Slim to None (10 page)

"You making a cake, Muffin?"

My dad called me this affectionate nickname, Muffin, just like that really sweet dad on
Father Knows Best
used to call his daughter Kitten. It always made me feel special. About the only thing that did, though.

The irony does not escape me that his nickname for me was food-related. Christ, my parents should’ve just named me Betty Crocker, or Little Debby, and cemented my fate early on.

I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, so I just nodded my head up and down. A mute bobble-head doll.

"Smells great. Mind if I try a swipe of this?"

With that he scooped his finger, blood dripping from his hand, into the mixture I had on the stove, his blood blending with the caramelizing brown sugar.

"You sure can cook, Muffin. Just like your Gigi."

He leaned over me from behind and planted a short kiss on the top of my head. He grabbed the dishtowel out of my hands, pressing it up against his bleeding palm.

"Look, Muffin—" he started to say. But then he didn’t say anything more. He just turned me around and stared at me for a long couple of seconds.

"I’ve gotta go. You’ll be okay, won’t ya?"

I didn’t have a chance to answer. He was gone, lickety split.

I took the cake out of the oven and let it cool to the backdrop of my mother’s loud sobs upstairs. When she finally came down I was spreading the penuche frosting across the top of the cake in delicate swirls. I could tell by the disapproving look on her puffy face that my cake would not last long intact in her kitchen. So I took the heavy glass lid of the cake pedestal and covered the cake with it. Then I walked out the front door and took my masterpiece to my grandma.

She came to the door in her housecoat and curlers, her short gray hair barely wrapping around the rods.

"That’s a beautiful cake you made there, Abbie. You should be proud of it."

I set the cake down, hugged my grandmother, and finally allowed myself to cry.

Éclair Dessert

To this day, I’ve never made another chocolate pound cake, so I haven’t got a recipe to share with you. I do, however, have a yummy dessert that I think you’ll enjoy just as much.

Line 13"x9" pan with graham crackers.

mix filling

3 c. milk (whole, of course, no skim here, thank you)

2 boxes of French vanilla instant pudding

Beat those together, let set for 5 minutes, then fold in one 9-oz. container Cool Whip

Pour mix on top of crackers.

Top with another layer of graham crackers.

mix topping

Melt together:

3 squares (3 oz.) of semi-sweet chocolate

1-1/2 c. powdered sugar

3 tbl. milk

3 tbl. butter

Pour on top of graham cracker crust and chill.

Sear Ego in Reality, Simmer until Tender

God, I need to get off the maudlin-mobile here and get cracking on my column or I’ll never get out of this place, and right now, I need to get away from all reminders of my life upheaval.

I’ve been wrestling with how to handle this "food" column. I mean, I already wrote about food in my first incarnation at the Sentinel. Maybe I should take readers along on my current journey since they followed me on my food journey as well. Do people want to read about my chubetto woes? Will this merely reinforce my standing as now a fat person rather than a highly-respected food writer? Do I want to put my raw emotions out there for public consumption? And why can they consume yet now I’m not allowed to consume (unless I want to stay underemployed).

The more I think about it, the more I think my readers deserve to understand not only me, fat or not, but anyone like me. To know that we’re far more than the superficial exterior they see and then stop at. Surprisingly, the words flow like marinara from a gravy boat once I start typing.

Are You An "Eat to Live", or a "Live to Eat"?

Or: Can You Just Be an "Eat to Eat"?

To many people food is just a functional part of daily living. Something they need, but don’t give much credit to. Like toilet paper. Although I guess technically you don’t need toilet paper, but you know what I mean. These people are known as ectomorphs: by definition, tall with long lean limbs. My slender friend Jess is an ectomorph.

But then to others—me included—food is Food, with a capital "F." It’s so much more than sustenance; it’s a lifestyle. It’s indulgence. It’s soul-nurturing. It’s gratifying. It’s life.

We’re called endomorphs. I can remember that because the prefix "end," reminds me that endomorphs tend to have big rear-ends.

Do you know the official definition of an endomorph? Somebody whose body has a stocky build and a prominent abdomen. God, that sucks.

I started a diet recently, and so food has weighed heavily (excuse the pun) on my mind lately. I’ve been pondering how different people view food and how that affects how they look.

Not long ago, I offered to send some pumpkin muffins home with a co-worker. Cindy, his beautiful and slender ectomorph-of-a-wife hadn’t been feeling well, so I thought maybe the treat would cheer her up.

"Are you kidding me?" he asked, eyes wide with incredulity.

"Do you know what Cindy sees when she sees a pumpkin muffin?" he pointed accusingly at the perpetrators, the warm umber-colored delectable little breakfast treats sitting innocently on the plate under a light dusting of powdered sugar.

"She sees four hundred and forty calories, fifty carbs, fifteen grams of fat, arteries hardening, a bloated stomach, and basic all-around misery," he joked.

Whoa. All that wretched desolation in a sweet little innocent food offering?

Now I will grant you this: Cindy looks damn good in clothes. She’s got a body fat index of about minus fifty. She’s probably never in her life wrestled with what to wear before going out, searching for the outfit that will best hide her figure and that she can successfully zipper up. But then again, maybe Cindy’s missing out when it comes to the joys of food.

When I look at a pumpkin muffin, I see the brilliant orange glow of a sugar maple in its full autumnal glory. I see the crisp blue sky of October, so clear and restorative and reassuring. I see hayrides, and I feel Halloween just around the corner, kids dressed up in homemade costumes, bobbing for apples and awaiting trick or treat. I think of children dressed as Pilgrims in a pre-school parade, or a Thanksgiving feast, the bounty of harvest foods burdening a table with its goodness. I picture pumpkins at a farmer’s market, piled happy and high, awaiting a new home where children will carve them into scary faces or mothers will bake them into a pie or stew.

Yeah, somewhere in my guilt-ridden soul, I know that the pumpkin muffin is The Enemy, that for a grown-up it’s off-limits to see joy in it. But it saddens me that I even have to view it that way.

Perhaps this is how we view food in a society that has too much. Food becomes wretched excess. Because in another society—say, in sub-Saharan Africa, where food is often a luxury—a pumpkin muffin would be treasured. Maybe we are a society of spoiled, overindulged, overfed hedonists-gone-awry. And isn’t that just a little bit sad?

Now that I have started this diet, I suppose I, too, will have to view those pumpkin muffins with a level of hostility. For now, they are Enemy Number One. But I will miss the sensory pleasure of such calorie-laden luxuries, and will be counting the minutes until I can again contemplate indulging in these simple joys without remorse.

I sit back at my desk and read over my words. Wow. A week ago I’d not have imagined what I could write about in this column that would do justice to my readers, but now it all comes pouring out of me in a pique of fat-girl angst. I read and re-read the thing, wondering if I am bold—or crazy—enough to splay myself out there on the slaughtering block of public opinion when it comes to food. I mean, girls like me aren’t so inclined to publicize much about ourselves that relates to body size and caloric consumption. True as it is that while I might only eat the same amount of food that Jess does, I retain it while she burns it, and there’s just no sense in making this argument public.

Plus, I won’t deny that I’m dueling with a tricky carving knife, one side of whose blade is a lack of willpower, and the other an overwhelming appreciation of food. That combined with poor metabolism and a possible connection with abandonment issues and food filling a void in my life have helped me to land in this swamp of excess in which I’m mired.

Normally I find—at least on a face-to-face basis—that I instinctually try to deflect any potential fatso insults by being too up front about it voluntarily. I tend to readily offer up the notion that I’m oversized to most anyone willing to listen. Mind you, I’m not fishing for a complement, not looking for someone to say, "Oh, no, Abbie, you’re not fat." Instead, I am trying to head off the potential insult before it can be used as a tool against me. I mean, if I come right out and say, "hey, I know I’m fat," it certainly defuses the artillery of cruel words before they’re launched at me.

But saying this to an intimate audience of a few is one thing. Admitting this to a potential readership of tens of thousands is another. I won’t be merely admitting I’m in need of a serious diet; I’ll be officially branding myself as fat. Making myself the poster child of chubby. Dangerous territory, I will say.

I ponder whether to just hit the send button and forward this onto my editor, or instead hit delete, and start anew, maybe write about something universal like the seasonal quest for the finest asparagus. But then, with the timing of divine intervention, my eyeglasses fall off my face, landing hard enough on the return key to jettison my column and its inherent acknowledgment of my own shortcomings through cyberspace, before I have a chance to make up my own mind.

Abbie’s Favorite(Low-diet!)Pumpkin Bread

4 c. flour

2/3 tsp. baking powder

2-1/4 tsp. baking soda

1-1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. cloves

1/2 tsp. ginger

1/2 tsp. allspice

3/4 c. cold water

5 eggs

3-1/2 c. sugar

3 c. pumpkin

1-1/3 c. oil

Grease three loaf pans with plain Crisco shortening.

Sift dry ingredients together.

In separate bowl, beat eggs well. Add sugar, beat well. Add pumpkin, oil, water, beat well on low speed to incorporate. Add dry ingredients, mix well.

Fill pans 2/3 full.

Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour, until golden brown and toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean.

Freezes well.

Dredge the Past, Marinate with Memories, and Sprinkle with Regret

Your
father
contacted you? Your
deadbeat dad
?" Jess is incredulous as I describe the letter my dad sent to me. "He’s got some damned nerve!"

God, I hate to dredge up my childhood. It is really just unpleasant. And it makes me crave some sort of comfort food, maybe a roasted porc et choucroute, something warm and filling and loaded with fat. I ask the waitress if the chef can fix up something like that and she looks at me like I’m mad.

"I’m sorry, ma’am. La Lettuce only serves salads. But you can add shrimp or chicken to the salad if that helps." The restaurant choice was Jess’ idea of helping out.

Lucky me. This promises to be a memorable meal. Jess and I order our respective rabbit food, and continue on.

"I don’t know. He’s dying or something. Wants to explain things."

"So like his type. Goes off and does whatever he damn well pleases and then comes gallivanting back into your life just in time to keel over, expecting you to absolve him of his behavior? That way you get to cry all over again because now you’ve found him and he’s leaving you yet again? What does he think—he’s directing a Lifetime movie? Bastard."

Jess is one of my staunchest defenders, an ally you want to have when you go into battle. My father is assuredly not going to have Jess on his side on this one, and may want to consider donning chain mail as protective gear. Jess can be a human lawn mower when she wants to be.

"Meh. I don’t see what good it’ll do to go see him. I’m over him. He was over me long ago. He showed me that by walking out that door. What do I owe him? A big fat nothing. Speaking of big and fat and me, I saw your doctor fellow the other day." I reach for a sugar packet, reconsider, and instead open a packet of Sweet ‘N Low, stirring it into my iced tea. I take a sip and spit it back into the glass. Gah! People use this stuff on a regular basis?

"You saw Dex?" Jess’ eyes light up. "What’d ya think—he’s pretty hot, isn’t he?"

The eye-lighting thing gives me pause and I set my drink down.

Jess backpedals a little bit. "I meant Dr. Crenshaw." She’s positively glowing, like a pregnant woman.

"Yes, Dr. Crenshaw is heavenly," I say. "Not that it made the event any easier. Packed like a sausage into that hospital gown and having all of those embarrassing things forced upon me."

"Embarrassing? Like what?"

"Like having to get on the scale," I say. "You can’t fathom the degradation that entails. A scale has never been
your
mortal enemy."

Jess laughs. "Oh, Abbie. You’re right, I’m not afraid of a scale. But I’m also not a fabulous cook and one of the top food critics in the country, either. It all balances out. Never mind about that. Tell me, what did you think of Dex? Did he say anything about me?"

I’m thinking back to the appointment and it jogs my memory. "Now that you mention it, he suddenly paid attention to me once I invoked your name."

The waitress brings our salads and Jess digs in with relish. I fish around in the salad with my fork, in search of anything that might be something I might otherwise anxiously await at mealtime. Aside from a couple of wayward shriveled-up shrimp that were probably cooked two days ago and dumped into the prep station, nada. Not even a crouton.

I look over at Jess who looks a bit too zealous about her meal. As if she’s avoiding eye contact with me.

"Is something going on that I should know about?"

"This salad is delicious, isn’t it?" Jess stares directly into her arugula as if divining tea leaves.

"You’re having an affair with him, aren’t you?"

Jess gasps quietly and pops her head up to stare at me. "No. No. Of
course
not," she stammers.

But it’s too late. I recognize all of the signs. This isn’t the first time that Jess has strayed from her husband, only the latest.

"You’re
sleeping
with Dex Crenshaw! And you sent me to see the man you’re sleeping with, and now I have to keep this quiet and never say anything to your husband when every time I see him I’m going to be thinking about Dr. Crenshaw and scales and calipers and all of the horrid things I’ve been subjected to at his behest. Oh, Jess, how could you?"

Jess is putting her pointer finger to her lips to shush me now. "It’s not what you think it is, Abbie. Calm down! I’m not sleeping with Dex. Yet. Since you needed to see a doctor anyway...I thought I’d maybe get you to vet him out for me, just a sort of second opinion."

"Jess! People get second opinions on doctors when they have to have hysterectomies! Not to decide whether they should screw them!"

The thing about Jess is that she and her husband aren’t exactly faithful to one another. At all. I’ve lost count of the number of times Jess has caught her husband, Charlie, in a lie about a woman. We’re at least up to the second hand’s worth of fingers, and counting.

At first Jess had wanted to leave Charlie. But then she considered how much harder life would be. She’d gotten used to the private clubs, the lovely restaurants, the weekly masseuse and mani/pedi, the bi-weekly hair coloring touch-up. It’s hard to maintain that in Manhattan without some sort of cash cow. Yet his repeated betrayals were wearing on her psyche. Sure, she didn’t want to live alone in a 500-square foot efficiency in Yonkers, having to work cleaning jobs to pay the rent. But she also didn’t want to be disrespected by a philandering dickwad of a husband. Did I just say dickwad? That is so not in my vocabulary. I think this diet is toying with the inner-workings of my brain.

So Jess decided to even up the score, and has since had dalliances with a few men whose judgment I’d question simply because they knew they were fooling around with a married woman. Is there any integrity left around here, people? I do understand where Jess is coming from, and I don’t necessarily fault her. I mean, were I to be in her situation, who’s to say I wouldn’t do the same thing. I do, as I say, wonder about the
men
who choose to partake, however. And absolutely, I resent the hell out of Charlie for leaving my friend to fend for herself in this way. Bizarrely, though, they seem content with the way their cockeyed relationship works.

"So Abbie, I thought maybe we could somehow work it so I could go with you to see Dex and maybe I could get to talking to him and—"

"So I’d be your beard? Thanks, I’ve got enough facial hair without turning into an
actual
beard. Besides which, how cliché, picking me to be your fat chick wingman. Or would that be wingwoman? Surely you can be more imaginative than that."

"Ha ha. Come on, Abbie, he’s really cute and really sweet and I like him. I was going to ask him to come along on one of our restaurant outings, but—"

"Don’t remind me. There are no more restaurant outings."

"Of course there will be. This is just a little temporary setback. You’ll lose some weight, you’ll be back there before you know it!"

I rub my finger along the rim of my water glass, creating a humming sound that is soothing. "It’s more complicated than that. First of all, I don’t know if someone hijacked my willpower or what, but it is gone. I’ve looked everywhere, even under the bed. No willpower to be had. Without willpower, I’m not going to succeed. But on top of that, I’m just starting to wonder what I should be wanting or needing in my life. William is nipping at my heels, haranguing about babies again."

Jess makes the sign of the cross, an apparent show of solidarity. "Not again?"

I nod with a solemn face. "Only this time it feels like the Battle of the Bulge. No, wait. That’s the diet part. How about the bridge over the River Kwai? Battle of the Midway? Whatever. What I mean is it feels like there will be a victor and a loser this time. And I have a feeling if he wins, I lose, and if I win, I lose. Jess, I don’t know what to do about everything."

I stab about ten pieces of limp, brown-edged lettuce onto my fork and stuff the wad in my mouth. There’s no tasting involved, no pleasure involved, no sensory anything. Just the cursory act of eating. Like sex with a hooker. Or what I presume that would be like.

"I’m hardly the advice-giver. You know that. But I think you should just let your conscience be your guide."

I blurt out a laugh on that one. "Thanks Jiminy Cricket. I’ll keep that in mind."

"I’m serious. Let me explain. One time, Charlie was golfing in Thailand."

"Charlie went to Thailand?"

"Yes. Probably because of the number of inexpensive prostitutes."

"Ugh."

"Uh-huh. So Charlie was golfing at this gorgeous golf course when he came up to a green and saw a sign.
Play the ball where the monkey drops it
."

"And this has
what
to do with my little life crisis?"

"Everything. Absolutely everything Abbie. The monkeys sneak up on the golf course and steal golf balls, run around with them, and drop them somewhere else. It became a huge problem and all the golfers were pitching tantrums and throwing their clubs. So the rules were changed around to accommodate the monkey business, so to speak.
Play the ball where the monkey drops it.
Just take it as it comes. It is what it is. You do what you have to in order to get by. Don’t go getting your panties in a wad. Stop trying to orchestrate your life. Let life happen to you, Abbie. It’ll all work out."

"I’m glad you feel so certain about that. Because I sure don’t. But I kind of like the philosophy, because it takes it out of my hands and leaves it up to fate."

"Crazier things are done than leaving things up to fate."

"But I’m not going to be your beard. Just remember that."

"Okay. Fine. How ’bout a moustache?" She laughs.

"No, no type of facial hair and that’s final."

"Back hair count?"

"I have to get back to work Jess. I have to pretend I have value in my place of labor."

"Think about that, okay? The back hair?"

"Shut up, Jess."

* * *

"So, how was your day?" I ask William, trying to keep things light and fluffy. Like me. Only I’m more like heavy and fluffy. On the menu? Skewered vegetables and marinated Greek chicken. Not so bad, is it? Except for the accompanying cucumber sauce I couldn’t help but make that has whole milk plain yogurt—the kind with the layer of cream atop it—and the good kind of sour cream. I’m sorry, I just can’t shun the whole, natural goodness of things. My experience is every time I have something with reduced X, Y, or Z, it tastes as if the most important thing in the food has been expunged. Case in point, Oreos minus trans fats. Agreed?

"Fine," William is quiet while working on a mouthful of food.

"Anything exciting on the horizon?" I ask.

"Not a thing."

Clearly I’m not going to get any elaboration without some cajoling. Guess he’s still brooding on the baby thing.

"So, I got an interesting letter in the mail today."

"Fan mail?"

I used to get fan mail—and hate mail—on a regular basis when I did restaurant reviews. I always suspected the hate mail came directly from relatives of the restaurant owner—or investors. But the fan mail was always lovely. I think people appreciated my candor, my honesty, and my approach to food.

I grimace. "Fan mail is a thing of the past for me. I don’t even have an office any more."

William stops chewing. "Mortie stole your office?"

"Not for himself. He gave it to my replacement."

William groans. "Oh, ho, ho. I bet ol’ Barry is one happy pig in shit now that he’s got the window office. Honey, you’d better hang up your cleats because he’s digging in for the long haul."

I’ve decided I really don’t want to talk about work any more. My job has gone from the zenith of happiness for me to the raw source of my misery.

"Don’t you want to know about my letter?"

He cocks his eyebrow and angles his head up out of curiosity.

"My father. Wants to talk to me about
things
."

"Things?"

"Yep. Seems he’s been feeling his mortality and he wants to tie up loose ends. Me being one of them."

"You planning to see him?"

I shake my head. "What’s the point? He did what he did. I paid the price for it. I don’t see a need to resurrect dead issues."

"Unless..."

William gets that look on his face like what Thomas Edison must’ve looked like just when he deduced that the carbon filament was the answer to his prayers. His light bulb moment, if you will.

"Unless what?"

"Hell, I don’t know, Abbie. But maybe you need to tie up loose ends with
him
. Did you ever think of it that way?"

"Ha!"

"Yeah, you laugh now. Go right ahead. But then he dies and you’ll never have the chance again to ask him why. Don’t you have the slightest bit of curiosity about that? Why did he walk out on you? Sure, it’s obvious why he walked out on your mother. But you?"