If I would go to the grocery store, I'm sure I'd get caught up in the spirit of the holidays seeing all the special foods and shoppers buying them up. I always get a kick out of seeing the out of town children or parents grocery shopping with their local family members, looking for those special ingredients for that knock-em-dead recipe that will wow the family. Sometimes these ingredients are not available here, so there is anguish.

But I'm not going to the grocery store. I've got the makings for Christmas dinner already at home. It's not going to be real fancy, but my guests aren't very sophisticated.

Tomorrow I will make a pie crust. I have some Pillsbury refrigerated gluten free pie crust dough, and made a test pie one crust pie with it. It doesn't taste or act like real pie crust at all, and I don't see the point of it, other than it has an edge that resembles a pie shell. I shudder to think what it would be like for a top crust.

But if you've ever been on a restricted diet, you know that you can reach a point where you just forget about what the real thing tastes like and judge the substitute on its own merits: if it tastes good, make it again, if not, then resign yourself to never not having that food again, or very very seldom.

I just read a list of foods that are just about guaranteed to make us fat: potato chips (and potatoes), pasta, sugar substitute, high fructose corn syrup and regular corn syrup, red meat, processed meats, and the list I was reading said several times that whole wheat is not the same as whole grains - I just looked it up, and sounds like you might as eat white flour if you're eating whole wheat flour. It's always something, isn't it? We achieve some level of what we think we were told to do, and it's not good enough, there's always the next plateau of healthy eating.

However, Christmas is not the time to for most of us to worry about this nutrition stuff. Our days are numbered, we just don't know what the number is going to be, so it's more important to enjoy family time and don't ruin the party for everyone else by whining about your dietary issues.

If there's something you don't eat, just shut up and pick around until you find something you can eat. And if you are positive there will be nothing for you, then bring your own food. It looks better if you bring enough to share (maybe you'll convert someone to your point of view), or you can bring just enough for yourself. I'm sure this latter undertaking won't make you look like someone who eats such strange food nobody else would want to touch it. Hah!



See? I made a little scene here - a camel driver in the forest with his camels.