SUJUK WRAP

“And who decided on the Lebanese Bakery today?” asked Sammy when I got in. I had come home from Oxford, once again smelling as Lebanese as a cedar tree in blossom.

This must be how people with addictions feel, I said to myself very quietly. In truth though, it actually hadn’t been my fault. Not really.

“Look,” said I, “I’ll tell you how it happened.” She laughed but I protested on…

“Pedro stood up,” I recounted, “and he said ‘Do you want to go for lunch?’ And nobody said anything. Then they were all like, ‘Well Matt likes the Lebanese Bakery so how about it?’ and then I was like ‘well okay with me I guess,’ and I couldn’t stop them!”

“Mmhm,” she replied, eyebrow arched. But that really was how it happened. And now it’s seeping out of my pores.

The problem was that I had got so excited at lunchtime about the sujuk wrap and (most importantly) actually eating the sujuk wrap, that I hadn’t realised that a big dollop of Lebanese mayonnaise had squidged down me. It was messy. I cleaned it up as well as possible but the damage was done. Once that kind of thing has happened, the rest of your day is basically Hello Beirut.

My clothes, my skin, Sammy’s car (she picked me up from the station), the bathroom - even post-shower, are all currently reeking of Levantine cuisine, and, admittedly, if you like that kind of thing, that’s wonderful. If you don’t, I imagine it wears thin. I ate it about ten hours ago. It’s still repeating, still pulsing through my blood stream and escaping in my sweat. Poor Sammy.

I’m worried I’ll get banned from the Lebanese Bakery. It is nice but I can’t do it every Wednesday, especially if it causes so much atmospherics. I’m going to have to put my foot down, I think. But not with her.

“But Matt!” Pedro will say, “You love the Lebanese Bakery!”

“Don’t make us go to Marks & Spencer, Matt!”

“Matt, I thought you said you loved it so much you could never go to Lebanon just in case you never came back?”

I did say that. I said that today while biting into the sujuk wrap. Delicious. But some things, chaps, are more important.

Hmm. Wish me luck.