Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die

I give up. I’m trying to write an essay about Buddhist perspectives on abortion and euthanasia, but my mind or my stomach or my tastebuds keep making a break for Friday’s potluck (this is known in Buddhism as Wrong Concentration, or in my version of the eightfold path, Right Priority). I’m on dessert duty, and find myself in the midst of a delicious dilemma: which one of these should I make?

1) Carrot coconut cake with cream cheese & white chocolate icing (also contains pineapple, walnuts, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice, plus the usual workhorse ingredients like flour, baking powder, etc.); or
2) Bayou chocolate torte with bourbon and dark Belgian chocolate. Usually I don’t like chocolate and liquor together, but this one contains lots of eggs and butter so I’m willing to make an exception. Oh, I almost forgot the pièce de résistance, a raspberry-Grand Marnier coulis that’s drizzled on top of the torte. Résistance is almost futile, save for that sublime carrot being dangled in front of me.

I’m indecisive at the best of times, but when it comes to weighty issues I dither and dather and blither and blather. Before I end up as a Dr. Suessian character, please help me decide.

16 comments:

Sabine said...

Let's have both.

Helen said...

Glutton. (My favourite kind of person :) ).

Helen said...

And no, that's not a double chin with a badly trimmed goatee.

pk said...

it's a double chin with a big red pimple from eating too much chocolate cake: there is no such thing as a sublime carrot; that's the carrot of Damocles hanging over your head.

Helen said...

That might have made a great Bugs Bunny cartoon.

Deloney said...

What would Buddha do
do da
do da
what would Buddha do
oh do da day

Indigo Bunting said...

Having never had a carrot coconut cake, I'm rather intrigued there...

Helen said...

The Buddha would probably have made a tofu and kale concoction...

Deloney said...

I would have thought he'd get Mrs. Buddha to do the cooking, or maybe one of the workshop elves.

Helen said...

Silly, he was a monk. There was no Mrs. Buddha in the back- or foreground. And he didn't exploit elves, unlike that facially hirsute man in the red suit.

pk said...

well he didn't have a job, did he, so he must have been exploiting someone....

Helen said...

He was self-employed (spiritual guidance counsellor).

Helen said...

But now that I think about it, what is the job connection? Wouldn't that mean that children, seniors, and cats and dogs are exploiting someone?

pk said...

dogs definitely,and even more especially cats; they are like French aristocrats before the revolution. children, even more so, Bourbons all.

Sabine said...

Sorta related, I still haven't made pumpkin cookies. I did buy the pumpkin, though.

Helen said...

You mean an actual pumpkin? Or a great canned pumpkin?