Sweet Treats

I am a lover of most all things sweet! I was born with a sweet-tooth, I think. I come by it honestly and can tell you that my mother has also got a terrible affinity for sweets. Blessedly, I have learned some great "tricks" to allow me to continue to include these in my diet on a regular basis...

Last night, I had a date with my favorite partner...my little sister. She's ten and an absolute light in my life. I adore her and everyone (including her) knows it! For our date night, we decided to head up to the town square and walk around, grabbing a small dinner and (the highlight!) dessert.

There are lots of restaurants to choose from on the square, but not so many that cater to the tastes of a picky ten year old. But pizza always works! We hit Marietta Pizza Company, the best pizza place in town (www.mariettapizza.com), and shared a slice. We'd had a late lunch and the slices are easily enough to share! And at $2.12, she's a cheap date.

Then it was off to the piece de resistance, ice cream! In Georgia, August is prime ice cream time and we are certainly experiencing that late summer heat. There's a fantastic little ice cream joint here in town called Sweet Treats (www.sweettreats.com) that serves ice cream and frozen yogurt with mix-ins of your choosing. Start with vanilla or chocolate and add in fruit, cookies, candy, cake, marshmallows, peanut butter, coconut, and "adult" flavors such as rum or Kahlua. They even have some spices to mix in for variety.

Best of all, they mix these goodies in using an amazing contraption that looks a lot like a miniature replica of this giant drill that I saw on educational television. The drill was used to dig through the ground to find precious metals. This tiny version goes up and down into a stainless cone with a hole at the bottom, the drill mixes the ice cream and all of the goodies together. This makes it so special for a kid! I want to operate this machine...okay, I'm a kid too.

After much discussion, my little sis ordered up banana and chocolate chip mixed into vanilla ice cream. I requested vanilla also with cheesecake and cinnamon. They were delicious! Creamy and bursting with flavor. The ice cream was melting quickly as we strolled through the park, so we had to eat quickly between laughing stories shared. We found a bench and ate our treat as we watched the other people enjoying the park...I think that nearly everyone had ice cream too.

So, how do I work this kind of thing into my diet? The secret is... (drum roll, please) portion control. I got a child's cup. The child's cup was easily 1/2 the size of the adult portion, but was more than enough to satisfy my craving for something sweet. I do this with nearly all of my sweet treats...individually wrapped dark chocolate squares instead of candy bars and cupcakes instead of cake are just two other examples. There is no reason that eating healthy should mean deprivation of the things that you love. It just means moderation...a good principal for all things in life.