cupboard love, part 3
Claire’s growing her brain, and also packing on many layers of fat. For brain growth, she needs to generate a lot of myelin, which is the fatty tissue that covers your axons. Myelin loss is a feature of some particularly nasty genetic and acquired diseases like leukodystrophy and MS. The rest of the fat is just so she doesn’t look too much like a spider monkey when she’s born.
The upshot is that right now I am craving fat. What I particularly need to eat are omega-3 fatty acids (found in green leafy vegetables and cold-water, high-fat fish like salmon) and omega-6 fatty acids (plentiful in meat and dairy).
This is not at all bad news, and has renewed my obsession with my favourite fat source in all the world: French cooking. We’ve been dropping by Absinthe for lunch on the way back from regular prenatal visits. On Monday night, to my joy, we discovered Le Zinc, a perfect little Parisian cafe just around the corner from our birth prep class.
And last night we made our first, absolutely splendid tarte tatin. Except to stock up on apples, flour, butter and cream, I need never leave the house again.
