Week 21: Hungry like the wolf

Let’s take a moment to talk about food. Food, glorious food! We all need it to survive. There are magazines dedicated to its art form, as well as cookbooks and blogs that praise one of the very basic necessities of life. It’s sustenance. But come on; let’s be real here. It can also be a major indulgence. Enter: pregnancy appetite and cravings.
When your stomach gets pushed way up high because your little person is continuing to take up space every second of every day, it’s hard to imagine how a meal could even fit in there. Oh, let me assure you, it can. And surprisingly (or maybe not-so-surprisingly), my appetite is in full force, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m also willing to bet that our little boy is pretty stoked about my meal choices based on how much he’s moving around in there! Being able to feel him kick from the outside has been an amazing feeling for our whole family.
As someone who will choose a vacation destination based on the kind of food that’s around, this is a major perk of this pregnancy. I’ll gladly take seconds (and if I’m being honest, thirds—don’t judge me) of something delicious because when else could I possibly be excused for that? This isn’t to say that I’m having cheesecake and steak every night. (Although, that sounds kind of amazing right now.) In fact, my pregnancy diet isn’t that junky. If anything, I’m probably eating better now than I was before finding out I was even pregnant. I’m just eating … more.
I mean, before I had myself to be responsible for. If I had an extra cookie at the end of the night, I had mild guilt but ate it anyway and told myself that I’d make up for it by having a salad the next day. Well, these days, I’ll forgo the cookie and instead eat some fresh pineapple. With sea salt on it. Because … pineapple with sea salt is a totally normal thing to do, right? RIGHT. How about suddenly needing to have a glass of orange juice every morning before even eating anything else because breakfast feels inexplicably incomplete without it? I know these cravings aren’t that wacky, but I can only attribute them to this pregnancy because I wasn’t this particular before.
Spring Break is right around the corner, and our little family has planned a trip to The Big Easy. I can’t wait. It’ll be my first time visiting, so I’m sure there is a lot to look forward to, once the seven-hour drive from Atlanta passes. While New Orleans is famous for its architecture, jazz and Prohibition-era cocktails (which I am admittedly a tiny bit bummed I can’t even partake in—cue world’s tiniest violin now) I am absolutely, hands-down, most excited about what we’ll be eating there. Hello, gumbo, jambalaya, po’boys and beignets! Not to mention the seafood and classic Creole and Cajun specialties! Being in a food paradise in a city that’s touted as the “Paris of the South” just sounds and feels like a perfect getaway for a week. Oh, and as it happens, the French Quarter Jazz Festival will be happening during our visit, too.