favorite things: the BANANAS edition

Behold the Yonanas.

Hi friends!

I have this somewhat-quixotic dream for my wedding diet. In it I will eliminate bread, pasta, dessert and booze, go to the gym six times a week and get nine hours of legitimate beauty rest a night.

Um.

This week I went to Trufflepalooza at 10 PM on Monday night, gorged on an overstuffed grilled cheese at The Green Table for lunch and housed lobster macaroni and cheese at The Seafire Grill on Tuesday, and last night ate my weight in smoked gouda mac and cheese (leftovers packed for lunch today, obviously), sticky date pudding and steak at Arlington Club. Friday I have a fondue party, Saturday we're going to a wedding with what promises to be delicious food, and Sunday is our Superbowl party. The menu for that so far includes fried chicken (making it from scratch for the first time, hope my neighbors like fire alarms!) aaaand beer.

So, yeah. That's how the wedding diet is going. This was a particularly Henry VIII stretch of days. I would like to point out that most weeks I attempt to be healthy for at least one to two meals out of the day. Dinner's kind of a free for all, I won't lie. When I get invited to fun media dinners and they have truffles and cheese and chocolate pudding, I'm just physically unable to say no. What if this is the best chocolate pudding in New York and I leave without tasting it? And then everyone keeps talking about it and I have to explain that no, I didn't try it because I was trying to be healthy, but all that resulted in was feelings of shame and abandonment for not sampling the chocolate wonder. I can't let that happen. Mike has tried the chicken at The Nomad and I still haven't and I'm upset about it probably once a day.

But there is a bright light at the end of this tunnel! Well, two, actually. The first, dimmer, less exciting light is that my wedding is still over five months away. My new plan is start actually eating healthy for all three (or four or five) meals every day about 8-12 weeks before the big day. I'll also note here that I am going to the gym about five times a week which is hopefully counteracting some of the cheese blimps I've been scarfing. More on exercise in another installment.

The finished product. Photo: lunchboxbunch.com

The brighter, happier and tastier light is Yonanas. Mike, ever the attentive fiance, noticed how much I freaked out every time I saw an infomercial for it and bought one as a quasi-gag gift as one of my Christmas presents last year. You guys: it's AWESOME. All you do is buy bananas, let them get ripe, peel them and freeze them. Then, you stick the whole banana into the machine (which is quite loud, probably the only drawback) and watch with wide-eyes as it purees the banana into something resembling and tasting like vanilla soft serve. Bananas transform into something magical when frozen and pureed and make an excellent vehicle for adding other flavors. You can put chocolate, frozen berries or mangos, add a few shakes of cinnamon or a dollop on honey ... the limit does not exist.

Basically, now when I get a sweet craving, I grab a banana (we keep some in the freezer pretty regularly) and have a lovely bowl of something resembling ice cream within a few minutes. No added sugar, cream or anything else. This may be a baby step toward an actual healthy diet, but it's a delicious one. And it's a favorite thing.