Well, see, after the failure of the latest "procedure" on my neck to provide any significant improvement, I fell into one of my sloughs of despond and sat around the house uselessly for pretty much the entire month of March, my mood not improved by record-breaking levels of rainfall both in number of rainy days as well as total quantity.

But then I had a routine appointment with my wonderful internist, and she cheered me up as usual, my cheer augmented by a return to the warm embrace of bupropion. So I went back to the gym to try to get into a little bit better shape before my trip, most particularly to get some muscles together so I'll be able to keep up with Rina while we're bicycling all over Amsterdam gathering food for the continual round of dinners we're planning.

At the gym the other day, I had a wonderful little aha! moment. There's this new kid at the front desk some mornings, as good-looking as usual, but particularly well defined. And since he was friendly I realized that I could go ahead and lay some of my jelly or something on him like I do nice people in straight places, so I asked him if he liked chutney. He got this worried look on his face and apologetically allowed as how he tried it once but it was just a little too, ummm, different. Then I told him I also made jams and jellies. Ummmm, grape was about as far as he got, he admitted.

I stood there in exasperation at first, and then it hit me. No wonder his body fat percentage is a minus point oh two percent. No wonder his very face is defined: He doesn't like anything! Does he have any inkling of how lucky he is? If nothing tasted good, I'd still have abs!

I slunk home (if one can slink on a Segway), profoundly frustrated and feeling like the serpent upon discovering that Eve dislikes apples. But then it struck me that the chocolate sauce might do the trick, and so I stuck a jar in my pack.

At the gym two mornings later I'm telling him how much fun I got out of my aha! experience over the reason behind his definition, and he laughs and volunteers that well, he does like chocolate.

I whip the jar out as he's finishing his sentence. This morning he tells me the jar didn't last the night. He's my boy...well, in a culinary sense. I don't want him; I just want to contribute to his delinquency.

And what does it say about me that this person who I keep referring to as a "kid" and a "boy" is at least thirty. Sigh.

Meanwhile, the packing begins. This year I'm taking a variety of chiles and mole ingredients and stone-ground cornmeal again so I can make the Chile con Carne and cornbread as well as the Mole Poblano that went over well last year, but so that I'll have the critical New World ingredients to make Chile Verde, which I'm expecting to be this year's hit, I'm also taking tomatillos, some fresh and others that a couple of days before my departure I'll shuck and pureé with fresh pasilla chiles, boil briefly, and jug in the expectation that they'll keep in my Amsterdam refrigerator for a couple of weeks for a second dinner.

And oh, already packed is a bottle of dark agave nectar and a variety of the finest New World chocolates. I remember when I was young the really good chocolate all came from Europe. When I arrived in Germany in 1964 and discovered the Swiss and German chocolate bars in the PX and "on the economy," I thought I was in heaven. Well, we've caught up with them, and I've been taking to Amsterdam Joseph Schmidt and Scharffen Berger chocolates (both of whom have been recently bought out by Hershey, so I despair over how long quality will remain their primary criterion).

I'm taking some of both again this year, as well as some of Michael Recchiuti's confections. I knew Michael five or six years ago when he was brand new at it and peddling his initial creations from behind a card table in the Justin Herman Plaza. Now, of course, he's so famous he's no longer behind counters, and I'm sure he wouldn't even remember me. Boy, have his confections ever caught on. Now he has a store in the Ferry Building, and his stuff is sold at select gourmet locations all over the Bay Area as well as in Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and Santa Fe. Sorry about that, Texas.

This year I'm also taking El Rey chocolate bars, just pure, single-bean Venezuelan chocolates in a range of strengths. Yow! This is highest quality chocolate that I know where to buy, and if we buy their oil, we can damn sure buy their chocolate.

Today's pic, the back window (on Noe Street) of the Market Street Gold's Gym. See, some of them bodybuilders get so muscled up they have to be lowered to the street with a winch.