Emeril Lagasse the Bathing Beauty

Well the first major indulgent feast of the season has come and gone, and lemme tell you...I found myself slightly sinking a bit in the pool the other day. Oh, yeah, baby. I was like a beached Emeril Lagasse by the end of my attempts at paddling about for twenty minutes. But it was truly worth it for the amount of true yumminess that occured over my visit to Prescott for Thanksgiving.

So let me talk about food for a sec here....cause I am, after all, a consumate foodie.

When Jason and I arrived in Prescott we had dinner at Taj Mahal with my mom, sister and Grammie. Now Jason is not a big Indian food guy. Guess I just ate it so much growing up, plus living in England so long...well, I just CANNOT contain myself when there is Chicken Tikka Masala and garlic naan and the like. So Fatty Magee here had to not only be the only person who ordered a FULL DINNER, but also ate off of EVERYONE ELSE'S PLATES! Oh yeah. It was sooooo good! Lamb Naan, Veggie Pakora, Meat Samosas, Matar Panir, Tandoori Chicken, Pulao Rice and a massive piping hot bucket like Chicken T.M.! You can see I am slightly enthused.

Of course the joy was replaced with unbuttoned jeans and the panicky realization that I had already probably consummed the amount of food that any normal person would imbibe throughout the entire weekend.

"OH GOD! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! I am gonna get up and do this ALL OVER AGAIN!" GUILT GUILT GUILT! "Ahhhhh.....quick let me go for a run!" I thought.

Yeah right. We opened some wine and sat back an luxuriated in our gluttony.

So as is tradition at my mom's house, I was in charge of the holiday feast. You see my mom just does not cook. Never has really. I grew up knowing all the restaurants in Prescott intimately. I could recite menus by heart, knew the names of all the waitstaff in the tri-city area, and even learned spanish as a child from the busboys. In fact, my step-father actually met my mom at El Chapparell, where he was working part time as a server. Perhaps all of this exposure to professionally prepared food encouraged me to learn to cook...an eat. Whatever the case may be, it seems that I am now always the one cooking for my family.

And damn did I cook!!! It was awesome. I made a citrus stuffed turkey with an herb compound butter, some serious sausage and mushroon cornbread stuffing, quinoa with roasted red pepper and pinon nuts, homemade applesauce, garlic bacon mashed potatoes, and spicy jalepeno cranberry sauce. And some other stuff. I can't remember. I am stuffed just thinking about it.

So of course for the next few days we managed to stuff ourselves senseless. I didn't really think about "dieting" vs "over-indulging" really. The wine flowed freely. Jason and I went out with a friend and had fondue and other things that I really shouldn't have due to my allergies, but it was all in the "spirit of the holiday." I didn't realize how much I over did it until the night before we left when I couldn't get to sleep due to the most intense heartburn I have ever had.

Getting back into the swing of things has not been easy and I was only gone for five days or so. I am not leaping out of bed to go swimming at 8am, as I was the week before the adventure into pigginess. I seem to be reverting back to old habits, ie: sitting in front of the Food Network with a glass of wine watching Emeril Live! all evening, spending too much money on eating out and not making it to the gym, yoga or a damn walk in the woods. All of this just leads me to a conclusion I have, to be honest, already suspected for a long time.

I have NO moderation.

It has either been one way or the other with me for so long. Either uber-healthy psycho-workout chick or hedonistic glutton. In the past I was popping cracked out diet pills and beating the shit out of myself running etc, which will last maybe a week, and then binging like red-neck faced with an all-you-can-eat chinese buffet. It seems when I was being made, someone was sleeping on the job and forgot to give me that little temperance switch.

I guess as my dad and Nike say I just have to "do it." Give myself that switch. I can pig out on Indian food as long as I make sure I get to yoga in the morning. I can cook all the lovely rich gourmet foods I like, but I have to find a way to make them "figure friendly" as the ridiculous Rachel Ray says. And if I slip into a Paula Dean-esque butter and cream overload, I better get my ass up early and put in a few more miles on that treadmill. The important thing I think is to still enjoy your life. Eat, Drink and Be Merry....and go for a hike afterward.