A balanced diet is a piece of chocolate in each hand

Without a doubt, I’m getting old when my idea of sin is having coffee with a couple of pieces of cranberry fudge for breakfast.

Why must we qualify our pleasures, sinful or not?  Why can’t we just hang loose and laugh in the face of porridge convictions? It seems stolen pleasures are more delectable. Perhaps that is why, in my mind, I made my fudge a sin – it made it more delectable, though heaven knows it was tasty enough already.

Many others wiser than me have touted the necessity of balance in one’s life.   The middle road, or as some might call it “the way” is a balance between something called yin and yang a.k.a. the masculine and the feminine; the dark and the light. Well my fudge was definitely dark and at a squeeze the cranberries might be considered light, so there!  I had it already. Yin and yang in one heavenly bite.

Our eldest happened to cruise in that very morning looking for breakfast as I was munching on the aforementioned fudge. He poured himself a bowl of cereal, only to be informed the only milk we had was something called “Rice Dream”. Cereal went back in the box.  Looking quite put out, he then asked, “We got any bread for toast?”

“Er, no.”

“Okay. Let’s see now, no milk, no toast. Just what do you suggest, mom?”

“Fudge,” I mouthed through sticky teeth, licking my fingers carefully.

“Fudge,” he repeated with flat disbelief. “You’re giving me fudge for breakfast. Mom. I’m a growing teenager. I need meat. I need carbohydrates.”

“There are cranberries in the fudge”, I retorted calmly. “I know they’re good for you.

“Whatever happened to the tofu and beets?” he said, scrambling himself a couple of eggs. I think he might have been referring to my yang period where I snuck sensible food into most treats I gave the children, such as popsicles coloured with beet juice, or tofu sweetened with honey and a shake of vanilla, served as pudding. The list goes on.  No, this was now my yin period.  It was time to swing the pendulum just a little to the left to keep balance.

I answered with a smile, “This is your new evil mom.”

Eggs cooked, our son returned the smile and sat down with a plate of scrambled eggs, a glass of orange juice – and a piece of cranberry fudge.