The Un-Skinny Holiday, Or That I Stood in Front of the Pantry Eating Chocolate Chips

So, I think most people know that I wrote this book with Melissa Clark called The Skinny: How to fit into your little black dress forever. And if you've read it you know that we give a lot of advice for dealing with the holidays and the food and the stress and tips for not eating too much or accepting that you're eating too much or being mindful about this being a once-a-year kind of thing without letting the Creep set in after the new year. (The creep being 1-2 pounds you might gain over the holidays and then not lose.) In the years since we wrote the book, I did pretty well at Thanksgiving. I don't know why. I ate reasonably. I didn't take seconds just for the sake of it. I didn't drink too much. And if I didn't love a dessert, I didn't eat it.

This year? Not so much.

If Melissa and I were still blogging The Skinny, I'd be blogging about how I'm not bad for eating a lot and how each meal offers a whole new chance to connect with what I really want to eat even if it's a bagel and I had stuffing for dessert the night before I craved the bagel and not only that but after the stuffing I stood facing the kitchen cabinet dropping one chocolate chip after another into my mouth, unable to put the bag down and walk slowly away.

I don't know why this happened. I think I was just tired, and I think I overindulged all week (for a variety of reasons), and so by the time Friday night rolled around, I couldn't think of even one good reason why not to eat a little bit more of this, that or the other thing that I didn't really, really want. It's not the end of the world that I ate all that, it's just that now all I crave is, like, brothy soup with little bits of tofu in it. For example, I think I really want this soup in Vegetable Soups from Deborah Madison's Kitchen. It's made of, I believe, mushroom broth, tofu and cilantro and I think it's called Green Soup or some such and that's what I'm going to make tomorrow, because that's what I really, really want. Along with a bagel. Because every time I taste a bagel from somewhere not New York, I have to have a New York bagels as soon as possible.

Remember: If you want the bagel, eat the bagel. Then have the soup.