Wine-No

Losing the wine was tough. First of all, that’s how I got busted at Hope Street Pizza as being in the family way. See, Aaron and I are there probably three times a week, at least, and as soon as the bartenders saw me, they knew to reach for the pinot grigio. All of a sudden, I’m declining and asking for WATER? Jessica? At a BAR? Yeah, got a few raised eyebrows there, and the jig was up.

As my friend Libby said, at the moment she heard I was pregnant, she detected a cry of desperation from the direction of the Marlborough region of New Zealand, producers of some of my favorite vintages of pinot grigio. I responded that I heard a similar cry from the Piedmont region of Italy, where my beloved reds, the Montepulcianos, the Barberas, and the San Gioveses are made, as well as the delightful light and citrusy Gavi.

So I resorted to loving perusals of the wine lists at some of the better-heeled restaurants at which I dine, planning out which ones I’d drink it which order, or pairing this vintage with the Osso Bucco, or that vintage with the fruit-and-cheese plate.

But before long, maybe a month, I didn’t miss drinking wine all that much. Same thing with smoking, but because that often went hand-in-hand with drinking, it subsided around the same time. I craved carpaccio and sushi and rare steaks too, but I’ve resorted to cooked rolls instead of fatty tuna, and I get the steak medium rare. Medium is probably recommended, but I’d rather gnaw on my flip-flops than eat a steak cooked medium.

And that’s how I learned to cope.