Sprung At Last

I complain about the Lululemon phenomenon to my friend, also the mom of a teenage girl, and she rolls her eyes and says, I know all about it. Thank God for the resale shop or I’d be broke.

Resale shop?

I frequented the resale shops when The Child was a baby, and regularly grew out of clothes that had been worn once or maybe twice. But as she got bigger, there was less and less in the resale store in her size, so we gave up on them before she ever hit teen sizes.

It turns out, though, that there’s a teenage resale shop not far from us, and all they sell is high-end brands. I drag The Child out of bed early one Sunday: We’re going. Maybe they’ll have Lululemon.

We get to the store and it looks like every other resale store I’ve ever been to: clutter everywhere, too-full clothing racks. But the first rack we see has a sign for Free People, another over-the-top brand The Child’s friends all think is awesome. She disappears. I grab a teenage clerk and inquire about Lululemon. She shows me where all the athletic clothes are but then tells me the trick: It goes fast, so always check the New Arrivals rack when you get here.

The Child has no trouble finding piles of things: Free People. Forever 21. Some lululemon pants. Other shirts that seem cool. The teenage clerk knows her customer, and starts bringing me things as they arrive in the store – before they hit the New Arrivals rack.

The Child spends a couple of hours in the store, alternately trying things on and hunting for new things. She sends me on a quest for jeans, size 0, light wash. I vaguely recognize some of the brands, but have to google others. She finds a pair she loves for $30 that retail for $225. They’re obviously never been worn.

She beams.

Being a size 0 is a wonderful thing in a resale store – it’s a size other people pass through on their way to other, larger sizes, that are less well-represented on resale store shelves.

I wouldn’t know – I haven’t been a size 0 for a long time, if I ever was. I don’t think I was, and at this point, I’d settle for a size that’s simply a bit closer to it than my current size. There are a lot of possible numbers that fall into that category.

I’m working on it, and recently began a juice diet – you know the ones, where you drink nothing but healthy foods for a couple of weeks and all the weight magically falls off. I started it and lost some weight, but got a bit busy and also, a bit bored. The worst part about dieting, for someone who likes to cook, is being deprived not only of food, but of the creativity and experimentation that goes along with it.

So I looked for some recipes that might work on vegetable-only meals, and ran across this slightly amazing sauce from the New York restaurant Momofuku. No, I’ve never been there and nor had I even heard of it. But the sauce sounded good, and lively, and since there seemed to be a lot of ginger in my juices, it was probably something I could consume on an all-plant diet.

So I made it. It’s a little jarring at first, because it’s less of a sauce and more of a condiment – if you’re expecting to pour something at the end, you’ll think you did something wrong. You didn’t. It’s mostly scallions with very little liquid. Let it sit for a bit after you make it – 15 or 20 minutes, or more, if you’ve got the time – to allow the flavors to meld. Resist the urge to put garlic in. It doesn’t need it.

Put the garlic away.

This sauce would be fantastic on any number of things – shrimp, noodles, whatever – but I sauteed about two cups of bok choy and cauliflower in oil, and then tossed the hot cooked veggies with about a tablespoon of the sauce. A little goes a long way, and it was so delicious I wanted more, more, more.

It was delicious enough to forget that I was on a diet.