Food: A Passion That Never Dies...

...especially if it is Chocolate (or sweet)!

I love food. I relish a chocolate bar to the extent of licking up any spare crumbs from the wrapper, I savour every morsel out of expensive chocolatier's chocolate, I love baked potatoes with sour cream and chives, steak that is tender and moist, chicken drowning in creamy sauce. I enjoy stir-frys with spices and special sauce, fresh vegetables with the perfect sour cream and herb dip, and raspberries with a dab of Josie's Famous Fruit Dip.

I can't get enough of fresh pineapples, coconut, oranges which drip down my fingertips. I love apples with peanut butter and peanut butter by itself at any time of day. In summertime I enjoy ice cream in the midst of a heat wave, with chunks of chocolate or fruit or cream cheese. Fruit pies, cheesecakes, chocolate cake, lemon meringue pie... how delightful! I love cheese in big chunks and spicy appetizers drizzled with oil, and toasted to perfection. Mixed nuts are not safe around me, and chocolate ice cream will be plundered of the choicest morsels, chocolate chips will mysteriously disappear while peanut butter smears appear upon the countertop.

My family can probably name hundreds of instances in which I have argued about, complained about, or made unreasonable demands about food. Also I am the biggest eater of my own baking, and I love to bake the most decadent food our kitchen ingredients will allow. I like to cook sometimes, but baking is one of my favourite past-times.

As much as I love food, if I ate every time I had a craving or even every time I feel a slight pang of hunger, I know I would balloon a few more dress sizes. My stomach is a part of my body, one that thinks it wants it all; it can complain it is getting less, but I will simply follow some old advice to eat a small amount of a variety of foods, to drink water when it is not time to indulge my appetites, and to exercise self-control. So stomach... get used to disappointment, and food, you are no longer my master! Wait a second, as I reread the first part I can feel my mouth watering... But I will never surrender! At least not until lunch time!