Rosendale Ramblings By Sari Botton

Moving to Rosendale has had many positive effects on me. The one I’m noticing right now: it has adjusted my previously seriously warped sense of body image, for myself and other women. Now, on the occasions that I venture into the city, everyone looks anorexic to me. Well, not everyone, but many women.

We found ourselves in Manhattan on Sunday after one of Brian’s clients had an I.T. situation. It seemed like something he could fix quickly, so I thought I’d go along for the ride and see if we could do something there afterward. Now that we are bridge and tunnel, we can do touristy things! Things we almost never did when we lived there, like go to exhibits at the Met.

Before we ventured up to the Picasso show, we stopped at Slice, a sort of artisanal pizza place that has gluten-free varieties. The pizza was great. It had a chewier crust than I’ve found in most other gluten-free pizzas. They use a combination of rice flower, potato and corn starches, and of course that g.f. wonder ingredient, xanthum gum, whatever that is, plus other things I’m not remembering now.

Toward the end of our lunch, two women who seemed to be in their twenties walked in. They looked like stick figures. After scrutinizing the menu for five minutes and then asking a bunch of questions of the guy behind the counter, one turned to the other and said, “Do you want to eat?”

“No, but I’ll watch you eat,” said the other after thinking for a second.

“No, I don’t need to eat now,” the first one responded. “We can come here another time.”

It was like an outtake from Henry Jaglom’s “Eating.”