If there's one thing that Facebook has made me do is to examine how seriously I take words. In terms of Facebook, I mean the word "friend". I actually feel guilty accepting someone's invitation to join their friend list, just b/c I don't consider them a friend. Acquaintance...Former Classmate...Frienemy from 10th grade...sure, all those things. But to put them on my friend list *tch, tch* I feel like that guy who does the drunken ring up on a late Saturday night.."Sure, baby, I've been thinking about you, how much you're the one for me. C'mon now, can't I come on over and join your Friend list? Of course I'll call you in the morning." But I bow to social pressure...I squint sideways at my pathetically small, sad list of friends and offer up my vocabulary ethics in sacrifice. Oh, what's a little fudging between friends?

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I have to confess that I'm a bipolar cook. I get into frenzies of cooking projects followed by dark days of inertia and self-loathing phone calls to Pizza Hut. Let's see....earlier this year I was going to cook everything in advance and freeze it. Think of the time, the money I would save! I spent hours finding freezable recipes that weren't dripping with Campbell's Soup, making spread sheets with a shopping list categorized by aisle, chopping, mixing, cursing, sweating, limping. The premise is that you do all your suffering up front so that dinner the rest of the time is a breeze of defrost, preheat, and bake. Voila!! What I should have remembered about myself is that if I were the type of person who could deal with a little discomfort for greater rewards, I would not have an ass that looks like it's ready to give birth.

Which then led to my big scheme to do away with complicated meals all together. I started thinking about how thin both DH and I were before we were together, and the common denominator was NOT that back then we were 20 and our metabolisms hadn't turned to dust...oh no! The problem started when we started eating as a couple...thinking we had to have full meals, b/c that's what you do when you share a home! Cunning, huh? So from now on, we were going to eat small meals, when we felt hungry, not because the clock said it was time for a meal. No more rhetoric of entree, side veggie, side carb -- I would instead chop up veggies and fruit, ready for quick consumption at any hour. If we wanted something larger, there could be healthy soups to be quickly heated, low-carb tortillas for wraps. We would be free from fat and from food rules!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

And then the carrots started getting dry and cracked. DH would get snarky b/c the banana had a few brown spots. Instead of small healthy meals, I'd end up eating 3 brownies in one sitting. I honestly thought if I saw another apple again, it had better have caramel on it or I'd chunk it through the window.

This was replaced by my bread and pizza kick. I theorized that the problem was easy access...people eat so much b/c it's just too easy to get it, then replace it when it's wasted. How much better would we feel if we ate things we controlled...we know what's in them, we know what's NOT in them, and if we have to make the effort to have them, wait a few hours to get them, maybe we'd just appreciate and savor things a little more. My first step was to do away entirely with the yoke of bought pizza and bread. It would be all dough, all the time in my household! The first problem is that I'd never made either before in my life, and I created a tennis ball waiting for that @#$@# baker's pane to form. I still don't know for sure what that is. Now don't get me wrong. I have at least discovered the zen of bread making. It's hard to describe how it feels to create something with your own hands. Sure, I've made cookies, cakes, meals before, but this just feels like creating something magical...how it just comes to life right before your eyes. And the first time it comes out perfect...beautiful little airy fluffs of yeasty goodness? Ohhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. But that being said, there's also something annoying as hell about trying to clean up flour....or watching your blood, sweat and tears turn to mold. And investing 6 hours in bread...and that's only sandwich bread, you're telling me I have to wait 24 hours for the good stuff?! What century is this? So yes, I want to be artisanal and wholesome in my consumption, but you can't grow up in Dallas in the 80's without it permanently damaging your brain.

Lately, we have my Cooking Light phase. So far I have been incredibly rewarded with some faaaaaantastic recipes that simply cannot be as light as it claims. Sure some of them are a little tricky in that the low calorie also relies upon looooow portions, but I'm not fool enough to fall for those (or DH and I would be licking the bottom of the cereal box by 9 pm). I keep hoping I'm not going to fall off the wagon on this one...tonight we're having Farfalle w/ Creamy Wild Mushroom Sauce (w/ REAL whipping cream and parmesan) that's only 336 calories and 11 g of fat for 1.25 cups. Pinch me! The only downside of this so far is that I've become a cooking-light prosthelytizer, knocking on email doors and handing out recipe pamplets. The reception is pretty much the same as with religion...skepticism, pretending like they're not home, saying they've got another recipe they belong to. No one believes that I've found the one, true light recipe that doesn't taste light. We're such a jaded society.