EATING MAKES ME HAPPY

I really can't eat a dessert a day and not gain weight -- not possible -- and unfortunate! In the bakery, we make so many delicious pastries and pies and creams and parfaits with berries and tarts with berries and kiwis and mangoes and meringues with hazelnuts and custards with champagne and cobblers with bright red fruit. AND we layer cakes with berries and walnuts and ganache and make cheesecakes with ginger and praline and sorbets from cantaloupe and watermelon and honeydew with Calvados or vodka or cherry sorbet with Kirchwasser. We also make huge pans of tiramisu with lots of booze and macadamia or pine nut tarts with marzipan and caramel oh my it goes on and on . . . pistachio phillo this or banana apricot that and pecan-chocolate this and . . . oh my I have to stop.

Yesterday my boss, Michelle, made cannoli -- whew -- guess how many I ate before she stopped me -- five -- whew! The incredible thing about her cannoli is how light they seem -- it's the ricotta. Still, after five cannoli I did not need to eat anything else for the rest of the day .

Nothing like weight gain to remember the pains of the teenager inside. I don't know about you but as soon as I turned fifteen -- the time I left home -- I gained like 30 pounds. It was crazy. I went from being a stick to having very round buns.

Of course being out of the house I was free -- free! -- to eat whatever I wanted. Oreos -- oh boy do I love Oreos. French fries -- oh boy do I love french fries!

I remember a month or so before leaving, I came home with a bag of fries and sat in the kitchen with my salty greasy treat and my mom comes in. "Your hips are spreading from those fries" and pokes her sharp finger into my side. Was that all she said? It doesn't seem all that bad, but wow -- those fries stopped tasting very good. For a little while.

Not that food is my only vice -- alas no. But there are times when it feels so right to just eat and eat.


(Drawing credit: "Obesity" by Rachel Perrine)