Day 301: The Christmasesty Chanukah Ever

As one might expect, being at a place where there is a holiday gathering is a trap in many ways for one trying to watch what they eat. For starters, there are irregular eating times. Also, there are "all day" foods that are put out to please the early arrivals stragglers, and hungry droppers-by. Though with my help we ended up putting out dried and regular fruit, my mother had originally put out macadamia nut brittle and peppermint chocolate bark, as well as carmel chocolate sticky paws from Williams-Sonoma. For some crazy reason I forgot to bring peanut butter, so even from the beginning I was having trouble. The day started with a brunch full of some of my fave foods (from the old days): bagels, cream cheese, lox, white fish and the like. Today I made do with a spelt english muffin. I tried to be good, but by the end of the day I, and my adherence to the diet, were toast. During the evening I was moved practically to tears by Ruby's ability to spin two of her younger cousins in her grandmother's office chair, waiting until they had arrived 360 degrees to yell "boo" and other things that made them laugh with uproarious, and amazingly, unending delight. The thought that I (with Emily) had instilled in her the ability and the desire both to make others laugh, and the caring about other people that that that implies was a gift.

Breakfast
1 Spelt English Muffin
Cheddar Cheese
Whitefish
1 Cup Green Tea

Lunch/Snack/Everything Else Not Dinner
Lots of Almonds and Cashews
1 6 oz Cherry Yoplait Yogurt (the worst flavor so far)

Dinner and Everything That Went with It
Assorted Cheeses
Chopped Chicken Liver
2 Slices Turkey
A bit of Salad
2 Slices Whole Wheat Bread
Pickles, Peppadews, Olives

Following Dinner
50% of a Black and White
1 very small piece of peppermint chocolate bark
1 bite of a carmel chocolate sticky paw (gave the rest to Ruby, which she enjoyed the hell out of)
2 bites of stilton cheese
2 glasses red wine
1 slice of Pear

If you never lived or ate a lot Jewish bakery desserts in New York, you might not know that the "Black and White" is a bakery treat that is often mislabeled as a cookie but is really like a sort of a flatter, slightly less moist cupcake. It has a baked-on frosting but in New England it is frosted afterwards, which is an "Infamnia" or "Insult to the family"—answerable only by a Mob hit. These black and whites are so prevalent in New York that they have etched a place in my cerebral cortex and being close to them set off a pavlovian response that made me crazy until I ate half of one (because Ruby had half). Of all the things that I would have thought I would have gone off my diet for, I never would have said a black and white, but what can I say? We are our choices, and life is about choices. So by the transitive axiom, I am a black and white. I can't think of a better way to celebrate the first night of Chanukah, a family celebration, oh, and Christmas.