Dieter Breaks Down and Eats a Blueberry Tart
Yes, it's true, my latest diet was ruined by a blueberry tart. But let me begin at the beginning of this sad tale.
I was a skinny kid who climbed trees and chased dogs and tagged after my older brothers and never could get enough to eat. I lived for potluck suppers at church where the church ladies brought things like angel food cake with seven-minute frosting and confetti and baked beans and ambrosia fruit salad. As a teenager, my weight varied between 110-115 pounds. My mother served the family a good meat-and-potatoes dinner at 6 pm every night. Then, if I didn't go out to Pete's Pizzeria and eat a lion's share of a large sausage pizza or sit in front of the TV polishing off a bag of potato chips and a bowl of sour cream French Onion dip, my brother and I would make Italian sausage subs with marinara sauce, onions, and green peppers late in the evening. The first summer I was married, my husband and I lived in Austria. People share tables in restaurants there and several natives overheard me order Bauernsmaus one night. Bauernsmaus is somewhat like our mixed grill only more impressive because of all the wonderful sausages the Austrians have. Nein, nein!, said my tablemates--I should not order that. It was too much for a young woman--I wouldn't be able to eat it all. But when the heaping plate of meat arrived, I dug in and polished it all off to their astonishment.
As a newlywed, I cooked classic dishes for my hubby and myself from my Betty Crocker and Joy of Cooking cookbooks and my weight crept up to 120. Then I had my first child, and, after ballooning up to 150 during my pregnancy despite my OB/GYN's admonitions, I leveled off at 125. So the dieting started--I was fat!
You name the diet--I've been on it. The vegetable soup diet; the Fat Flush Diet; the Sonoma Diet; the Pritikin Diet; the low carb diet, the 4-day Seneca Indian fast (only fruit the first day, only tea the second day; only vegetables the 3rd day; only vegetable broth the 4th day); the vinegar and honey diet; the fast-one-day-week diet, the 1300 calories/day diet, the Weight Watchers diet (2 rounds), the macrobiotic diet. During the Seneca Indian fast, I was prone to going to the grocery store and staring longingly at all the foods I was going to eat when the fast was over. And eat I do after the end of each fast, after I've successfully dieted through the draconion Phase 1 & Phase 2 of each diet and am well into the maintenance phase.
And so it was with the Sonoma Diet even though I thought it would be the one I could stick with for life. Yes, this is ironic--a woman who has never found a man she could stick with for life is still looking for a diet that she will be faithful to 'til death do us part. The Sonoma diet permits carbs from day one--they just have to be whole grain carbs. This was going to be a cinch. The first step of the Sonoma Diet, which I followed faithfully, is rid your kitchen of ALL white flour products and sugar. My youngest daughter was delighted to have the discarded sugar and white flour and boxes of white pasta to stock the apartment she had just moved into. And I happily stocked my kitchen with whole grain pasta, whole grain bread, whole grain pita bread, whole grain English muffins, whole grain hot dog buns, and whole grain flour. I even made a berry pie for a party with a whole wheat crust and Stevia instead of sugar in the filling.
But then my oldest daughter wanted a tart recipe for a neighborhood baking contest. I am a foodie--what can I say? I couldn't turn her down. After pouring through all my cookbooks and recipe clippings and finding two excellent blueberry tart recipes, I wanted to make a blueberry tart, too. Could I make it with whole wheat flour and Stevia? Why bother? Why waste all those beautiful fresh blueberries and that rich unsalted butter and those 8 egg yolks? But, I was working on Monday, July 3rd. I could make the real deal and take it to work and have one teensy, weensy slice and fob the rest of the caloric disaster off on the other unfortunates working that day. Except it didn't quite work that way. Very few people were at work. I only managed to fob off half of the tart. I put it on plates and took it from office-to-office. I sent out an e-mail announcing it's presence in the kitchen. But I still took home half of this custardy tart with the flaky, buttery, sugary, white flour crust. I doled it out to myself over several days but, still, I ate it and it was wonderful.
So another diet bites the dust. And what have I learned once again? Any diet that denies me whole categories of food is a set up for a downfall. The next time I want to make a blueberry tart or any other yummy thing with sugar and butter and white flour, I will do it. After all, the only love of my life right now is my 10-month-old granddaughter. When I am with her, I am just one fat, happy grandma covered in baby mush from head to toe.
I was a skinny kid who climbed trees and chased dogs and tagged after my older brothers and never could get enough to eat. I lived for potluck suppers at church where the church ladies brought things like angel food cake with seven-minute frosting and confetti and baked beans and ambrosia fruit salad. As a teenager, my weight varied between 110-115 pounds. My mother served the family a good meat-and-potatoes dinner at 6 pm every night. Then, if I didn't go out to Pete's Pizzeria and eat a lion's share of a large sausage pizza or sit in front of the TV polishing off a bag of potato chips and a bowl of sour cream French Onion dip, my brother and I would make Italian sausage subs with marinara sauce, onions, and green peppers late in the evening. The first summer I was married, my husband and I lived in Austria. People share tables in restaurants there and several natives overheard me order Bauernsmaus one night. Bauernsmaus is somewhat like our mixed grill only more impressive because of all the wonderful sausages the Austrians have. Nein, nein!, said my tablemates--I should not order that. It was too much for a young woman--I wouldn't be able to eat it all. But when the heaping plate of meat arrived, I dug in and polished it all off to their astonishment.
As a newlywed, I cooked classic dishes for my hubby and myself from my Betty Crocker and Joy of Cooking cookbooks and my weight crept up to 120. Then I had my first child, and, after ballooning up to 150 during my pregnancy despite my OB/GYN's admonitions, I leveled off at 125. So the dieting started--I was fat!
You name the diet--I've been on it. The vegetable soup diet; the Fat Flush Diet; the Sonoma Diet; the Pritikin Diet; the low carb diet, the 4-day Seneca Indian fast (only fruit the first day, only tea the second day; only vegetables the 3rd day; only vegetable broth the 4th day); the vinegar and honey diet; the fast-one-day-week diet, the 1300 calories/day diet, the Weight Watchers diet (2 rounds), the macrobiotic diet. During the Seneca Indian fast, I was prone to going to the grocery store and staring longingly at all the foods I was going to eat when the fast was over. And eat I do after the end of each fast, after I've successfully dieted through the draconion Phase 1 & Phase 2 of each diet and am well into the maintenance phase.
And so it was with the Sonoma Diet even though I thought it would be the one I could stick with for life. Yes, this is ironic--a woman who has never found a man she could stick with for life is still looking for a diet that she will be faithful to 'til death do us part. The Sonoma diet permits carbs from day one--they just have to be whole grain carbs. This was going to be a cinch. The first step of the Sonoma Diet, which I followed faithfully, is rid your kitchen of ALL white flour products and sugar. My youngest daughter was delighted to have the discarded sugar and white flour and boxes of white pasta to stock the apartment she had just moved into. And I happily stocked my kitchen with whole grain pasta, whole grain bread, whole grain pita bread, whole grain English muffins, whole grain hot dog buns, and whole grain flour. I even made a berry pie for a party with a whole wheat crust and Stevia instead of sugar in the filling.
But then my oldest daughter wanted a tart recipe for a neighborhood baking contest. I am a foodie--what can I say? I couldn't turn her down. After pouring through all my cookbooks and recipe clippings and finding two excellent blueberry tart recipes, I wanted to make a blueberry tart, too. Could I make it with whole wheat flour and Stevia? Why bother? Why waste all those beautiful fresh blueberries and that rich unsalted butter and those 8 egg yolks? But, I was working on Monday, July 3rd. I could make the real deal and take it to work and have one teensy, weensy slice and fob the rest of the caloric disaster off on the other unfortunates working that day. Except it didn't quite work that way. Very few people were at work. I only managed to fob off half of the tart. I put it on plates and took it from office-to-office. I sent out an e-mail announcing it's presence in the kitchen. But I still took home half of this custardy tart with the flaky, buttery, sugary, white flour crust. I doled it out to myself over several days but, still, I ate it and it was wonderful.
So another diet bites the dust. And what have I learned once again? Any diet that denies me whole categories of food is a set up for a downfall. The next time I want to make a blueberry tart or any other yummy thing with sugar and butter and white flour, I will do it. After all, the only love of my life right now is my 10-month-old granddaughter. When I am with her, I am just one fat, happy grandma covered in baby mush from head to toe.
posted by countrygirl at 2:49 PM
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