neuage's blog

Zen of Mac & Cheese
See original with images https://neuage.substack.com/p/zen-of-mac-and-cheese
Baked Mac and Cheese – perhaps an American thing like peanut butter and jelly. I have had to give it up for way too long. I am on one of those low-carb diets – defeating diabetes, wishful – wild attempts @ that... to reboot the system – with some success if success can be counted as being close but never complete. I have brought blood sugars down though still too high to proclaim that besides machine-learning my body is best (it isn't).
We do Aqua Zumba a few times a week. We have been doing this for years in Adelaide; me and 35 women - my fantasy from 50 years ago, finally come true. We even found a class here in Darwin with our groovy NYC instructor, Audrey. We do a Tuesday Aqua- Pilates class and a Thursday deep water (over our head for 45 minutes) class. That is what brings my sugars down. For example, yesterday before class my sugars were 9.8 – 45 minutes later 5.9 (anything below 6 is normal). I will do anything to be normal – apart from aspiring to being a bogan – it is my second my sought after title, 'normal'. After mac & cheese my sugars are between 18 – 20 – oops. The same with my second favourite food, mashed potatoes – and rice, bread, maple syrup...
Not being able to spend 67% of my life in the pool I try to control my diet. However, last night we decided to go out for dinner. Mitchell Street, ten minutes from our hotel, is a hub for restaurants. We go there most mornings, to McDonalds of all places, but that is because we get senior's coffee – the second cup is free, and they do make good latte. I had it in my mind that I wanted a meal of mac & cheese – for the first one of 2021. I don't think I had any in 2020 – but that was a bit of an unusual year anyway wasn't it? We looked at heaps of places and no one was offering such godly tastes. We needed to find one that catered to Yanks. It is in the news that 'Thousands of US marines to touch down in Darwin before June 2021' (arriving in batches of 200-500 marines) – probably to find a good mac and cheese. Knowing that heaps of the critters are already roaming the streets of Darwin was a good piece of information. There must be a place that panders to the American palate. And there was. Six Tanks, a micro-brewery bar was our nirvana.

And yes, they had six tanks

And yes, they had mac & cheese... (Narda had lasagne, probably because it had meat...yuck – though she claimed it was yummy)

And that is it. Nothing Zen about it. Perhaps it is because I once chased the Zen concept, whatever that was, lots of decades ago. I was thinking about that period so long ago when I saw that my favourite beat poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, passed away on Monday, February 22nd - he was 101 years old...
I remember going often to the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco in the 1960s - seeing him in NYC - following him for decades... reading my own poems all over the place back in 1960s. But that was then now isn't and the only Zen in view is our hotel here in Darwin. Ramada Suites by Wyndham Zen Quarter Darwin - https://www.zenquarter.com/

And this is the meal I was so excited about

Then we stopped at Woolworths on the way home and got some magical chocolate and peanut butter ice creams to celebrate my high sugar/carb intake as we watched 'Outlander' on Netflix. I do not take my sugar readings during these times – I am having a holiday from myself. Loving it! However, here I am up since 3.30 am because I could not get back to sleep so perhaps I will not have mac and cheese for a while.