As was so often and as meaningfully remarked dimissively by my late and much esteemed friend Louis de la Chesnaye Audette QC OC, “The best sauce for any meal is an appetite!” It is a blunt but distinct adage requiring an incontestable gut reaction. I won’t therefore attempt to dignify today’s hankering as anything more artistic than primordial need.

By way of partial explanation, however, this morning’s ravenousness was commenced last evening by preparatory starvation in anticipation of an especially acute medical exploration at a clinic in the city. And because the early morning examination prolonged our ritual morning eating habits, it was approaching noon before we first indulged ourselves in something to eat.

As luck would have it, upon disembarking from the clinic on Merivale Road, we were within the immediate scope of Sea King Seafood Restaurant celebrated for Dim Sum.

In the tenth century, when the city of Canton (Guangzhou) began to experience an increase in commercial travel, many frequented tea houses for small-portion meals with tea called “yum cha” (brunch). “Yum cha” includes two related concepts. The first is “jat zung loeng gin” which translates literally as “one cup, two pieces”. This refers to the custom of serving tea house customers two delicately made food items, savoury or sweet, to complement their tea.

The initial obstacle to fulfillment of our objective was the intelligence of the restaurateur that, because the on-line banking system was inactive (due to some reported – though subsisting – mechanical malfunction), payment could only be accepted by cash. We then examined whatever cavities at hand to determine the limit of our cash. We were told we had sufficient to avoid having to cross the busy intersection to the nearest banking machine  By the time we were seated, the owner disclosed that the malfunction had been corrected.

Of more proximate materiality was the ensuing dialogue surrounding what to order. Because we so infrequently enjoy Dim Sum we cannot pretend to be familiar with the exotic menu descriptions.  Accordingly, rather than debate and frustrate, we asked the server to order whatever she considered advisable. When she dutifully enquired whether we prefer this or that, we again turned the table (so to speak) by asking what she recommended. She acknowledged the shift and then proceeded to complete an agenda for what followed, adding (unnecessarily I thought) that if we were still hungry we could order more.

We were not disappointed with our server’s choices. Indeed it is safe to say we were sated.

Nonetheless – having coincidentally, upon disengaging from this primary venue, spied another emporium entitled Baklawa King (dessert shop), I shamefully reunited my recently appeased appetite with yet another of my passing favourites. Lately my involvement with sweets has become concerning. I am renowned for my admiration of carrot cake from Antrim Truck Stop in Arnprior. It is nonetheless an addiction which I have lately suppressed – though apparently without noticeable success because I seem merely to have replaced one indulgence with another.

I am gratified to surmise that I am relieved of further dalliance on this narrow imbalance.  It is the simple consequence of consumption – nothing intellectual or otherwise constructive. Plainly speaking, taste defeats anxiety. I have rounded the corner of today’s appetency with a moderate and cleansing bowl of organic apple sauce and sour cream. I have thus constituted myself favourably to greet the morrow with renewed gusto and determination. It helps no doubt that I collapsed on the duvet for two hours. The connection between sugar and sleep deprivation is indisputable.