But then, it changed -- and food was most definitely NOT my
friend. Being a pudgy kid, I
resolved, as a teenager, to never have that problem, again. I’d sooner starve than gain back the
weight I lost when I was fifteen -- over 40 pounds in six months, it was. I thought I was doing pretty
great. Sure, I couldn’t focus,
couldn’t shake the headaches, needed to sleep a lot. My stomach hurt, too.
I filled myself with diet sodas (like my favorite, TAB), broths, tomato
juices, sauerkraut juice, coffee and tea with skim milk and Sweet ‘n’ Low. I allowed myself 600 calories a day, if
that, and no meat at all. This was
my vegetarian period. Speaking of
which, around this time, I stopped getting my period.
I’d go into Richer’s bakery at the Marathon Parkway service
road to the Long Island Expressway with my dad on Sunday mornings, when he’d
buy a box of bakery treats for mom, Carrie, and me, I came face to face with
the enemy: velvety cheesecakes topped with strawberries, blueberries or
cherries; sumptuous Charlotte Russe with the little turbaned tops, maraschino
cherry-kissed; German chocolate, glazed bundt, banana-maple walnut cakes;
inch-thick black and white butter cookie disks, five inches in diameter;
pastel-iced petit-fours, seven-layer Viennese tortes ten inches high, twelve
inches across. Displayed there
also, in the bakery case, were blueberry muffins done to a moist, tawny,
sugar-dusted magnificence, and one-serving strawberry shortcakes so compelling
to the eye that the tastebuds of even the most devoted of aesthetes could but
groan with desire.
My favorite treat, though, were the Richer’s bran muffins,
baked with molasses and extra amounts of plump black raisins. They were square in shape, about three
inches in diameter. I allowed
myself this treat once a week -- and it substituted as a meal. These muffins could easily be cut into
small, bite-sized pieces and slowly eaten, in solitude. I’d start by cutting the muffin in
half. Then, I’d make three cuts
across the top, and another three cuts the other way so that I’d wind up with
18 delicious little bites of the most decadent bran muffins, ever. Some Sundays, when I was really hungry,
I’d make four intersecting cuts across the top, making me a total of 32 little
bites.
Then I’d chew, slowly, washing it down with a large iced
coffee with Cremora and Sweet ‘n’ Low.
I’d read sections of The Sunday
New York Times, in my basement room, secretly snacking on my prize -- that
amazing molasses raisin bran muffin from Richer’s. I was leery of anybody watching me eat because I thought
they were making fun of me, talking about me. . . eating seemed revolting to me
while I actually did revel in the occasional guilty pleasure.
It was easy, weighing 85 pounds, having one’s “cake” and
eating it, too. . . if only my damned head didn’t hurt so much!
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