#1. You are going to be very popular now.
Rebuttal - Um, I already am.
#2. Aren't you worried about gaining weight? Variations: You better be careful, I hope you don't lose your figure, you better keep going to yoga, be careful with how much tasting you do, I've never seen a skinny baker.
Rebuttal - I found a skinny baker here (co-author of my favorite bread book).
Most of these comments came from people I don't know very well and will probably never see again. Why do they care? I really hadn't thought about gaining weight until it was all I heard about. Then I stopped thinking about it because I thought it was dumb. Now I am thinking about it again because I am blogging about it. I firmly believe that you can be a pastry chef and be healthy. I firmly believe that you can be in love with dessert and be healthy. I believe in moderation. I believe in staying active. I believe in maintaining whatever weight makes you happy. I will never be Hollywood thin because I would rather eat half a chocolate bar when I get home from work, preferably followed by a glass of wine and then maybe pizza. I am fine with that.
I also believe that you can indulge without really indulging. There are fantastic things to be done with fresh fruit. With egg whites and sugar you can perform miracles (called meringues). I performed one such miracle yesterday by making my first angel food cake. The most tedious part of making angel food cake it beating the egg whites. If you have a stand mixer you will be fine, if not you will get your work out for the day.
Everything went according to plan because I actually remembered to read the directions first. I used a recipe from one of my favorite cookbooks and went with the chocolate version of the cake. My favorite part was letting it cool upside down on a bottle. I was nervous about it at first but it did not tip over or fall out so now I think it was fun.
In the end I decided that it should have a little extra something. I am always looking for reasons to use Creme de Violette so I melted some white chocolate and mixed in a shot of the liqueur. As the finishing touch I added whipped cream and blackberries and I was happy. It isn't the prettiest cake I've ever made but it is probably the healthiest and it even tasted great.Decadence without guilt can be had.
*But just in case, I signed up for a 10k.
"I will never be Hollywood thin because I would rather eat half a chocolate bar when I get home from work, preferably followed by a glass of wine and then maybe pizza. I am fine with that. "
ReplyDeleteThere's a few documentaries we watched at St Kate's, one was "America the Beautiful" .. they talk about the Hollywood body image and how it is so far off what reality is. I think something like 5% of the female population (US maybe?) is actually the size of models, etc. Hollywood has such an unrealistic view of what women and men look like, people have to stop striving for it/paying attention to it. So, kudos to you :)
I'm all about being happy and living life how you want to. I applaud your courage to follow your heart. Not many people will do that, but I feel it is very important to. I wish you the best of luck, and although I'm not a huge fan of sweets, I will be a customer for sure!
Well said to both of you!
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