Zywiecka

It's five in the morning, and I've risen early, it'll be hours before anyone else gets up. You're sound asleep.

I'm stood in the kitchen and I’m thinking about the meals I’ll never eat again, the one-offs, the products of circumstance.  It’s dark outside, and I’m hungry because I ate early last night, but not for anything in particular. So I eat zywiecka, because the little sausage slices were in the reduced section and, although these days I can afford to buy what I want, a relic of more impecunious days is that I can’t resist a reduced section. I always get a fleeting feeling of pleasure, like I’ve saved food from the bin, done my bit, but also saved myself money, which is absurd, because I've just bought something I hadn't gone in for, on top of my actual shop, but old habits are hard to break.

It’s on a lentil cracker, because I’m worried about my weight so I bought crackers, because that’s what you do when you’re worried about your weight, you try to eat your way out of it. But I’m clearly not that worried because there’s a smear of leftovers from last nights dinner, a vegetable cheese bake, the sort of thing I’ll make midweek when I don’t have time to plan anything, a throw it all in the oven sort of dinner, because even though my job means I have more time to shop than your job, it still annoys me that you don’t. Maybe one day we’ll have a fight about it, but probably not.

Not putting much effort into dinner is my way of getting my own back, I could try harder, I could do better, you know how good I can be, and isn't choosing not to be an act of rebellion? But you eat every mouthful, and you say it’s delicious. There are always leftovers, because I hate to see food wasted they are boxed up and they go in the fridge. You leave them in open bowls, it does my head in, I tub them up. I resist the urge to day dot them.

It’s still an hour or so before it’s light, and as I eat this makeshift breakfast: lentil cake, zywiecka, cheese-laden vegetable bake I think I’ll probably never eat this again. I also think it's a distinct possibility that no one else ever has, this is a completely unique meal

Which is a shame, because you know what? It’s good, they work well together, the Universe came together and, for one moment in its entire existence, made this. Well, it didn't, I did.

I get your packed lunch ready for work. The pasta from two nights ago, some tomatoes and avocado, a bit of poached chicken. You'll be up in an hour. I crack my back, and head out to the gym. I am, after all, worried about my weight.