#149 - only in dreams.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 9:00AM
parowpyro in beer, dreams, meditations, stuffed grape leaves

for years now, i've been waking up pretty much every morning with absolutely no recollection of my dreams from the previous evening. i'm pretty sure why this is, but we won't get into that right now in this fully public forum. reasons aside, science tells me that there are dreams going on up on that brain of mine whilst i snooze, but i'll be damned if i know what those dreams are about. on the random occasions when i wake up & actually do remember my dreams, i find myself cursing waking life & wanting to go right back to sleep, with the hope that i'll pick right up where i left off. that never happens though...stupid dreams & their lack of continuity.

over the past week something's changed though. i've been waking up almost every morning with actual memories of the previous evening's dreams. quite frankly, it's been awesome, although it's made me want to spend more & more time sleeping. i've never been one to believe in dream analysis, but if i was, here's a sampling of what i'd have to work with:

analyze that, mr deniro! anyway, i can't wait to see what the ol' subconscious has in store for me tonight. hopefully i remember it & hopefully it's another random hookup dream...those are my favorite kind.

#149 - only in dreams.
snack: stuffed grape leaves
drink: coney island albino python white lager



they say that you shouldn't eat right before bed. "you'll have nightmares," they say, but i say "whatevs" to that bit of old wives' tale science. a few nights back (the night where i had the dream of a makeout session with my FIPS acquaintance to be exact), about an hour before heading to bed i inhaled six stuffed grape leaves that i picked up at three guys from brooklyn, a relatively large market in my new hood. it's mostly filled with fresh produce & open 24-7 & although i'm not sure who needs to buy four different colors of peppers & a weird yellow plum at 3:30 in the morning, i guess the fact that the option exists can't be a bad thing.

as for the stuffed grape leaves, they came from the three guys olive bar & at just over a dollar for six of them, they're truly the poor man's delicacy. i first fell in love with stuffed grape leaves around the time when i first moved to the city & was hanging out in the lower east side quite often. at the end of the night, as my drunk ass stumbled to the F train, i pretty much always managed to stop by bereket & pick up a falafel sandwich & a bunch of stuffed grape leaves. they're a simple snack & these particular ones were stuffed with rice, spices & what i think were chick peas and covered with olive oil. if i had a lemon i would've squeezed some juice on them, but i forgot to pick one up. no big deal though. they tasted just fine without one. i was way too lazy & it was way too late to be going back out just for a lemon anyhow...not that time will ever again be an obstacle to citrus purchases for me.

i washed the stuffed grape leaves down with a big ol' 22 oz bottle of coney island albino python white lager, a beer made by saratoga spring's shmaltz brewing company, the same folks who make he'brew (the chosen beer). it's one of their coney island line of beers, a line which gets its inspiration from the coney island freak show & includes beers such as the sword swallower (a pale lager), the human blockhead (a red lager) & the mermaid pilsner, which is a nyc draft exclusive. i tried the human blockhead a few weeks back & enjoyed it quite a bit, but haven't had a chance to try any of the other ones. i'm sure that'll change though. after all, i like to drink quite a bit, so i'll probably come across one of the other ones soon enough.

while the the albino python was pretty good, it wasn't quite as good as the human blockhead. that's more a matter of my taste preferences than a statement on the quality of the beer though. it's a hazy, yellow beer brewed with ginger, crushed fennel & sweet orange peel. while i generally like hazy, yellow beers, i found the combo of ingredients slightly weird & a bit much. on the flip side, the citrus notes complemented the stuffed grape leaves quite well. on the plus PLUS side, once i passed out with my belly full of beer & stuffed grape leaves, i totally got some subconscious action. that's the stuff that dreams are made of!

Article originally appeared on meditation via snacking. (http://www.eatdrinksnack.com/).
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