It’s no fun doing the low-carb thing at the best of times. Right now, it’s downright brutal.
Granted, there were celery sticks on the buffet table at my staff Christmas potluck a few days ago. There were carrots. There was cauliflower. There were slices of cucumber.
Whoop-de-doo.
Most of my colleagues opted to contribute other, well, fancier things. Candy cane bonbons. Confetti ice-box cookies. Toffee merinque drops. Gingerbread people.
Someone brought saffron rice. Someone else, garlic mashed potatoes. There were poppy seed egg noodles and there was cheddar chive corn bread.
There were many other wonderful things — all of them on the no-go list.
I’m trying to be good, but it’s tough.
At this time of year, the Christmas cooks seem to deliberately migrate to recipes that have a ga-zillion carbs and calories. Bypass the sugar? Heck, why not forgo Christmas altogether?
The husband, I might say, finds the season particularly challenging, given that he’s perpetually determined to watch his weight.
A couple of weeks ago, an old pal knocked on the door and presented him with a cookie tin full of goodies. Among them: four butter tarts.
The husband has what you might call an affinity for butter tarts. And butter tarts have what you might call more than a handful of carbs.
We put the tin in the freezer, deciding the contents would stay there ‘til Christmas.
When I returned from work the next day, the husband had a confession to make.
“I did something bad today,” he informed me. “I ate the butter tarts.”
“You ate a butter tart?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I ate four butter tarts.”
Yep, the husband’s watching his weight, all right.
As I say, it’s tough, and not much fun at all. I have no problem bypassing stuffing in July, primarily because I don’t make stuffing in July. Just doesn’t go with ribs.
But Christmas dinner without stuffing — and without mashed potatoes, marshmallow-topped yams and pumpkin pie and whipped cream — is what you call, well, turkey.
To heck with it. I plan to eat the full-on feast, and even drink a glass of eggnog. Should we come into more butter tarts, I’m going to scarf those down too, along with the shortbread, the cinnamon rolls, the fruit cake, the gingerbread and the thumbprint cookies.
Carrots do not a Christmas make. I’ll get back to them in January.
