him: “Mommy has steak. Does Owl have steak?”. A quick scan of his plate will reveal to him that yes, indeed, he DOES have steak. Wait until he picks it up and then grin at him. Show him yours and open your mouth and wait expectantly. When he does the same, gobble your bite of food and watch him imitate you.

7. Don’t force him to eat.

It’s okay to not be hungry. Provide more toys and books if you child has no interest in the meal, or take turns holding his hand and walking him around the restaurant while the other person eats. Just keep him busy and enjoy your meal.

We never get dirty looks – only coos and comments on the size of his eyes. I’d say we probably spend up to 30% of our time eating! :-p

Like I say, Owl is naturally fairly cheerful and he loves to eat, so I think we’ve been given a head start.

But still – seriously? 10% of your time begging a toddler to eat something violently orange which doesn’t remotely resemble your delicious salmon en croute? Not the way I would do it at all.

How NOT To Market Your Restaurant To Tourists

Tags

bad customer service, dining, Las Vegas, restaurants, wtf

We tried to order-in ONCE. It went like this:

Me: “Hey, look! A flyer was slipped under our (unlocked) door for a local pizza place! Their prices are way better than most of the tourist traps around here.”

PH: “Yes, let’s order in tonight. Wow, 28 inch pizza. Let’s get that.”

*dials number for Flamingo Pizza*

Number is out of service.

*visits website for Flamingo Pizza*

Website is defunct.

*Googles Flamingo Pizza*

New website found.

*Attempt to order online.*

Flamingo Pizza doesn’t deliver to our area

PH: “So, they gave us a flyer with a bad number, a bad website, and they don’t even deliver to our area?”

Me: “Worst advertising ever.”

Welcome to Vancouver, Babby

Tags

Anton's, babies, dining, food, love, pasta, restaurants, Vancouver

I was lured to live in Vancouver.

You could almost say “bribed”.

Many years ago, when PH was “just” my best friend, I flew out to visit him here. He met me at the airport with a kiss and a dozen roses. Yellow, tinged with red. Friendship turning to love.

The first place he took me was not the suspension bridge or Stanley Park.

The first place he took me was Anton’s.

He had me hooked.

By the end of the ten days, he was my boyfriend. Hell, to be honest, he was my future perfect husband, because we knew from day one that this was going to work.

PH would probably argue that he knew from day -1,460.

It wasn’t love that made me agree to move to Vancouver and live with him there, though.

It was Anton’s.

If you ever come to Vancouver, you may think that you have to go see a Canuck’s game, or visit Capilano, or the Aquarium. You may think that you need to eat sushi and walk under the cherry blossoms. I recommend all of these things.

But if you haven’t eaten at Anton’s, you haven’t experienced the best Vancouver has to offer.

It’s a no-frills establishment. No table cloths. Paper napkins. Wooden tables jammed together so tightly that you have to suck in your belly to reach your seat.

But it doesn’t matter when you try to go – it could be 9 PM on a Wednesday and there would be a line-up out the door and down the street.

Anton’s makes pasta like you’ve never tasted.

No amount of superlatives or comparative adjectives can really make you understand how good the food is there. I’ve been to Italy, and I still swear that they didn’t beat Anton’s when it came to pasta. Pizza? Wonderful. Meat? Out of this world. But if you want the kind of pasta that you dream about afterwards, it’s Vancouver you need to visit.

The pasta is fresh, and homemade. Not that dry stuff that you boil soft. It’s huge, too. Like it was made by giants. Genius giants.

The portions are gargantuan. Every time we take people, they say “oh, yeah, big portions, eh? Good, because I’m hungry from standing in line for half an hour” …but then when the food arrives they’re like, “HOLY FUCKING CHRIST THIS IS A LOT OF FOOD.”

After you’ve stuffed yourself to the point of bursting you look down at your plate and realize that it appears untouched. You lug the remaining pound or two of food home in a container. You will live off of the leftovers for the next 24 hours, and probably lick the inside of the container when you’re finally done.

There are no wrong choices at Anton’s, but everyone has a favourite. Mine is Tortellini Alla Panna, a turkey-and-cheese-stuffed tortellini in a cheesy Alfredo sauce, with chunks of ham. Amazing. Perfect Husband likes the Rigatoni Al Porto, a mountain of  pasta in a spicy garlic sauce with Italian sausage. Delicious.

We haven’t attempted waiting in line at Anton’s since Babby arrived, but recently Perfect Husband decided that we were going to get Anton’s. We called ahead when he got off of work and we picked it up to go (we also picked up some for a friend of mine whose husband is training in Alberta before being deployed to Afghanistan. Nothing brightens your day like unexpected Anton’s!).

You don’t get the massive portions when you get Anton’s to go (there’s only so much they can fit in one container) but it’s still delicious and it’s still enough for two meals.

And so, Babby was officially welcomed to Vancouver with his first taste of Anton’s.

Naturally, he loved it.

The weird thing is, he liked the spicy rigatoni best, even though we were afraid it would be too much for him. Crazy Babby.

Christmas in Vancouver

Tags

Christmas, restaurants, torture, Vancouver

You and your husband decide to take a break from Christmas shopping to go to a nice Thai place. Mmmm… Christmassy.

Then, while you are sitting there waiting for food with names like Kang Dang and Mee Grob Lard Nar (which prompts you to say “Ba Weep Gra Na Weep Ninibong!” to each other for a while, if you’re children of the eighties) you begin to notice the ambiance, a combination of elephants, fans, and Christmas lights. The most noticeable thing about said ambiance is their decision to play cheery Christmas music instead of Thai music. This wouldn’t be bad except that their music choices include a recording of an untalented group of children hollering

“HE SEES YOU WHEN YOU’RE SLEEPING!

HE KNOWS WHEN YOU’RE AWAKE!!

HE KNOWS IF YOU’VE BEEN BAD OR GOOD SO BE GOOD FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!!”

at the tops of their lungs. So of course, you make fun of it for a while. Conversation drifts. After a few minutes you realize that the children are still threatening you with Santa Claus.

“This is a long recording,” you observe out loud.You check your watch. It has been at least five minutes since you first noticed the song playing. Just when you’re beginning to worry that it will never end, the children pause, then start singing

“JINGLE BELLS! JINGLE BELLS!

JINGLE ALL THE WAY!!!!”

Which is no more pleasant to listen to, but at least a change from the vengeful Santa song. Conversation drifts again. Suddenly one of you picks up on the words

“HE’S MAKING A LIST!

AND CHECKING IT TWICE!!”

“Did they put it on the CD twice?” you wonder out loud to each other in surprise. You sit and wait for your Ba Weep Gra Na Weep Ninibong or whatever to arrive and you dream of delicious red curries and tasty noodles and you stare at each other across the table. When the song ends, you  listen tensely together, hoping against all hope that the next song won’t be…

“JINGLE BELLS! JINGLE BELLS!!”

But it is. You stare at each other in disbelief. Then you begin to laugh. This can’t be happening.

But it is. Oh, it is. For the next forty minutes you and your husband listen to

“SANTA CLAUS IS COMING… TO TOWN!!”

followed by

“JINGLE ALL THE WAY!!!”

in a loop which appears to complete exactly every three minutes. You begin to count the time until the food arrives in cycles of three minutes each. Jingle Bells ends and after a moment’s blissful pause, Santa Claus is Coming to Town begins again, and your husband says “It must be 6:21 now.” Your watch agrees. You wonder how the staff can stand it. You begin to look at them suspiciously for their ability to walk around like nothing odd is happening. They should be developing homicidal tendencies after half a shift of this, but so far they seem unaffected. Your husband, meanwhile, begins to develop a twitch after Jingle Bells starts for the seventh time.

Mathematics tell you that by the time you have eaten your curry and noodles, you have listened to the same two terrible songs 15 times over. You discover that a trip to the bathroom lasts one cycle, giving you the peculiar feeling that your time in the bathroom did not count, and the universe held Jingle Bells on pause for you until you reemerged.

When you finish your meal, you sit, twitching, counting cycles, waiting for the bill. When it doesn’t come promptly, a feeling of trapped panic begins to set in. You have been there an hour. That is twenty renditions of  Jingle Bells by small children who can’t even harmonize. The most easygoing parents in the world would be breaking out the chain saw by now. It feels increasingly believable that this could be used as a torture method on enemies of America.

When the bill finally arrives, your husband pays indecently quickly, and you actually rush out of the restaurant to gasp together in the blissful silence of the Vancouver eventide.

But the children… your brain rings with echoes of the children singing in your head…

“YOU BETTER WATCH OUT!

YOU BETTER NOT CRY!!

YOU BETTER NOT POUT I’M TELLING YOU WHY!!!”

and when you try and silence that memory another interrupts with

“OH WHAT FUN IT IS TO RIDE ON A ONE! HORSE! O! PEN! SLEEEEEEIGH…”

It takes a good half hour of hard rock and some powerful suppression of memories to block out the singing and you pray that you haven’t been permanently damaged by the experience. You wonder if you will still be able to have children.

Certain songs may have to be Verboten. FOREVER.