We negotiated a bit; she had to eat some melon to round out her meal. But in the end, I pronounced her treat-worthy.
I climbed onto the step-stool and got down The Candy Bag, which is a familial collection of treats. And lo, I realized some of those treats had been in the bag since last Halloween. And in the back of the cupboard, behind the candy bag, I found two boxes of Hershey's bars, leftover from the cousins' reunion we hosted in June 2007.
Apparently, our candy cabinet is where candy goes to die.
It sounds noble, doesn't it? Candy doesn't get eaten at our house. We're simply too busy munching on carrots and hummus (which is true) and apples and soy nuts (also true) to mess with it.
But that's not the whole story. The truth is, candy isn't my thing. A bag of M&Ms holds no allure for me. (Unless they are peanut butter M&Ms. I can handle a few of those.) Candy bars are too big and too sweet. Even grown-up candy like squares of dark-chocolate Ghiradelli don't do much for me.
But these?
Donuts?
Oh baby.
They SCREAM my name. Especially homemade old-fashioneds. They pull me in, like little circles of seduction -- crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, freckled with nutmeg and cinnamon and dusted with powdered sugar. The perfect match to a cup of dark Sumatra with toffee nut cream.
In fact, if you take my donuts away, I might feel a little like Teyla when I was taking these pictures.
"What do you mean I can't have another one?"
"Bbbbut. But. I .... like them. And they like me! You can't take them away!"
"You're so mean! Waaaaa!"
I guess the good news is, I know my weakness. So I don't make or buy donuts all that often. (And, strangely enough, the Twin Cities have no donut stores -- no Dunkins, no Tim Horton's, no Krispy Kremes.) I don't trust myself to stay strong in the face of fried dough. Better to avoid the enticement and be the weaker brother than to pretend I'm strong enough to handle the allure and end up eating six donuts a day.
So how about you? What's your temptation?
