Gut Instincts

Your twenties definitely afford you an embarrassing excess of opportunities to reconsider age-old lessons for the umpteenth time. Last night had me face to face or rather, intestine to intestine with the ol' familiar maxim of trusting your gut. Upon leaving work last night, a mischievous desire to indulge in a handful of not-so-nutritious items on the eve of my random weekend (*note: a rare consecutive Thursday/Friday were to constitute said weekend) seized all better judgement and the first sin that I caved to was chicken-less nuggets. Reaching into the cold case to compare Morningstar Buffalo Wings with generic Trader Joe's brand soy nuggets, I was stopped by a colleague who informed me that the buffalo wings had the soy nuggets beat hands-down in the flavor category. Hm. Simple enough decision. Soy nuggets lack flavor: Mimi places nuggets back.

It felt wrong though, putting those nuggets back. Not because I felt sorry for them. Not because like an anxious follower, I was ignoring my usual maverick tendencies to run against the proverbial grain and eat whatever the hell I goddamn pleased. Nope. Simply put, I felt strange sending those soy nuggets back to their frozen grave because the mere mention of 'flavor' and especially in reference to a product already labeled as 'buffalo wings' set off an alarm in my nether-regions that spices were involved and that my stomach and thus initially, my tongue were not going to be so hot with the idea of these vegetarian hot wings. Alternatively, the sweet, nutty goodness of nothing more than over-processed soy protein to compliment a simple salad for the evening was sounding sufficiently safe and comforting. Me: safe? Pft.

Gleefully adding cinnamon graham crackers, semisweet chocolate morsels, maple pecan granola and a few beautifully marbled McIntosh apples to my hoard, I returned home to bake up and enjoy those devilish little wannabe wings. Twenty minutes of toaster-oven transformation and more effort to chew them down than I care to confess later and my gut was giving me that 'I told you so' attitude that often follows adventures with chile. No amount of cutting off the breading or what I momentarily dubbed the genius addition of some counteractive and cooling plain yogurt was able to cure such an oversight. I left my dinner plate terribly unsatisfied and mildly ravenous. But like so many hard-earned lessons in life, this was nothing a little bit of chocolate couldn't cure.