Happy National Carbohydrate Day!

Welcome to my coffee shop on the Information Superhighway!

Today, have some pumpkin pie with your black forest cake!

I hope everyone is either eating or watching football…or the parade or enjoying a day with your family! Maybe you’re taking a break to read a blog between your appetizer meal and the main meal before the dessert meal! Okay and maybe you’re reading before bed or on Friday morning in lieu of Black Friday shopping. (In which case, I’m honored!) Today in America is the day the American Diabetes Association shudders because even the people who’ve heeded the warnings all year, forget about them today and gorge themselves on stuffing and mashed potatoes, winter squash, corn and peas. Even green beans eaten today are prepared with carb-enriched cream soup and breaded onions on top.

And so, it should be.

This is a day to be thankful and that includes being thankful that we have the abundance of rich filling foods and that we have the education available to know they aren’t foods we should eat in those portions every day and thankful that there are available professionals in the health field to warn us and care for us if we don’t heed the warnings.

And our collective blood sugar and stress on our hearts from overeating skyrockets together today. And for most of us it will be normal again by the weekend. And for that, we are thankful too! Today, I am thankful that my husband has a fairly secure job, fair compensation for working on a holiday and that I didn’t get married until I was secure in my own skin and enjoyed my alone-time!

Yes, David is working today. I think I made that possible because it was my idea to just stay home on Thanksgiving this year and have a just-us holiday. That made him in-town and available when they needed someone to fill the shift. Well, it’s not like anyone else is depending on us being somewhere. He’s picking up a carry-out Thanksgiving meal on the way home and we’re celebrating “Orthodox Thanksgiving” next week when he has a mid-week day off. We have a habit of celebrating holidays a week late lately. Yanno, this started with we originally had planned to get married on December 18, not the 23rd. There was freezing rain on the 18th; one more reason I’m glad we eloped! Hehe

I have enjoyed my National Carbohydrate Day though. David picked up a bread order for me at Panera yesterday. I am really not a huge carbohydrate nut, well, except for the carbs in chocolate. Coming from Italian roots, I probably eat more pasta now than I did as an adult before David and I got together. I like the red sauce and I always called my Mom’s and Noni’s sauces Italian Chili because I liked them fine in a cup without pasta. Since I was scolded for eating it that way, I found I prefer a good sauce over roasted vegetables than pasta. As much as I was used to seeing the loaf of crusty bread get eaten with the pasta growing up, I’ve never been a bread fan either, except…

Italian Toast

with Panera Tomato Basil bread

I love, I mean LOVE, Panera Bread’s Tomato Basil bread. I always got a loaf for Thanksgiving and it was the only time all year I had it unless I got it on a Panera sandwich because it only comes in extra-large loaves and even on Thanksgiving Grandma would eat a slice on Friday and Mom would eat a slice on Friday and I was the only one that ate it on Thursday when it was still nice and soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside. I think I was just the only one who really appreciated it at its best. So the Tomato Basil bread is my weakness, big time weakness. Today, I’ve had two thick slices for a snack; it’s SO good toasted with a little butter! And I had two slices of Italian Toast. That’s the photo; two slices cooked with egg and milk like French toast with Barilla tomato basil sauce and a little Parmesan. This would usually be Saturday lunch, but in a strange reversal this year, I’ll enjoy the Tomato Basil bread before turkey. It was an awesome lunch and I’m still appropriately carbed up and almost uncomfortably full like a good thankful American. It’s not a food coma, but I’ll be stuffing a turkey Wednesday!

For now, I’m going to continue to be thankful for the good things I have, that we all have. How good, really good, do we have it if we can even use a tern like “food coma?”

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!