wedding diet: dessert without the guilt

Chocolate mousse from Vegan Divas. Photo credit: vegandivasnyc.com

Happy Monday, my friends! Here at JGM headquarters we had quite the eventful weekend: a gorgeous wedding for our amazing and talented friends Meghan and Dom in New Jersey on Saturday, a massive meeting with our wedding paper friends at The Village Invites on Sunday afternoon and a celebratory (for what, I'm not sure. I'll think of a reason) dinner with my good friend, rigatoni alla vodka at Carbone.

(I say "friends" so much because I went to Quaker school.)

As I've mentioned before, eventually, I'm going into wedding diet mode. Right now, I'm in carb free-for-all and it is pre-lapsarian bliss. But what goes up, must eventually come down and I'm trying to ready myself for a life of two months without artisanal penne, wood-fired pizza crusts, and banana cream pudding. I have been jokingly telling Mike that he better not divorce me before the wedding when I'm hangry (hungry  + angry, natch) 100 percent of my waking hours. But secretly, I think he's looking into annulment options.

But today, my dears, a small break in the rain clouds. Whilst doing our weekly shopping at Agata & Valentina (my absolute favorite spot for produce in the city now), a small pot of pudding caught my eye in the checkout aisle. Chocolate mousse in a single serving container? My heart says yes, but nay, not with my moratorium on sugar. But wait! It's vegan! That probably means it tastes like smoked tofu in hay ash and not in the good way the way Noma can do it (that's a straight up brag, kids, no humble).

Upon further inspection, however, the entire pot of mousse from Vegan Divas is only 42 calories. I think that's because it's actually predominately made of tofu, but whatever, for 42 calories if it tastes like a hair ball, really no harm done. So, upon getting back from Carbone, where in addition to the aforementioned alla vodka we wolfed down meatballs, chicken, hearts of palm, and bacon and cream with a little bit of escarole, I tore off the lid and sampled a bit. Mike looked at me with a mixture of pride and disgust, but I'm getting kind of used to that. [Side note: I swear there must be something on that Y chromosome that can satiate men before eating dessert. I shall find such gene and make millions.]

So, good news! This shit is legit: it's rich, chocolatey, and does not smack of tofu. It's also super thick, enough so that I ate about half of it (21 calories!) and was done. Mike, who legitimately hates vegans, is eating the rest of it right now while he writes RGIII fan fiction [Mike would like me to add that he is in fact NOT writing RGIII fan fiction but is actually looking up poetry for our wedding ceremony. That is the absolute truth and this is why I love him]. Everyone is happy! And, even though I said no dessert during my wedding hunger strike, 20 calories to keep me from going bananas (pun kind of intended), seems a more than reasonable compromise.

I have yet to try anything else from this Vegan Divas place (I like neither of those nouns), but they do have a brick-and-mortar store on the Upper East Side. If anyone has been and has recommendations, do let me know. This company may be the difference between life or death for the next two months.