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The best snack in the world
Sunday, December 04, 2005

You know what I could really go for right now? A piping hot soft pretzel with cheddar cheese topping! Never mind that it's not even eight o'clock in the morning yet. For some reason, that steaming pretzel just keeps floating into my mind. I can see it and smell it. It's warm and soft. It's got just the right amount of salt sprinkled onto its golden brown surface. There's a small cup of melted cheddar cheese spread right beside the pretzel, and it's almost hot enough to burn the rough of my mouth, but not quite.

Dip the pretzel into the cheese and it pulls away from the cup just a bit. It drips in a long, slow sort of a drip back into the cup, but a smooth coating sticks to the pretzel. Pop it into my mouth and the warm floods around teeth and tongue. The cheese is smooth and just a bit sharp. The pretzel is yeasty and doughy at the same time. The sprinkle of pretzel salt sets all of the flavors buzzing. The pretzel is chewy, and my teeth can mix all of the flavors and textures together into a delightful sensation. Ready for another bite?

I often wonder about food cravings. I'd love to know where they come from and why we have them. Sometimes when I'm craving something rather strange but healthy, I think that it's my body's way of trying to balance some minor nutritional upset. Maybe it's sensing a need for more vitamin C or for more calcium or iron. And I suspect in part, that that is true. I recall vividly that during my first pregnancy, I had an almost irresistable craving for fresh broccoli nearly every day. The cooked variety just wouldn't do. It was strong enough that I would often pull into any restaurant that I knew had a salad bar, because that was about the only way to get the stuff when I was travelling. Now, that was a craving that I didn't feel a bit guilty about satisfying. After all, what could be bad about broccoli??

But this nonsense of craving junk food from time to time, like the current strong desire for a soft pretzel dipped in cheese, is just plain ridiculous. Like many, I struggle with my weight. There's too much of me as it is! And giving in to these cravings for something that really isn't so good for me doesn't help any with the battle of the bulge. But that's just what my body is fighting for right now. The craving is just as strong and just as real as the the craving for the broccoli.

And it doesn't seem to matter that the only place I know of to get that soft pretzel is the local pretzel shop at the mall, which won't be open for at least another two hours. My mouth is actually watering in anticipation, and if the mall WERE open, I would be hard put to keep from getting into the car (in the middle of this heavy snow) and heading over just to get that pretzel.

So actually, I'm thankful right now for the time of day, and for the snow, and for the fact that hot pretzels, for me, only can come from that one store in the mall. Yes, I know you can purchase them frozen and keep them on hand, but then where would I be? I strongly suspect that if they were here and readily available, I would eat more of them than I should.

So I'll grit my teeth, and get ready for church here in a few minutes. Hopefully this craving will pass now that I've devoured my imaginary pretzel and can move on with my life. I'll get a bit of real breakfast (probably boring but relatively healthy cereal), then go to church and put my mind on other things.

And imaginary pretzels aren't really so bad. They're always the right temperature and texture, and they're never stale. Best of all, they have very few calories!!

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