Sweet Freedom

The voice has ceased at last. It’s gone. It’s all gone.

I’m speaking, of course, of the delectable leftover chocolate birthday cake with chocolate frosting and strawberry filling which, until today, sat smugly on the corner of our kitchen counter, hypnotically calling me to leave my life of low-carb righteousness and indulge in a forbidden slice of refined sugar and momentary bliss.

I had been so good all day Monday. I baked two cakes, frosted them, and made cookies for Katie’s class, all without even tasting the cookie dough or licking a spoon. Perhaps I was a little overconfident. It’s one thing to virtuously turn your back on gooey fudge temptation one time, or even twice. But this cake, once baked, was relentless, constantly weaving its siren song around and between my very neurons, until I couldn’t stop thinking about it. For all I know, it wasn’t even very good–but in my imagination, it was the food of Olympus. I was a hair’s breadth away from doing a faceplant in it.

There was only one thing to do. I packed up the cake this morning and delivered it to my husband’s coworkers. As I hoped, they decimated it. Paul returned home hours later with the empty cake plate in hand, and I felt like dancing. I’ve never been enslaved by a pastry before. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

For my after-dinner snack tonight, I had a lovely small bowl of blueberries and strawberries topped with a dollop of light whipped cream. With the offending cake out of sight and out of mind, they even tasted sweet.