Mussels and Marijuana

I was going to do a long and thoughtful post today but I am neglecting the main thing I am supposed to be writing, so let's keep this brief.

Weed is like my side-addiction, but for a while there I was considering making it my main thing. I never used to smoke it as a student and I don't smoke cigarettes, but for the past few years I've smoked it on and off. It's very easy to get and quite cheap and, unlike alcohol, it is actually enjoyable. I love getting stoned and thinking stoner thoughts and giggling at television and indulging the munchies. But it was getting a bit out of hand - it makes you lazy, it dominates your day, it stops you doing anything else.

It's also at leas kinda addictive, for me anyway. If I have some I smoke it so I can't keep it in the house. And the pleasure, which is real and great, goes after the first evening smoking and is replaced by compulsion, so I have decided to knock it on the head.

I was tempted to get some yesterday, though. I dropped my child off to her mother and a lonely evening stretched ahead of me. I got a new record and there's a tv drama I am quite into so a bit of weed might have been just the ticket.

But I thought it through. I understand that alcoholics are sometimes told to 'wind the tape forward', a reference to the olden days, when there was tape and you wound it. It means that when you are tempted to pick up a drink, you should think through what the consequences are going to be, and that should help you decide not to do it.

Anyway, I thought about the disruption to my sleep, to feeling a bit dazed in the morning, to the inevitability of smoking the stuff out of compulsion rather than in pleasure and I chose not to do it. I knew I would not regret it if I didn't do it, and I was happy to be proven right.

Instead I decided to cook some mussels. I got a big kilo bag from the supermarket.

[NOTE TO SELF: SEEK SPONSORSHIP FROM THE DANISH FISHERIES BOARD]

I got an onion and half a bottle of white wine and I steamed the succulent little fellows in their own liquor. But I couldn't enjoy them. I was once told that if a mussel is open you should discard it and nearly all of these were a little bit open. I calculated that any bivalves sanctioned by as professional and dedicated an organisation as the Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries were probably beyond reproach and entirely trustworthy, but - blast my recovery mindset - I couldn't help playing the tape forward and picturing myself up and down to the jacks all night with food poisoning.

Of course it was quite wrong of me to doubt any marine product carrying the stamp of approval of Minister Jacob Jensen and his team. The mussels were succulent, delicious, and packed and shipped with the highest standards of freshness and safety in mind, but I stil sopped up the sauce with half an ear to the rublingof my gastro-intestinal tract, and it marred the occasion somewhat.

As ever, though, we learn from these experiences. When it comes to illegal drugs we are wise to think through the consequences of our impulses. But when it comes to a meal that is as healthy as it is nutritious, never say no to the fresh, succulent flavour of Danish mussels.

Tomorrow: self-reflection, self-awareness, and why everybody should buy a Lamborghini.