Ed Levine's Serious Diet, Week 12: A Prayer for a Real Treat Is Answered
When you're dieting, real treats are important. How do I define a real treat? Something that makes your eyes grow big as plates when you peel or unwrap it. Something crazy good that doesn't break the bank calorie-wise (less than 200 calories) and that doesn't send you into a guilt-induced food coma. Something creamy, crunchy, and delicious (for me it's something that's also chocolaty). Something substantial enough to savor through a full half-inning of the new baseball season.
A sweet-and-spicy though not very juicy Golden Nugget Mandarin orange, my current favorite citrus fruit, is delicious, wonderful even, but it's not a treat. A perfectly ripe banana with lots of light brown speckles on its skin is a beautiful thing, but it's not a treat. A small bag of lower fat baked potato chips doesn't qualify as a treat either, because although they might be perfectly fine, they're not the real thing, and I know exactly what I'm missing in every pleasant but not great bite.
Until last week I had never found a treat that fit all my criteria, until a plain white box was delivered to our door at Serious Eats that was literally the answer to my prayers.
