Day 13, Saturday: In Which Our Heroine Passes the Test of Michael and Susan's House

Breakfast: Turkey burger and rainbow chard
Lunch: Green apple and nut butter. When trying to reconstruct what I ate, I actually could not remember what this meal was, it was so boring. I had to sit here wracking my brain.
Dinner: At my brother-in-law's. We had deviled eggs, baked chicken, portobello mushroom, and spinach. Yummo.

My in-laws, Michael and Susan and their kids, are a whole story in and of themselves. I adore them. Their house is a big food trigger for me, because they make excellent baked goods, we spend every Thanksgiving there, and the crazy hijinks that ensue when hubby and his brother get together make me very feckless. That family is full of eaters, which is part of why I fit right in when I married into it (the other part is that I like shouting). I generally eat whatever the hell I want at their house, and there's always plenty of it. Dessert has many courses. At a typical gathering we'll have the following: regular cake. Ice cream cake. Cookies. Ambrosia.* Coffee cake. That's AFTER a huge meal with plenty of hors d'oeuvres! My sister-in-law, Susan, and I both adore dessert. She makes one of my all time favorite desserts: CREAM PUFFS. They're insane! The "puff" part is crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside (ah, gluten). The "cream" part includes jell-o pudding (ah, dairy).

My brother Michael Magenta is an amazing writer. My favorite work of his is a short play called "3-3-3-1-1-1". But I am also very fond of a show he wrote and performs called "Fat Selfish Bastard". Michael has plenty of his own issues with food that he unpacks with humor and pathos in that show. If you want to see it, keep an eye on my FB--I post links to his performances. All of which is to say that when he invited us over for dinner, I knew I could tell him that we're avoiding sugar. Sure enough, the minute, the minute we walked in the door, he presented us with a plate of Detox-approved deviled eggs! That's a supportive family member. Then he served us grilled chicken, portobello mushrooms and spinach. It was fantastic and I had two helpings.

Then...things went downhill. Susan and Lauren, my niece, decided to make chocolate chip cookies for a hike they were taking the next day. They negotiated, in excruciating detail, all the various ways you can make chocolate chip cookies. What kind of sugar to use, what kind of flour, how to load them onto the cookie sheet so that they come out perfect. Then they made them, and you know that there's two factors at play when you're resisting chocolate chip cookies: resisting the dough, and resisting the cookies after they're made. Shockingly, I DID NOT EAT ANY.

...So then when I got home I rewarded myself with a paleo milkshake at like 10:30 at night. Technically you're only supposed to have one piece of fruit a day on the Detox, and the banana in the milkshake made two. But honestly, resisting those cookies was absolute torture, so I give myself an enormous pass on the two fruits thing and celebrate my cookie resistance. I can't believe I did it! It didn't help that hubby had one. He stood right in front of me and shoved it all in at once, licking his fingers and saying "Mmmmmmm! Yummy!", and later told me that it was probably one of the best chocolate chip cookies he'd ever had. Thanks honey!

*Have you ever had ambrosia? Okay, I'm going to describe it, and I know that if you've never had it, you'll think it sounds disgusting. But it's fantastic! Ingredients: minimarshmallows. Sour cream. Mandarin oranges. Pineapple. Shredded coconut. Mix it all up and snarf it all down! I went to a party at Michael and Susan's once and I ate six plates of this stuff. Now I realize that I was basically mainlining sugar. Such good times!