Will the walk be one of victory or humiliation? Which will it be...

Writen by Linda Gauthier

A week of parties, recipe testing and chocolate, my own personal nemesis.  That is not fair.  Chocolate is not my nemesis, but it is my weakness.  Food is my nemesis.  Good food.  Tasty food.  Wonderful beautiful food in all its array of colours and textures.  In all its ethnic flavours, colours, spices, and multitude of varieties.

I have said in the past that I have had a long love affair with food.  I don't believe that it is gluttony that drives me, it's a curiosity.  I am constantly asking myself: "how is that made? what will happen when you mix that with this? etc etc.
I was 12 years old when I tried to make a Baked Alaskan for my Dad's Birthday.  I had seen a picture in the local newspaper's weekend section.  The Times Colonist, used to have a weekender magazine in it that contained recipes, cartoons, etc, my favorite section was the recipes.  In fact, I still have some of those recipes in a binder.  My Baked Alaskan turned out to be Alaskan Floating Islands, creating a lot of laughter, but it tasted good and did not dampen my curiosity about recipes for what I considered exotic dishes.

So that explains some of my love affair with food, but it also helps to explain why I am finding this diet (hate that word) so easy to follow, because I can still explore and create with all of these wonderful herbs and spices from Epicure Selections.  So let's see what today brings.

Not a lot lost today, but it is still a loss.  I'll take it.  Only approximately 1/2 lb, but it is better than a gain.

I always try to end my blog with a laugh, so I thought I'd share something with you about my weight loss.

The other day, I was doing an Epicure party.  It was the first time I'd ever had a party where both men and women were in attendance.  Everything was going well and everyone was enjoying the food.  Twenty bright and cheerful faces all staring at me and listening attentively and then it happened.  I turned to reach for a dish and whoosh! my pants fell to my ankles!!!
Gasp, what the heck, now what?  Can't pretend that it didn't happen.  Bend down, pull them up as casual as you can, give head a shake, smile and say "I've been losing weight, now it looks like I've lost something else!"  Smile, as if this is an everyday occurrence, and then say "so now, on to what we were talking about.  This Curry Mango was used on the Chicken dish.......blah blah" brain going screaming out of the room.
Lord I was embarrassed but I couldn't run out of the room crying, and I sure didn't want to put my hostess and the guests in an even more awkward situation.  So we all had a laugh, and continued on as if the Epicure consultant dropping her drawers in the middle of a stranger's kitchen was a normal event.

Guess if you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?  Another lesson taken from this, is that we get stronger as we age, or we develop real thick skin.  Not sure which it is, but it sure helped me in this matter.  I'm now doing a lot of alterations.  Not ready to buy new clothes just yet, but I'm not going to take the risk of that happening again.
This is an absolute true story, with all the humiliation incurred and embedded in my memory and soul forever, but I'm still standing and the world still turns and I go on, so it is not so bad.

Keep laughing, and laugh loud and long, and let your heart and soul rejoice.  

Just wait until they take this off of my head...
I'm going straight upstairs to pee in their shoes...

Talk to you soon and have a good day and smile.