Eating Across the Sea

Not to generalize, but most people understand that the primary mission of a cruise ship is to provide enough food that, in case there’s a zombie apocalypse back home, passengers will have enough to eat for the next 28 years. Give or take.

In no particular order, there were the usual suspects: breakfast (full of salmon and bagels, hot chocolate, Eggs Benedict, cereal, fancily cut bananas, some weird kind of oatmeal mush, bacon, pastries, more bacon, juices, and all sorts of whatever else the menu commanded us to eat), a breakfast buffet a few stories up, lunchtime dining, lunchtime buffet, lunchtime dessert, tea time (with exotic teas from the country of Lipton and a multi-level tray of desserts rolled about by a waiter), pizza time, burger time, ice cream time, sandwich time (I did, alas, have a pastrami on rye one night at 11:00 because I had slept through Fancy Dinner that night - Fancy Dinner, also known as Elegant Night, is when everyone dresses up, gets pictures taken, and then has a very full meal of lobstersteakfish. There were two Elegant Nights on our cruise, and I, unfortunately, was inelegant for both), dinner time and the mysterious midnight buffet.

The food was generally quite good, although I didn’t care for the half-slice of pizza I had the first night, and the pastrami gave me dreams of taking dolphins. But rather than spend too much time reviewing each meal, let me simply mention one of the desserts: the melted chocolate cake goo brownie fudge surprise in a cup. Of course, this is not it’s real name. It’s called something much more mundane, but that doesn’t do it justice.

The waiters presented it unceremoniously. On a plate were two white ceramic cups. The larger cup, about three inches tall, contained a tiny chocolate cake topped with a dusting of powered sugar. The small, shorter white cup held a scoop of vanilla ice cream, a thin slab of chocolate jutting from the top like a flag. Superficially, it was innocuous, but once I dug my spoon into the cake I began to understand. Beneath the top layer of baked cake was unadulterated melted chocolate fudge. That’s it. A lot of chocolate, a lot of fudge, a lot of ice cream. 

And if I happen to mention to the waiter I like it, he brings me another one! Or one with three ice cream scoops instead of one. It’s sugar insanity, dessert hedonism.

The first time this chocolate goo faced me, I finished it quickly - this after a full meal of salad, fruit, something fried, something heavy, and something in a fancy sauce (there were veggies in there too someplace). A few seconds later, I realized I had overdone it. 

I had completely, utterly, miserably overdone it, and now my veins were filled with the slow-moving (but delicious!) melted chocolate.

The next morning I unpleasantly woke to a stomach in full rebellion.

“I think,” I said to Suzanne, clutching my pillow as if it were a life preserver, “I just threw up in my mouth.”

Please do not take from this that I did not learn my lesson. I certainly did. The next night at dinner I avoided the melted chocolate altogether, pleased at my self-control.

Instead I had two pieces of apple pie and three scoops of ice cream.

I showed them!

Comments

[megan nair]

Hey daddy! I am bored. We are in the computer lab again for history because we have a subsitute. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO!! Sigh. 3 more hours!

[megan nair]

p.s- its fun to read about my life!