Decisions

The tart apple crumble that Ricki and I had made on Wednesday afternoon for Shabbas (Saturday) lay on the pristine white tablecloth. So did the honey cake that Ricki (or her teacher, see HERE) had made in school. Until this morning, I had been VERY good, having not even tasted Ricki’s honey cake (promising her that I would try it on Shabbas), and had had a scant half-teaspoon of the crumble. This morning, rather than having my Shabbas treat of fancy cereal for Kiddush*, I had had a bit of the crumble with a leben (low-fat yogurt), and literally a sliver of the honey cake.
But even though the calorie count was about the same as a good serving of cereal, I used to eat much larger pieces of cake for Kiddush, and I was sitting there contemplating why I was still hungry. “Give your brain a chance to register that you’ve eaten”, I cautioned. “You are NOT going to blow your diet with cake.”
It didn’t help very much. So I got up, put the cakes away, and pulled out a good book. THAT helped.

* Kiddush a Jewish religious ritual, is a blessing over wine or grape juice said on Friday night and Saturday morning. It must be followed with a meal (with bread), or the consumption of some food with grains, like cake, crackers, or cereal.