Birthday Excess

by DMC

Yesterday, I visited family to celebrate two birthdays, and as usual, the family served lots of food! Half the family also happens to be Muslim, and this being Ramadan, the food had to wait until after sunset--7:45 p.m.

I figured yesterday would be a wash in terms of the "waste less" food philosophy. I did my best to moderate myself, but I had a dilemma. I usually don't eat that late, and I knew it would be hard to fast myself until that time. I started off the morning with some of the leftover spaghetti squash and pasta sauce (about a tea cup's worth) and a peach from my tree.

That held me until about 2:00, at which time I was starving. My mother is not fasting, so we went to lunch and split a hamburger and fries plate at Marie Calendar's. I figured, while not healthy, at least halving the portion size was a step in the right direction.

Then the bulk of the food hit around 8 p.m. bechamel rigatoni, barbecued chicken, and bread. My family has not yet mastered the concept of volume estimation. My sister, mother, and I argued over whether five pounds of ground beef and X number of bags of rigatoni were enough to feed 10-12 people. We talked about the history of waste in the household (i.e., they always make enough to feed a small nation and end up with so many leftovers it takes a feat of creative restructuring to fit it all in the refrigerator).

Ultimately, my sister opted to get more rigatoni from the store. You know what happened, of course. Yep. There were leftovers. Not just a little, but she made TWO pans of the bechamel and the second pan never got touched. In fact, at the end of the night, the first pan still had about a serving of bechamel left.

Yes, we dutifully sent leftovers home with whomever would take them, but still there are leftovers in the refrigerator, crowding out the leftovers from previous nights.

I know the fear of having "too little" food. It's better to have too much than not enough when feeding guests, after all. But, on the other hand, if my stepfather didn't insist on plopping two pounds of bechamel on each person's plate, we'd never be in danger of running out! In fact, one of our guest's polite but insistent pleas for "just a little" were ignored as the heaping pile of rigatoni, beef, and white sauce made entirely out of butter and four was dropped on her plate.

Afterward, of course, there was cake and ice cream. A rich butter cream frosting enveloped the multi-layered white cake. In fact, butter cream frosting separated the layers of the cake itself. It was a white flour, white sugar extravaganza. Delicious, of course.

But I think my system is still in shock. After going nearly two months (with only a one week hiatus) of strict food moderation and little sugar, my body handled last night with admirable adaptability, but this morning I think it's still trying to process it all. I'll look at last night as a pop quiz for my digestive system--a way of keeping it on its toes!

Anyway, today it's back to the calorie restriction program.