Monday, 1/4

 I am never going to eat again.

First of all, hope you had a great New Year's weekend. So far—at least as of when I type this the morning of January 4th—2021 hasn't yet done anything to try to top the insanity of 2020 (assuming, of course, you ignore politics), so there's hope yet for the new year.

Not a lot, but at least there's some.

I spent part of New Year's Day doing what I seem to have been doing quite a bit the past few weeks, and that's cook, and then eat the cooking. I stepped on the scale the next day and noticed I've gained a pound & change the past month, so I really should stop that habit (cooking, that is, not stepping on the scale). However, if this is indeed the end for a bit, I'd like to think I went out in style.

Let me present to you New Year's Day Kaiserschmarnn, topped with home made cranberry sauce and Nutella--

I've written in here about making the Bavarian delicacy before; it's just basically a super-charged pancake that's torn up & covered in some kind of fruit topping. Usually, that fruit topping is applesauce, but since I had leftover fresh cranberries from Thanksgiving (which I had frozen) and leftover Nutella from one of the few kinds of Christmas cookies I made this year, I decided to throw them all together in one last final shot of food gluttony.

Kind of like the finale of a Fourth of July fireworks show, except without the big “booms”.

I have to admit the dish turned out quite well, especially in the way the tartness of the cranberries played off the gooey sweetness of the Nutella. But I now think I may have reached my limit (at least for now) of dishes that take hours to prepare and contain more calories in them than any human should ever consume in a single day. In fact, just yesterday I found myself craving not Greek food, not Indian food, not some insanely huge desert, but instead a simple turkey sandwich and a carrot.

No cranberries,, no Nutella, no bechamel sauce, no nothing.

I'm sure that, too, shall pass, and in a few weeks or months I'll start to get adventurous again. But for now, for (at least) the beginning of the year, it's back to normal. It's back to simple. It's back to healthy.

At least until my body says it's“okay”, and until I lose that extra pound and change.

(jim@wmqt.com)