Proud.
So um yeah, I won this award recently (click on it to enlarge), and it’s one I unabashedly admit I fully deserve. I’d like to thank all the little people for making me look so much bigger.
I guess since this is technically a food blog I should at some point address the first-world shift in priority that comes with the new year; the clamouring to high-dive from marathon consumption of fat calories directly into ultra-lean and healthy everything all the time – an often all-or-nothing approach that bans entire food groups and tosses perfectly good chocolate in the garbage in hot pursuit of A BRAND NEW YOU! (One thing I know: if you can’t resist having chocolate around you won’t be successful in the long term – this is a caramel-filled, chocolate-covered world. Another thing I know: you have to be happy with the regular old you first and foremost. Think of a structurally unsound house to which hasty aesthetic improvements have been made – not one you really want to invest and live in, right? I think they may have done a reality show about that.)
At the risk of climbing onto an already overflowing bandwagon which has been blown up to Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade proportions, it seems the combination of limited mobility (due to my previously damaged posterior – yes my bum still hurts) and a nasty cream habit is pushing me once again to reevaluate my grazing pattern in an attempt to make myself a little less bovine.
The 2L tub of MOCHA FUDGE ICE CREAM WITH CHOCOLATE COVERED ALMONDS that my sister bought on a whim and stashed in my freezer because she doesn’t have one yet did not help one bit. And because my freezer has also reached maximum capacity, the overflow is in my barbecue – an advantage to living in a part of Canada where winters dip to -20 and below. (The disadvantage being when a chinook blows in and you suddenly have to use up everything that thawed while sitting out on the back deck.) Also, the neighbours start thinking of me as the crazy lady with the bad hair (the thought of sitting in a stylist’s chair for an hour still makes me cringe – think I could bring in an inflatable swimming tube with Nemos on it?) and flannel pants who comes out onto her back patio about every five minutes with a spoon and dips into something beige stashed in her barbecue.
Welcome to my pity party; if you’re still here, please pull up a chair. I haven’t complained yet about not getting enough sleep – not for any legitimate reason, like breastfeeding twins or waking up early to perform brain surgery or run my 10k – but the dark seems to turn up the panic level in me, and I lie awake worrying about everything from W and everything bad that could possibly happen to him (and is he going to be an only child after all and what will I do when he’s too big to crawl into bed with me anymore and then he grows up and moves away), to knocking on the door of 40 (HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?) to financial security and what the hell I’ve done with my life anyway, and on top of it all being just too rotund for my own comfort. I have no illusions that I don’t fully deserve this; I know I do. I eat too well and too much, and in some ways think I’ve used food as a sort of buffer – a slow-release full-body airbag – from what I’m not sure. Or maybe I do. I used to think fear of success was the most ridiculous concept I had ever heard of, like fear of love or money or ice cream, like the grown-up babysitter I had as a kid who said candy was too sweet (she loved naps too – weirdo), but if I pulled a chair up to Lucy’s Psychiatric Help stand and dropped 5ยข into the jar she’d likely tell me I have a bad case of it. I’d like to trade for arachnophobia, please.
So last night a shiny new worry showed up at my party: the sudden realization that I have to address a sold-out Jack Singer Concert Hall in less than a week – with Anthony Bourdain among the thousands watching and listening – and nothing fits without making me look and feel like I just came out of the Spolumbo’s display case. If you don’t hear from me over the next week it’s because I’m curled up under my bed, breathing into a paper bag. (Epcor organizers: don’t panic. I’ll be there. Probably.)
Right – dinner. I haven’t been keeping you up to date on the menus as of late; Monday night was steak, requested by E to celebrate her tier 1 U-12 soccer team’s gold medal win over the weekend (!) and Ben’s first day at a brand-new school. We grilled them and threw baked potatoes into the oven and made Ichiban salad. For dessert the vote was for Black Forest cake; W and I baked a chocolate cake, found a can of cherry pie filling in my sister’s cupboard to spread between layers, and finally got rid of the last of the whipping cream (good riddance! I miss you) to glob on top. I took a picture but it was out of focus – you’ll have to use your imagination.
And tonight-well there was so much left over we’ll be eating it tomorrow night too; I’ll fill you in then.
One Year Ago: Chicken & Black Bean Quesadillas and Roasted Broccoli with Parmesan
January 06 2010 | leftovers | 41 Comments »
