Guilt

I should have baked today. I could have baked today. I virtually promised that I would bake today. Yet I did not. Normally, it is deeply satisfying to bake on a Sunday. It’s as if you are storing up for the week: here’s the bread (more likely cake) that’ll see us through in the tough days ahead. And by Sunday night all the reject croissants that I haul in from L’Etoile are pretty much gone. There is a breadbox in the kitchen, but it stands empty.

Perhaps this low/no carb era that we are living through is at the bottom of the baking inertia that has overcome me. I know and understand that the act of baking is sinfully bad and I am only providing unnecessary carbs for those who would rather see themselves with a steak and an egg than with a piece of raspberry tart with a dark chocolate crème patisserie or a flourless chocolate cassis cake (that has one third of a cup of the dark currant liqueur and half a pound of bittersweet Ghirardelli). So I buy the fresh currants for decoration, but I neglected to bake the cake.

I remind myself that the low carb craze isn’t new. Back in the 60s, during my first brush with ‘dieting,’ I picked up this booklet (for a mere $.35):


reading material from 1965 

On the first page I read:


the motivating introduction 

Did people really once diet on sauerkraut juice? The fashion surrounding food consumption is truly remarkable. At least I know all this will pass. And in the meantime, I am definitely going to bake. Tomorrow.