Archive for April, 2010
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Day 47: Memories of Lemon Meringue Pie
Even though I am on Day 47 without candy or sweets of ANY KIND, I realize more and more my ambivalence about my addiction. Reminds me of a friend who’s in his third month off alcohol with the help of AA , but is not convinced that giving up drinking is for him.
Luckily, my vice is a bit more benign. Maybe I’ll change my tune but I don’t see myself ever becoming a candy-hater and virulent anti-sweets crusader.
So don’t be surprised when you see posts about sweet things here – because, like a boyfriend you had to dump because you know he wasn’t good for you – I still have a very soft spot in my heart for them. (I like all my ex-boyfriends and still keep in touch with all of them except one, Mr. Freeze.)
I guess it’s part of keeping candy and desserts in my life while not actually eating them.
Desserts hold such good memories, one of which was triggered today by reading my Berkeley, Calif. friend Michelle Locke’s delicious blog, Vinecdote, about food and wine.
Below is Michelle with 95-year-old Peter Mondavi at the Charles Krug winery run by his family in Napa Valley, Calif.
Today Michelle has a post about making lemon meringue pie from the lemons in her backyard.
My mother made the best lemon meringue pie in the world and just thinking of eating her pie fresh out of the oven makes me so happy.
Michelle’s a wine writer and photographer for the Associated Press, among other places, and knows her way around the Northern California vineyards. The two photos in this post were taken by her.
Often times, however, she doesn’t need to go any farther than her lemon tree-studded Berkeley backyard when it comes to whipping up something sweet.
From today’s Vinecdote:
When life gives you lemon trees you’re pretty much obligated to make lemon meringue pie. It’s like a sacred citrus trust.
First, of course, you have to care for, prune and harvest the trees. Which is reason No. 415 why Farmville.com is better than real life. On my virtual farm, I point and click to harvest. In real life, I have to get out into the chilly spring air with various sharp implements and hack away at gnarled branches while bits of nature fall down my shirt and wedge themselves into uncomfortable places. Other yards in my neighborhood boast beautiful, round trees aglow with little balls of orange and yellow. My trees are, well, let’s say wildly organic. I did finally prune the lemon tree after realizing it was headed for a power line. That didn’t seem right. My Meyer lemon tree shrub is equally rambling and I fully intend to do something about that.
But not today.
Hazards of husbandry notwithstanding, you do eventually net a clutch of lemons, which leads to Step 2: mixing them with enough sugar and starch to actually taste good.
Continue reading Vinecdote’s great lemon meringue pie recipe here and see below finished product:
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Day 47: I’m Making Andi Want Sweets!
My friend Andrea Ipaktchi knows from temptation as she’s lived in Paris for more than 20 years where there is every great foodstuff and sweetstuff on the planet.
She’s normally not a sweethead but told me yesterday that because of this blog, she’s thinking about candy even more and sometimes having some. Oops.
Andi is also my favorite illustrator – or illustratrice as she calls herself professionally.
Her “sketchblog” is called April in Paris. Her designs are pretty, whimsical, funny and wise – just like her.
Andi is the classic American in Paris. She’s not one to get too impressed and/or intimidated by the French – which is where we bond.
One of her specialties is family portraits – to hang or even just for a Christmas card. You don’t even have to go to Paris. She can draw off a photograph.
But I like her drawings of French pastries best. Click below to enlarge and enjoy!
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Day 46: Sienna, the South of France Assassin
Sienna is a majestic French cat who lives with his human just down the street from me.
He reminds me that everyone has a favorite food – and it’s not always a white chocolate rabbit.
I’ve been known to tear into a chocolate covered Gummi bear – and even bite Santa Claus’ head off.
But whenever Sienna’s favorite food, French mice, show up in the hallways of his 400-year old crib, this butterscotch-colored predator shows us all how it’s done.
P.S. I do my best to stay on Sienna’s good side. He’s never tasted bacon and my plan is for things to stay that way.
Ta,
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Day 46: Loving Vladimir – Not the Impaler!
Those ahead of the curve know that nobody uses American or central European techies to help with their blogs and websites anymore. The truly cool outsource to geniuses in eastern Europe and I am no exception.
A friend of mine has a whole fleet of super-brains in Hungary.
I prefer Belgrade.
I stumbled across the stupendous Vladimir Prelovac, high WordPress Wizard and SEO superstar when searching for new plug-ins for this blog.
I also needed to fix/improve this blog’s comments section since many people told me they couldn’t figure out how to make comments when I switched blog themes a few weeks ago.
I can easily spend several hours tearing my hair out while trying to make new plug-ins work or figure out how to embed video in a certain way.
Vladimir fixed my comments section in about 30 seconds.
Of course, it was like asking Steve Jobs if he had a few seconds to help me create a new playlist in my iTunes folder.
Vladimir usually takes on bigger jobs but great to know that people like him exist out there for people like me.
His motto?
“I would love to change the world, I just don’t have the source code yet.”
Incredible! That’s my secret slogan too!
Ta,
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Day 45: The French Dentist: Is it Safe?
Today began poorly, with my first-ever visit to a French dentist. It ended on an equally dreary note, when I had to overnight my tax returns to the U.S. in time for the Thursday deadline
A day when I came thisclose to buying my favorite Haribo Polka candies at the Maxi Bazar near the train station where they were also selling half-priced Easter candy, the very sight of which made me feel faint.
But I digress. Back to this morning. I do everything here in French and I have for years -- except go to a French dentist. I got the name of one of the best and asked myself: How bad could it be?
Well, the French dentist was shorter than Laurence Olivier. In fact, I think he came up to my shoulders.
He started off nice and friendly, telling me he’d studied in “Indiana, dans le pays profonde.”
So far, so good. I was ushered into his blinding white office/drilling headquarters. One side of the giant, open room was an office with desk and chairs. The other was taken up by a forbidding looking, white leather dental chair where the victim/hostage sits.
Which is how I felt when I lowered myself into it. But it was still going well enough; the dentist was beaming and asking if he could practice his English. Fine by me. I told him that my last dentist had taken X-rays that showed a cavity on my right side but that was two years ago.
His face darkened slightly and he picked up a terrifying-looking instrument.
“We don’t know if you have a cavity,” he said, sternly. “Sometimes, they just tell you that.”
“They do?” I said, having somehow missed the dentist-as-con-man in many decades of faithfully visiting dentists.
I asked if he was going to take X-rays.
“Maybe,” he said, picking at my teeth which had just been cleaned in New York in January. “Oh, you have so much plaque. I won’t be able to do anything without cleaning first.”
“I do?” I said, having only heard compliments from dental hygienists about my plaque-free teeth since I floss every night.
The dentist then got up abruptly and swung a small, cylinder-like object toward me from behind the chair and stuck it up against the right side of my face.
“Are you taking an X-ray?” I asked, wondering where the anti-radiation apron was.
The dentist looked scornful. “We don’t use those for just one X-ray like this.”
“So you’re just taking one X-ray?” I said, very confused.
It appeared so. But there was a glitch with the X-ray machine I didn’t understand; meanwhile his assistants kept coming and going out of the room and the dentist kept taking phone calls.
The X-ray image came up on a video console near me and he said that yes, he could see a cavity on my right side, just as my other dentist had said.
“But it hasn’t been there for two years, it’s been there for four years,” he said. I didn’t ask how he could possibly know that.
He sat back down near his tray of sinister instruments.
“We’re going to clean first,” he said, picking at my teeth. Then he stopped what he was doing and said I would need anesthesia but the French word for anesthesia sounded like “incision” to me.
“An incision?” I said.
Lying New York dentists, one-eyed X-ray machines, filthy plaque-covered teeth? OK, but an incision?
“Non, anesthésie!” he crowed.
“Oh,” I said, slightly relieved. ”Comme Novocain.”
“Non!” he said. “Not Novocain. We use something better.”
Then he pried open my mouth again.
“I will start on the cavity,” he said.
“But I thought you said you had to clean the teeth first,” I said.
“Non, I think I will do the cavity,” he said.
At that point I said non, as I do so often in France.
“Il faut que je réfléchisse un peu,” I said. The dentist nodded.
Apparently, getting all the way to the dental chair and then deciding against getting drilled in favor of some quiet reflection on your cavity at home is normale.
He cleaned my teeth and laughed merrily when he hit a sensitive back molar and I rose out of my seat.
Filling a cavity costs about $25 in France. The last cavity I had filled in New York cost $950.
Looking back, it now seems worth every penny.
I’ll keep swimming for my supper so I can afford it.
Ta,
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Day 44: Another Relapse… In My Dreams
There’s nothing worse than describing one’s dream I know. So before your eyeballs glaze over like doughnuts, let me assure you’ll I’ll be quick.
Bref, as the French say, my dream of relapsing and having sweets – a faux-lapse – involved ice cream and the actor Josh Holloway from “Lost” who plays Sawyer.
Holloway is hot and has a great body but with his weird, Abominable Snowman swagger and Acting 101 repertoire of fierce and angry looks – he never quite closes the deal for me.
Last night in my dream he had a son and wasn’t overacting. Much more than that I cannot say, this is a family blog. (Translation: I can’t remember.)
There was also a tray of ice-cream cupcakes that was on a conveyor belt and almost slipped off it. I caught the tray in time -and started licking the ice cream which, dream-style, had turned into regular ice cream cones.
I never dream about regular food, even the stuff I love (Mexican! Thai!) nor do I dream about alcohol. Then again I don’t really like the taste of alcohol, even wine.
This is my second dream faux-lapse . Each time I am horrified and immediately think I’ll have to come clean on the blog.
Because of this blog, I can’t even enjoy it. And I like ice cream.
Poor me.
Ta,
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Day 43: In Memory of Erin/Don’t Get in the Car
My blog about quitting candy is about fear in a way. Fear that I have just this one life and I’m capable of not taking full advantage of it.
(OMG. Yes, it’s…Earnest and Serious Sunday!)
Fear that if I don’t rein myself in on at least one self-destructive habit – eating candy – more will take over. Fear that every day I can sabotage myself in big and little ways.
Self-sabotage is a scary subject. My friend Barbara and I talk about the idea of “not getting in the car.” The idea comes from the 12-step fellowship rooms. Meaning “don’t get in the car” driven by someone drunk or impaired because you might be the one who ends up getting hurt – or worse.
It’s also meant in a larger sense. Like, don’t get involved with, or say yes to, something that’s not going to be good for you.
But sometimes if you grow up getting in the car when you don’t know any better, the car keeps calling to you even when you should know better.
Which brings me to my friend Erin, who not long ago had it all – looks, personality, money, adoring husband, gorgeous house, two beautiful Dalmatians – who died in January 2010.
When she burned to death in a fire, Erin, 44, was a divorced amputee living at home with her mother.
How could someone fall so far so fast?
This sounds mean and is not meant to be. But I think Erin brought her end on herself, probably unconsciously, and that’s scary.
It was as if she felt she didn’t deserve the great life she had and decided to wreck it. Literally. The below graphic is from the local CBS news station about her death.
I’m not using Erin’s last name because I don’t know all the facts leading to her death. We lost touch a few years ago and only reconnected on Facebook a few months before her death.
What follows is only my interpretation of events. Erin’s not here to explain herself. But her death shocked me and she haunts me. I miss her not being on the planet. She was one of the different, magic people.
When I met Erin shortly after 9-11 on an island off Brazil where my friend Mike runs a yoga, hiking and kayaking adventure week called Body Soul Adventures, she was a star. We bonded by trying to beat everyone in the mountain and kayaking races.
She was very pretty – a dead ringer for Sandra Bullock from some angles. She was charismatic. She had a high, sweet, excitable voice. She was fun and mischievous, somebody who made you feel life was an adventure.
She could be very loving and generous, routinely sending her friends around the country incredible care packages with candies they loved and cute clothing picked out just for them. She could sometimes be difficult. She’d push you to the point where you’d want to yell at her. One time I did.
Erin had amazing style. She was one of those people who always looked as if she had just walked out of a fashion magazine.
In conversations in Brazil, she described growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in California. Her father left when Erin was young and Erin hardly ever saw him.
Once, she said, when she was about 11, he showed up high on mushrooms and took her out driving in his car. Then he disappeared again.
Her mother was immature and sometimes neglectful, she said. Her mother used to keep her out of school whenever she felt like it and then take Erin for a lunch at Taco Bell.
But Erin was a survivor. “There was always a teacher who’d take me under her wing,” she said.
She grew up and went to a local college where she met her future husband, the scion of a wealthy, Social Register family, the kind you see in magazine and newspaper pictures of people at charity balls.
Erin and Peter (not his real name) got married and had an amazing life. Peter’s family seemed to be everything that Erin’s wasn’t. Erin said she loved Peter’s father, a wealthy businessman, as if he were her own.
Erin and Peter lived in an old, enormous house that Erin decorated and often filled with white roses. She and Peter had this huge bedroom with a fireplace, the ultimate cool boudoir. The Dalmatians slept there, too. “I’m obsessed with them,” Erin would say.
They threw popular parties. Her Halloween throw-downs were legendary. Erin loved candy like me. Big glass jars packed to the brim with candy corn and orange candy pumpkins dotted the rooms during her Halloween parties.
Below is Erin (on the right) with me and Mike Mitchell, who runs Body Soul Adventures in Brazil.
Erin got up every morning and went on a run with her dogs. She opened a yoga studio. She was a striver, all about self-improvement – at least for a time. When I visited her, I saw a word document on her computer listing her goals for the year.
But when I met her in Brazil, she had party girl tendencies that seemed to be intensifying. She kept a photo of her husband by her bed in her bungalow and it was clear she loved him very much – but made a fool of herself chasing a guy who was on the week with us.
After our abstemious week – exercising about 10 hours a day and eating only pure, organic food – about six of us hit Rio for a few days. We ended up in the bars on Copacabana Beach and began drinking lethal Caipirinha cocktails.
Erin got so drunk once that I had to help her out of the bathroom, where I’d found her with her with her jeans around her ankles.
When I visited her in California, I met her husband. Peter was rich and good-looking but not a player. He was a down-to-earth homebody who liked being at home with Erin and the dogs – and wanted kids.
Unfortunately, Erin was bored staying at home and didn’t want kids. She started having casual affairs, doing a lot of Ecstasy and flirting in front of Peter. “That guy’s in a lot of pain,” said our friend Gary at the time.
During one Thanksgiving I spent with Erin, everything seemed so wonderful. Peter’s family was nice and fun; Erin’s mother and sister were there also and everyone got along. The dining room table was decorated to perfection.
But before the meal was served, I saw Erin walking around the table, tearing up pieces of bread and dropping them on the plates – as if to mess everything up. It was strange and sort of disturbing.
By the time I moved to France in 2005, Erin and I had lost touch. The last time I saw her was at a party at my place in New York after which she went home with a guy she met at the party –and slept with him.
Erin and I reconnected on Facebook in 2009 but she never responded to my messages. I emailed her ex sister-in-law, Jill, who told me that she and Peter had gotten divorced. Jill then told me about the car accident.
Erin had hooked up with a “bad, bad boyfriend” after her divorce, she said, and had been a passenger in his car when they crashed.
Jill, for whatever reason, didn’t mention that Erin lost her leg in the car accident.
I didn’t find that out until I read the brief news accounts of her death. So even though I knew Erin wasn’t doing well, I was alarmed when I saw a post she wrote on her Facebook page last August in response to a message from another friend.
I’ve cut and pasted the post below:
Can’t – too down and depressed – just can’t deal with life anymore. I never have reason to smile anymore – in a few short words – everything I used to pride myself upon, is now sadly gone. I have grown to become lonely, painful and utterly bitter. I can’t feel happiness about anything and pathetically am beginning to feel uncomfortable around others who are/have what I once was. I don’t feel/ gain any hope from others – but rather bitterly find myself resenting others’ happiness, success with their lives and families. PLEASE UNDERSTAND…
August 29, 2009 at 4:06am
I was worried because she sounded suicidal. I emailed her but got no response. I emailed Jill who said that Erin had injuries from the car accident and was very depressed about them but also wouldn’t accept anyone’s help.
In January, I happened to click on Erin’s Facebook page. Her status update concerned the date and time of her memorial service.
I searched online for news accounts of her death – and was shocked to read her described as a “disabled woman” and an “amputee.”
The newspaper and TV reports varied as to what happened.
One said she died of smoke inhalation while trapped in her bathroom trying to extinguish some burning objects in the toilet.
Another account said that she died from burns covering 70 percent of her body. Someone who knows her told me she had left her bedroom fireplace unattended and then fell asleep.
The articles said her mother was leaning out of an upstairs window when firefighters arrived, yelling that her daughter was also inside.
Erin’s mother and cat were rescued and survived.
Later I learned that not long before she died, Erin had to put one of her beloved Dalmatians, Winnie, down and her alimony payments from Peter were about to end.
PLEASE UNDERSTAND…
I do.
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Day 42: Are YOU a Sugar Addict? Find Out Here!
iVillage has a great little quiz you can take in case you’re wondering if you’re a hopeless sweetfreak like myself.
Here’s an excerpt from the quiz which starts like this:
Are you a sugar addict? Have you ever wondered why you love sweet foods so much? Does chocolate run your life more than you want to admit? Do you joke about being a “sweet freak?” Does it ever scare you to feel so compulsive about wanting sugar?
Find out if sugar is your drug — and whether or not it’s time to kick the habit — by completing the following quiz:
- Have you ever said, “Starting Monday, no chocolate!”
True
False
- Have you ever realized that you used to get one Butterfinger candy bar, but now you buy three at a time?
True
False
The quiz has 16 questions altogether:Take the whole test here!
And if you’re wondering how I did on the quiz…I passed with flying colors!Ta,
- Have you ever said, “Starting Monday, no chocolate!”
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Day 42: SugarShock.Com Interviews Me About Quitting Candy
The new millennium’s queen of No Sugar, Connie Bennett, runs an empire over at SugarShock.com all aimed at helping people kick sweet stuff that is bad for you. Connie is celebrating her 12th year off ALL sugar (yikes!) this month.
She recently interviewed me for her SugarShock.com blog after I had a month off candy which I excerpt a bit below:
Connie: Dana, what made you decide to quit candy and to announce publicly, on a blog?
Dana: The idea to stop eating candy and blog about it came to me like a bolt out of the blue the night of my birthday on February 27. It’s almost as if a power greater than me to stay on the straight and narrow was to go public with this.
I’ve tried to quit candies and sweets so many times before – always beginning with the greatest of intentions – and then I’d last anywhere from 4 days to 2 weeks, but I’d always find some reason to go back to it. I would then lose my motivation, and that’d be the end of it. And it set up the cycle of being discouraged that I couldn’t get the monkey off my back.
Connie: Well, you certainly came up with a clever way of holding yourself “accountable,” to use life-coaching parlance.
Dana: Well, what motivates me more than anything is the idea of a challenge, and the blog is a public challenge to myself. The blog is like my conscience. People could tell me all day long how bad candy is for me, what emotional effects it has on me and what [nutrient-poor] ingredients are in it, but what gives me more motivation is having to be held accountable to somebody or something — in this case, the blog.
Unwittingly, I did the perfect thing for my personality, which is to issue a public challenge to myself. Although I know that if I fall off the wagon tomorrow and close my blog, I’m sure the world would go on, but in my mind, I would have failed with this personal challenge. The blog is really me saying to the public and to myself — this is what I’m going to do — please support me.
Connie: Has your blog led to any unexpected reactions?
Dana: Yes. What’s been really surprising is the number of people, who have reacted positively to the blog and who wrote to say that they were inspired and that they’ve [been helped by] things they’ve learned on the blog. I’m really surprised that people like it.
Connie: I’m not surprised. Dana, again, let me congratulate you for surviving a month without candies. That’s a major accomplishment. How were you able to pull it off?
Dana: Support has helped me keep going — which is the name of the game if you’re trying to give up any kind of addiction.
Connie: Now that you’ve gone a month being candy-free, how have things changed for you?
Dana: Lots of things have changed. First off, I’ve been helped by lots of people [whom I’ve connected with] because of the blog, including you. I’ve received a lot of support that I didn’t expect to get. It’s a completely different experience [to quit sugar while writing a blog] than to kick sweets by yourself. If you’re an alcoholic, you can go to AA every night and be with people who have your issues all the time, and it’s taken seriously. But if you say, “I wish I could have some fudge,” [many] people who don’t understand look at you [with confusion].
Connie: How else do you feel differently now that you’re not eating sweets?
Dana: I feel lighter – and not just weight-wise – although I’ve lost 5 pounds so far. I feel happier. And I feel like people are easier to get along with. I feel like I’m starting to conquer my candy addiction – and that makes me feel lighter.
Read the entire interview here and one question of my own:
Is my head looking a bit swollen with all this attention?
Hope so!
Ta.
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Day 41: Why I Love Patricia Heaton on “The Middle”
What do you do to relieve work-related stress when you live in France?
Review the subjunctive?
Re-read “Remembrance of Things Past,” in French of course?
Tackle Céline’s Journey to the End of Night, in French of course?
No!
I download episodes of my new favorite TV show, “The Middle,” starring Patricia Heaton from “Everybody Loves Raymond.”
I wouldn’t even know it existed except my Francophile friend Rick – Reeeeekkk – in San Francisco recommended it. I think it’s still the first season.
Anyway, Patricia Heaton rocks it hard as a frazzled mom of three living in flyover country.
And how thrilled was I when during a recent episode about her vowing to stop yelling at her kids, the guy who plays her husband, Neil Flynn, said scornfully:
“”I think it’s gonna be like when you quit sugar. One day later I find you on the bathroom floor sucking frosting out of the tube.”
Sure enough, we see a quick shot of Heaton surreptitiously sucking down some serious-looking frosting when no one is looking.
How well we understand – and sympathize – with our fictional friends.
Where’s MY frosting?
Ta,
About
Recent Posts
- Day 365: Tell the Women of Congo You Love Them!
- Day 364: What If the World Did End in 2012?
- Day 363: Twilight of the Dictators, Twilight of No Candy
- Day 353: Howl of a Candy Addict
- Day 351: Self-Deprivation Sucks
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