there is an urgency to these posts, isn’t there? is it necessary to have four posts in a day? it’s just, they are back today.

after i considered bagels for breakfast, i briefly considered bagels for lunch. in the end, i took myself and my “new yorker” to circle cafe. because, when will i get another chance to sit in a nice cafe and drink iced tea with mint and lemon, and chew and swallow at a normal, leisurely pace, and not worry about little grabby (grubby) fingers reaching into my plate? despite my anticipation of lots (well, several at least) of quiet, quality meals out over the course of the week, this was the first such undertaking.

well. tuesday, having read about har mee in the city, i’d set out in search of these elusive noodles; apparently they are only made tuesday, friday and saturday. apparently. i joined the queue, inched forward slowly, placed my order at the counter, and then didn’t quite understand when the countergirl said, “there is no har mee today, because we did not work yesterday.”

she filled my silence with explanation, something about how the day before was the easter monday public holiday, so they were treating tuesday as regular monday, and the rest of the week would be a day out. (and the rest of the year, presumably. what the hell?) i asked her what the special for “monday” was, and she gestured towards a laminated poster on the wall that said “kueh teow soup”. ch. she was already looking over my shoulder, taking the order of the man behind me. i suppose my eyes had already told her that i wouldn’t be eating there that day, even before my mouth did.

so there was that attempt.

anyway.

they make a fine nicoise salad at circle. mesclun, lightly dressed, punctuated with strips of roasted red capsicum, pungent caperberries, chunks of good tinned tuna, and on top, a criss-cross of whole anchovy fillets. a hard-boiled egg and a roma tomato, quartered, radiate from the periphery. the last time i had this, there were whole olives hidden throughout, but this afternoon they seemed to have run out. nevermind. it is a large, flavoursome meal, even when you don’t count the little basket that comes with, holding a stump of house-baked baguette, and two pats of butter.

i stretched it out, my last solitary lunch hour: i had a hot belgian chocolate afterwards, drank it in sloooow sips. and then i waddled off and bought some dinner groceries, came home, put stuff away, cleaned out the puddle of sour, brown water at the bottom of the crisper drawer, and heard the key turn in the door. heard her squeaky little voice waft downstairs, “hello, mum!”

good thing i’d gotten that amazing, twinkly gingerbread heart at circle, to go.