Site reader Elise, in the comments for my first sorbet post, asks: “How do you maintain your girlish figure with all of this delcious food?”
A lot of people ask me this. It’s the fourth most common question I’m asked, after “Why are you punching that muppet?”
The simple answer is: although I don’t watch what I eat, I often don’t eat what I watch.
That didn’t make any sense.
Let me try again.
The secret is that I often don’t finish my food. Portion control! That’s what I always say. Seriously, though, I pick and I nibble but I rarely will scrape clean my entire plate. What’s strange is that my brother feels that our parents made us finish our plates at the table, but I don’t remember this. In fact, I have a very distinct memory of me NOT finishing my food.
Picture it: Sicily, 1947. Well: Oceanside, 1986. I’m sitting on a gray carpet in front of the TV in the den at my little yellow plastic table–where I take most of my meals–and my mother brings me a plate of steak. I chew a few bites and get bored.
“Finish it,” says my mother, and she leaves the room.
Fast forward ten minutes: mother returns. The steak is gone.
Fast forward a week. Mother returns. She notices a funny smell. She lifts up the gray carpet and finds the steak, festering away.
Yes, it would seem, I have food ADD. The fact that I get bored quickly helps me maintain my girlish figure. That and a lot of vomiting.
I would very much like to see the list of questions you are asked most frequently. A top 50, I think, will satisfy all of my curiosity for about 5 minutes.
My mum used to watch over me to ensure I finished all my food. I used to push it around my plate until my mum got bored and left me. In that instant, I shouted out, I’d finished and showed her the empty plate. It was only later on, that she found my leftovers growing mouldy behind the radiator. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one unable to finish my food.