Good Enough to Eat Read Free Page B

squishiest, most indulgent bed they had. And then went to Bed Bath and Beyond to fit it out with down pillows and eight-hundred-thread-count sheets.”
    “That’s awesome!”
    “It was ridiculous. And I couldn’t really afford it, but I felt like I couldn’t afford not to either. Wanna know the weird thing? The bed is named Waking Hours. And at first, I wasn’t really sure why Serta would name a bed that, since the point of a bed is supposed to be sleeping hours. Except that after the first night, I wanted to spend all my waking hours in it too!”
    “And how has the sleeping been since?”
    “Better. Much better. But I’m dreaming about cakes again.”
    Never fails. Stress or sadness, my dream life is all about food. When I decided to lose the weight two years ago, I left the law and went to culinary school, and then got a degree in holistic nutrition. That’s where I met Carey. She was one of my teachers in the nutrition program. My store, Dining by Design, is a healthy gourmet take-out café, amazing food that is amazingly good for you.
    But no matter how much I feel in control of my relationship with food, my subconscious craves the habits of my former life. The days when Andrew and I would eat spaghetti carbonara as a midnight snack after sex, when there were always cookies in the cookie jar and a cake under the glass dome in the kitchen. The days when food was celebration and joy and reason for living and cure-all. A substitute for two dead parents and a little sister who lives in London and rarely calls. A replacement for the children I never got around to having, and now don’t have the energy, money, or husband to make feasible. A way to patch the holes created by a soulless job. A way to fill up that empty pit of hunger that seemed never satisfied.
    “And how do you feel about these dreams?” Carey asks. “Are they still about denial, or are you getting to eat the cakes?”
    Carey has been with me through everything, the hardest-to-lose last twenty-five pounds, the purchase and opening of the store, the surprising end of my marriage. She knows my dreams almost as well as I do.
    “I don’t get to eat the cake. I’m just in the room with the buffet, and the cakes are everywhere, and I’m loading up plates with every possible flavor, and putting them aside to take home, to eat in secret, but then there are people and I have to mingle, and then I can’t find the plates I put aside. It’s extraordinarily pathetic.”
    “Not pathetic. Natural. You’re feeling deprived, physically and emotionally. It’s February in Chicago, and your desire is for comfort food. And you’re working very hard and going home to a place you haven’t fully embraced as home yet. And you are probably a little lonely . . .”
    “And horny.” If we’re going to be honest about it.
    Carey laughs. “Of course, and horny. Will you do something for me?”
    “You know I will.”
    “Get your butt over to Sweet Mandy B’s tomorrow. Buy every flavor of their mini cupcakes that appeals to you. Go home, pour a glass of champagne, light a candle, and eat every one, slowly. Lick the crumbs off the plate; savor the different flavor combinations, the texture of the frosting. Eat until you are full, and then stop and throw the rest away. We have talked about this before; sometimes you have to eat what you crave purposefully so that you don’t fall into a binge of fog-eating.”
    “I know. And I know I’m in a dangerous spot. But you’re right, I do need to address the cake craving soon or I’m going to jump off the wagon and land in a vat of frosting and eat my way out.”
    It doesn’t matter how much I know about this process, how much I am able to counsel others, being a compulsive overeater is no different from being an alcoholic or drug addict. The only difference is that you can avoid drugs and alcohol completely and you have to have a relationship with food every day for the rest of your life. It’s actually the hardest