⚠️Story Time⚠️
9:15am: ‘MOMMM can we make cookies?’
Honestly, this is a question I used to dread, because the amount of physical and mental fortitude it would take to resist eating half the batch in one day was astronomical.
And I was only successful a fraction of the time.
Further, my definition of success was actually anything but. And regardless of the outcome, the emotional toll in the aftermath felt insurmountable, sometimes for days.
Which never resulted in anything resembling success.
Fearing the inevitable, I came up with all sorts of strategies to avoid succumbing to my Cookie Monster tendencies.
Freezing them, donating them, allowing my kids unmanaged portions of raw dough, just to make the batch smaller.
Because once they were all baked up, there was no where for them to go except in my mouth. Or the trash.
There was no off ramp on that highway for me.
Rock bottom was when my wide-eyed daughter saw me pitch them and was so hurt, that right then and there, I vowed never to pull that parachute again.
2:45: ‘MOMMM are the cookies done?’
(I mean really. Who forgets that cookies are being baked?)
Actually I did.
I took them out of the oven of course, but the kids were outside and I continued to work from the island countertop, just steps away for the next 5 hours, not once being distracted by them.
I smiled to myself knowing how great it will be to have a couple this afternoon or tomorrow with the girls; but then felt a twinge of pain.
It never stops being heartbreaking that there was a time when I literally destroyed a shared experience, in defense of my own insecurities.
There has been quite a journey from white-knuckling abstainer to a most-of-the-time moderator.
It started with one affirmation:
‘No food can harm me more than it can serve me’
Then slowly and imperfectly, I started to pump the breaks.
And that affirmation is what this story is about.
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Thanks for reading this peek into part of the next recipe book I release.
In the past year I have discovered so much that nourishes me beyond food, but I wonder…do narratives alongside recipes interest you? Please tell me!
