They say that pregnant women crave strange things because of whatever surprising nutritional need is being unmet. I think the same must go for living on your own. At least that is the theory I have adopted to explain my own odd behavior. There was the time when I lived in the dorms that I suddenly craved pepperoni one night –I do not like thin flat meat, or tube shaped meat either, as a rule, and had only had pepperoni on pizza- and marched down to the Subway on the corner, asking not for a sandwich but for a small supply of sandwich meat. They were surprised and a little puzzled, but figured out what to charge me, and gave me a small packet. It was exactly what I wanted, and I ate exactly as much of it as I wanted. The remainder languished in the lounge refrigerator, unneeded, and was finally thrown out. Cravings are like that.

They aren’t always without a cause; in my first apartment where I lived with 2 roommates, I was mostly done making apple sauce when I discovered that we did not have cinnamon, and that we needed it extremely. We added vanilla for fun, but it was in desperate need of cinnamon. I became obsessed. Of the three of us, one had a car, and this was shared with a boyfriend across the hall. All of us were nearly broke, nearly all the time. I resorted to hunting through the canister of Russian Tea my mother had given me, fishing out the redhots and throwing them into the applesauce, ridiculously pleased with the cinnamon-red stains they made. There weren’t nearly enough of them, though, and that night I dreamed about cinnamon.

I grew up drinking juice at breakfast; most often orange, but that was interspersed with apple and grape. In the apartment where I experienced cinnamon-loss we did this as well. We then and I now refuse to buy what is usually termed grape juice; the frozen juice container usually calls it grape cocktail. Cocktail is a pretty term for “grape is expensive so we’ve added a lot of other ingredients; mostly sugar.” The point of my saying this is that I cannot remember drinking grape juice since I lived in said apartment, and that was two years ago. Last week at a fairly odd time (10 at night, or 10 am while at work, or while sleeping) I suddenly very much wanted to have it. Things like this often seem to strike me at work, so I usually have to ignore them. This one returned, though, at various times during the next couple of days. Finally I bought some (Welch’s, with the plastic top instead of the metal one, seems to be the only real grape juice in any frozen section).

Now, if it really was 2 years since I had had grape juice, then it was before I had any appreciation for wine. I logically knew how the two were connected, but my taste lexicon had no real common etymology for the two beverages.

But this was making sense! Real grape juice is strong! You can taste the pungency of the grape skin, and although it is a lovely wet liquid, it is difficult to drink because of its richness. I had noticed it with more exotic juices like pomegranate and blueberry, but had forgotten how it applied to the grape. The phrase “fruit of the vine” suddenly meant something. It was a wonderful connection to discover.