See this here? I ate that whole thing the other day. And I will not feel guilty about it.

I had an amazing girl’s night out this week with my most fashionable girlfriends to an amazing dinner at Laudree in Soho. Yes they’re known for their macaroons, but they also have a gorgeous bar and outdoor garden where they serve a full menu, breakfast through dinner. The ladies and I sat outside under the night air sipping wine and Champagne and laughing. Then we shuttled over the Mondrian Hotel and danced up a storm while our friend DJ Kiss spun a deep groove set list. Hair was swinging, booties were shaking. I hadn’t danced like that since prom.

But on Thursday, I was hurting. Maybe it was all the hair swinging. Okay, it was the wine. And Champagne. And what was that I drank that was served in that round martini glass? Gin something? Anyway. To feel better, I ate the largest bagel sandwich stacked with cream cheese, red onion and alfalfa sprouts I could stuff into a Tupperware. I love bagels, but my 20 year old metabolism could digest them faster than my mid 30 something one. A full day later, the bagel  sat in my stomach, anchored to my digestive track.

I was going to write a post about how I felt guilty about eating that bagel, and wasn’t going to eat any sandwiches all weekend. But I paused. Why should I feel guilty? It’s a bagel. It’s not pureed carrots out of my child’s mouth. And it was delicious.

Though I cook my fair share of grilled cheeses and steak sandwiches and burgers for this blog, overall I’m a healthy eater. Most mornings I have a Greek yogurt topped with berries, mint, chopped pecans and dark chocolate nibs. I avoid white flour. I drink almond milk instead of whole milk. And yes, I do that annoying thing with my girlfriends where I text in a fit of Lululemon-yoga-pant-wearing guilt “I feel horrible. I ate CARBS today!!!”

But that’s not a healthy perspective on food.

If I, a food blogger, cannot enjoy all foods, then what am I doing? Yes, eating healthy is ideal. But a bagel isn’t going to kill me. It might keep me full for a while, but then I’ll have a salad for dinner. Big deal.

I shouldn’t feel guilty about enjoying food. Anybody who writes about food should not feel guilty about enjoying food.  Live a little. Eat the bagel. Enjoy the bagel. Celebrate the bagel. Don’t eat five bagels in a sitting, and your hips will be fine. Besides, if I cooked and wrote about macrobiotic greens and gluten free bread all of the time, E, and you, would be painfully bored.

That bagel above? Made for a great sandwich that I enjoyed after a fantastic night out with girlfriends. I savored every bite of that bagel, because it came in response to a need for carbs after cocktails and dancing with the girls. What better reason to eat a bagel?

That is all.

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