BariatricEating.com Health & Nutrition
Bariatric Recipes
We’re always cooking!
While I was choosing and testing recipes for Christmas, my Aunt Gail came down to Florida to visit us. She is also a Food Network watching, Bon Appetite magazine reading chowhound, and we had a great time reminiscing over funny family stories, the celebrations, and the food. She soaked up the sun on our beautiful Florida beach during the day while I worked at the BariatricEating.com warehouse, but when I came home we sat in my kitchen, laughed, shared stories and cooked. As we bounced from one family memory to another, it dawned on me that when we talk about family so many of our memories center on our holidays.
How could any of us think of Grandma Helen and not immediately think about the meatballs, the cauldron-like pots of spaghetti sauce, the trays of baked ziti, the cheesecakes; the holiday meals we all shared while crowded around the formica table in her small kitchen in the house on Washington Place? We lost my beautiful Grandma last year at age 94, but the very week before she left this earth my brother John called me to tell me that he and his family had Sunday dinner at her house that she shares with my lovely Aunt Mickey.
The
first thing John told me about his visit, was that Grandma made a pot
of sauce, and how good her meatballs still were. We had yet another conversation
about how we all used the same ingredients yet no one can make them taste
quite like hers. John’s son Alec, loves Great Grandma’s meatballs; so we have yet another generation that thinks meatball when they think of the beautiful lady with the grey eyes and snow white hair.
I love holidays. No matter how busy, I know that a holiday gives me the excuse to take a break and spend time with my family or friends who are my new extended family. The rest of the year it is easy to put these important relationships on a back burner, but during special celebrations the people I love come to the forefront.
Celebrate your good fortune and good health and remember you are making new memories to go with your new post-op bariatric life. Take compliments with grace and gratitude. A simple thank you will suffice when someone makes a fuss about your weight loss; don’t point out your fat thighs or show them the skin hanging from your arms.
Focus on how far we have come and the mountains we have conquered rather
than how much of the journey remains. Remember that happiness is a journey,
not a destination. Don’t be miserable and dwell on foods you can’t
eat at family gatherings; be positive and focus on all the wonderful flavors
and foods you can enjoy with the people that you love.
Don’t be sad that you can’t have the spaghetti; be thrilled
you can enjoy the meatballs!
Prepare a few of these wonderful dishes to share with your friends and
family and remember to Live, Love, and Eat!
Ciao,
Susan Maria
Recipes and selected excerpts from Before & After… Living &
Eating Well After Weight Loss Surgery with 100 Low Carb, High Protein
Recipes for a Healthier, Happier, and Slimmer You. Copyright © 2007
by Susan Maria Leach www.BariatricEating.com, HarperCollins Publishers
Inc. all rights reserved. Available everywhere books are sold!
