Eat, drink & be merry.

Sometimes you just don't want to do anything.

Seriously. I haven't brushed my teeth today and it's 9:51 p.m....

This is what I like to refer to as "sleep for the soul."

Instead of replenishing my physical being, like one would during sleeping hours, I have officially taken the past 14-hours to replenish my mental state. This included (but was by no means limited to):

1. Watching countless hours of Grey's Anatomy.
2. Wearing incredibly heinous fuzzy-yellow socks.
3. Eating lots of peanut butter.

Now, you may be asking yourself, why is this girl rambling on about doing nothing-in-particular on a blog that's supposed to be about refined sugars? Well, allow me to explain...

On days like this (which happen a good six-times per annum), I would normally have baked a large, gooey, delicious batch of my mom's famous chocolate chip cookies. This batch, I would tell myself, would be a great treat throughout the week - one that the whole family would enjoy for the next 14-days to come.

And then 6:30 p.m. would roll around and I would realize that I had polished off a good 7 cookies (and that's being generous in my estimated consumption).

Anywho, the point here is simple. Instead of eating a shiza-ton of sugar-infested salty butter balls, I have instead chosen to enjoy a lovely organic pink-lady apple paired with a scrumptious, natural,  creamy peanut butter spread.

Sweetness delivered the way Mamma Earth intended - nothing could put my soul more at rest.

A Sweet Surprise

It's been a long week.

This past Friday I found myself staring at the oven for a good 45 minutes while I baked a 7" yam . I immediately unraveled the aluminum foil (scorching my fingers with steam along the way) and started removing the burning hot skin from the pasty-orange loveliness that lied beneath.

Using a fork I mashed the yam with cinnamon, milk and just a touch of honey. I then preceded to devour the entire yam caveman style.

Needless to say, I needed sugar...

But here's the weirdest part about this whole experience: I originally went into this thinking that my inevitable downfall was bound to be my lust for dessert. I thought, "life without ice cream and cupcakes, are you nuts?" And I am nuts, but that's beside the point.

What I'm trying to say is that the hardest part of quitting refined sugars is not being able to eat the little things. By little things, I mean ketchup, barbeque sauce, any sort of mixed alcoholic beverage, juice, jam and pretty much any condiment you can think of.

Actually, now that I think about it, I don't miss dessert at all.

In fact, in only a couple of weeks I've come to appreciate just how incredible a yam really is -- its luscious flavor is downright sinful. So in the end, I leave you with this...

The sweetest things in life are often the things that we overlook. So next time you reach for that cupcake or cookie, take a look across the counter at that poor little deformed-looking yam and say to yourself "what the heck." I promise that that sad little orange paste will satisfy you far more than any cookie ever could.

Oh, and you don't have to say "what the heck," you can ad-lib that part.


Ciao,
Me

A Naturally Sweet Sundae

The phrase "it's 5 o'clock somewhere" officially has no meaning to me anymore.

Last night I sat down to a long table in a beautiful Mexican courtyard. Strings of white lights overhead, chili peppers hanging on a trellis, bright orange, yellow and blue flags overhead... It looked like a scene straight out of Desperado.

My sister and I giggled excitedly as we looked over the margarita menu. Peach, strawberry, and lime oh my!

And then it hit me.

I can't order a margarita. Did you hear that? I CAN'T order a margarita!

So here it is. Surprise #1 of living without the ingredient that shall not be mentioned: I CAN'T ORDER A MARGARITA.

Nor can I enjoy any of it's equally sweet and satisfying counterparts. My personal drink of choice, gin & tonic, has officially made its way to the black list along with Bailey's Irish Cream and many other lovely liquid concoctions that make me smile and say "yum!"

But here's the thing: this is, in the wise words of Martha, a good thing.

These oh-so-yummy drinks are normally filled with highly processed forms of the ingredient that shall not be mentioned. They also include a long list of other unpronounceable contents that are far more familiar to a chemist than a cook. Thus, I took the high road and ordered a beer.

It tasted like Motel 6 water. Yuck.

The Day the Dessert Died

I just couldn't help myself... 

There it was. Small. Square. Purple. 

My stomach growled as I dug through my purse. My eyes wandered to the clock on the wall as my professor jabbered on and on about different body-types and flattering cuts that would help accentuate "what your mamma gave ya." 

Yuck. What an over-used statement.

Let's just cut to the chase: Puffy shoulders look awful on everyone. End of story. 

As I open the wrapper it makes that crinkly "I shouldn't be eating in class" noise. The one that you avoid by making really slow calculated movements that just end up accentuating the fact that yes, you are eating in class and no it isn't something healthy. 

I should mention that when I get hungry I get mean. Not just snappy mean. Mean mean. Like, "I really hope you don't think this is how I actually am as a person" mean. 

Especially when I'm craving sugar.

There it is. The dreaded word. The Voldemort of the cooking world. The ingredient that shall not be mentioned. At least that's what I'm going to call it for the next 364 days...

As I nibble off the corner of the Sees Awesome Walnut Square Bar I realized that whoever named this speck of heaven was spot on. 

This is awesome. 

There's just one tiny problem. It's February 18th - the day that I'm supposed to stop eating refined sugars for a year. 

Now let me be very clear on this. I didn't actually purchase this Sees slice of delight. It was gifted to me on Valentine's Day and I just so happened to nonchalantly drop it into my purse where I figured it would disappear and not make it's way into my oh-so-overused digestive system. 

Right. 

So here I am. A day late on my self-imposed ingredient that shall not be mentioned abstinence trip and wondering how the heck did I end up here? 

Still wondering...

Nothing. Still nothing. Oh well, I'm hoping that somehow, over the course of the next year, an answer will somehow manage its way out of this catastrophe that is my resolution. 

So here's the deal. For 365 days I am going to cut refined sugars out of my diet. Completely. 

Now, for some of you, this may not sound like quite a big feat. And you're right. It's totally lame. But I have a sweet tooth. Well, I have 32 sweet teeth to be exact.

And I love to cook. 

I bake, roast, toast, sauté, flambe, puree... You name it, I do it. 

And I do it in the kitchen.

Oh, and one more thing. "It" always involves the ingredient that shall not be mentioned. 

So here goes. To honey, agave nectar, date sugar and to all of your other naturally sweet counterparts, I welcome you to my kitchen and look forward to spending the next annum by your side.

And to you dear reader, I invite you to come along on this culinary adventure (or catastrophe) and embrace all of the genuine goodness that your mamma earth gave ya.

That joke was bad. I know.