The Cake Time Never Forgot

'Tis the season for gorging, and how hard are you trying not to?

Because I've set the bar low, I'm doing pretty well. The thing is, after my January blog of this year (when I boldly proclaimed the onset of my determination to lose weight) I thereafter gained three more pounds.

Shocked, I was. It was a total confirmation to me that menopause is a much more powerful foe than my mindset can conquer, at least for this stage in my life.

I could blame it on the grand-babies this time. (And I think I will.) Sure they require alot of chasing after, but their naps are really only of any length when they are in the arms, and this means Grandpa and I take a nap now, too. When we attempt to wriggle away, they waken too soon and are cranky at that.

So we snooze when we don't need to, and finish the snacks they abandon. Grandpa, however, shows no evidence of any of this, even though he eats more of the snacks than I do. Despite everything, I recently got BACK to my January weight and that weirdly felt like an achievement. And THAT gives you a picture of how low my bar is.

When I was a teenager and weighed (probably like you) 103 pounds, eating too much or too often held few consequences. But I did always pay attention to my mom and older aunts who warned me it wouldn't always be this way.

My first memorable battle with reining in portion-control saw me badly defeated; the remorse afterward was such that I've never since failed so completely again.

The smells in my kitchen today (Thanksgiving) have spurred me into into blogging the tale of that experience, but please don't think I'm a crazy person who can blog and cook a big Thanksgiving dinner all at once--I did much of the work yesterday.

This particular drives-you-crazy aroma is from a cake, and a nondescript-looking one even. Decades ago in the home I grew up in, my sister, Cris, brought this cake home from a holiday work party. It was nearly a whole cake, untried by many probably because of its basic and plain look, yellow and unfrosted. The only thing special about its appearance was its form (bundt-pan molded, still a novelty in the late 60's) and a generous dusting of confectioner's sugar.

So un-special did this cake seem, when the left-overs of that work party were divvied up, my sister accepted it with the attitude that "with so many people in our house, it will eventually get eaten."

Cris laid the cake on the counter with no expectations that anyone would gush over it. In fact no one did, but as I remember it, the house was pretty empty then. My dad was at work, and either my mom and the younger kids were out and about or in their rooms, with another older sister, Cindy, living away from home at the time.

Cris left the cake with a comment that it was excess from the party and that the family was welcome to it, and off she went for a nap. It seemed the kitchen was mine--and too the cake, at the worst possible time of day--me in the throes of my after-school appetite.

But I had just finished something to take the edge off things, and with the humble look of the thing, I regarded it as "filler." A just-as-humble slice would help me call snack-time good, so I thought.

Not to be. The innocent cake's not-so-innocent secret ingredient (sherry wine) injected WOW into my taste buds, and I immediately lopped off another slice. And another. It was crazy tender and flavorful and my control panel went berserk with malfunction. With no one around to raise their eyebrows at me I just kept going--kept going straight into eventual horror at myself and the drastically dwindling circle of bundt.

Too quickly it was over. I didn't eat the whole thing, but I may as well have, for all the good any explaining might have done. In a family of ten, (nine living at home) one didn't just eat almost a whole cake. (Or in ANY family, I am sure.)  I never did anything like that before, and I couldn't even begin to think of how I might regain my standing in our household.

With wheels spinning in my mind as to what I might say, I was unfathomably graced with non-discovery. Cris's nap was not a long one, and when she re-emerged into the kitchen for all she knew other family members had also enjoyed the cake. I didn't say otherwise, except that I did confess "I almost couldn't stop eating the thing, it was so good." She polished off the rest, and before the family starting filing back into the kitchen I discreetly shoved the disposable plate into the garbage. They never missed what they didn't know.

Whew. I was SO grateful not to be caught with my cake-pants down. The feeling of what might have come to pass (for embarrassment) has probably helped me rein in on portion control ever since--but it never stopped me from tracking down the recipe for that cake. I make it every year at the holidays, and I'm happy to say I can take one wedge and call it good for the day. (I'm also happy to be in a place in my life where I feel fine about telling the story!