The Stuffing Made Me Rationalize

Part of me blames it entirely on the beguiling of the stuffing. But if I’m entirely honest, I know that it was my fault. For this post, however, why should I be honest and admit guilt? Let’s just blame it on the stuffing. After all, it was a holiday meal and can I really be held responsible for everything that happens at a family gathering with an abundance of food placed at my fingertips?

Want to take a bite of a pickle before we start the story?

My family celebrated Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s house which is only about a thirty minute drive for me and twenty minutes for Mom. Terry, my brother-in-law, loves to cook and prepared his mother’s recipes for our meal. Thankfully, Terry is a great cook.

That’s really true.

There was plenty of food for everyone. We started with the appetizers which included pickles, three different kinds of olives, spicy stuffed celery stalks, pickled beets, peppercinis and pickled okra.

Yum.

Did you know that pickled foods are really good for the body? Pickled foods like those served as appetizers at our family gathering encourage the growth of positive intestinal microbes which promotes efficient digestion. So, those of us who ate all that pickled stuff started our meal in a very healthy way.

I always eat healthily. You really shouldn’t believe that four word sentence, but humor me today.

This year, Terry smoked a turkey and the flavor was fantastic.

Since we are all “from the South,” a favorite dish at the Thanksgiving table was collard greens which were picked right out of the garden a day earlier.

You don’t know anything about collards?

Collards are in the cabbage family and have large, dark-colored, edible leaves. There are many good reasons to eat collards such as they are great sources of vitamin C, soluble fiber and multiple nutrients that have potent anticancer properties.

Alyssa doesn’t like collards. I must have done something wrong in my motherhood!

Things would have gone better if I had just eaten double helpings of collards. Keep that thought in the back of your mind while you continue to read.

I usually have small portions of most of the dishes on the table, but often leave off the high carb items since they just convert to sugar. I’ve been able to control my diabetes with just food and exercise for many years and I want to keep it that way.

This year I had a lot of reasons to be thankful, so I put a little bit of everything on my plate.

(This should scream “foreshadowing” about as loud as a freight train.)

One of the most requested dishes at the holiday table is the stuffing. As you can see, there is plenty for everyone.

The stuffing was placed right in front of me on the table. I don’t think anyone else could hear it talking, but it said things like, “You know that you can’t resist me the entire meal, so just give in and cut yourself a slice. I promise I won’t raise your blood sugar or make a home on your hips and tummy. Besides, it doesn’t matter if you go outside your normal diet and cheat a little. A little more carbohydrates won’t hurt you. Believe me…you can trust me.”

Sounds tempting doesn’t it?

Well, that’s why I served myself a piece of stuffing. It was just too tempting and why not give into temptation every once and awhile? Besides, the stuffing said that it didn’t matter if I cheated on the carbohydrates just a little bit.

Do you remember that story about gullibility that I just told you? Well, this one could be the rationalizing story.

Each bite was just so very delicious. I “stuffed” all thoughts about eating too many carbs into the basement of my mind and locked the door behind me.

Next to the stuffing on my plate was a mushroom-pea-onion crunch dish. I’m sure it was calorie and carbohydrate free too and that is why I heaped a nice serving size on my plate.

I didn’t want Terry to think I didn’t appreciate all his effort in cooking the meal!

(Like I said, ra-tion-al-i-za-tion.)

A standard at any holiday meal is my mother’s candied yams topped with a billion tiny marshmallows. Since it is the only thing my mother cooked and because I was raised on this delectable dish, I couldn’t let it pass me by this year either.

I was so helpful with the yams that I watched the dish in the oven to make sure that the marshmallows browned, but didn’t burn. I guarantee that I paid very close attention to the brown factor.

The effort was well worth the time. I love yams and I had a very nice sized scoop of them at our Thanksgiving meal.

Yes, this is an obvious sugar addition, but remember what the collards said….”It doesn’t matter if I cheat on the carbohydrates just a little bit.”

Although we had other food items on the table, some with lots of carbs and some without, I stopped taking pictures because I was really hungry. I didn’t even take pictures of the two pies that my sister had baked – pumpkin and key lime. Both were topped with a generous portion of whipped cream.

Can you imagine what happened in the middle of my pie consumption?

It wasn’t a pretty sight.

My eyes closed, my head hung down and I drifted off to sleep. Isn’t that just pathetic?!

Yes, I consumed too many items that converted to sugar and whenever that happens, I get very sleepy. I did a pretty good job of fighting the whole sleep thing, but we left shortly after the pie incident.

I am so thankful that Alyssa has a driver’s license because when I have that much sugar in me, I act like a giddy drunk person. Seriously, don’t use your imagination. I am so silly.

Anyway, by the time we got home, Alyssa was laughing at me and I was barely able to drag myself to the sofa. That was pretty much the end of the night because I fell sound to sleep until 2:30 in the morning. I woke up with terrible cramps in my muscles like I had the flu which is what happens when I am a “very bad girl” with my food.

Wait! If you look at it the other way, I am a “very good girl” with my food because I ate a little of everything. Doesn’t that make me a polite guest?

No? How can you say that to me?!

After recounting this whole story, I really think that all blame rests with the stuffing. Redheads are good at tempting with food, not being tempted! The fact that I succumbed to temptation is just proof that a little “thyme” doesn’t mean that a person will make “sage” choices. It really is “parsley” the stuffing’s fault.