New Year Resolutions

Being someone who enjoys enhancing, rather than restricting her life, I haven’t been known to make new years resolutions. Often when prompted by my best friend who every year manages somehow to flex her will power removing something (chocolate once for a whole year!) from her life, I will manage to conjure something up, only to forget the moment I make the commitment. This year however I am inspired.

After returning to work for a short week after the Christmas break, and reaching that point in the afternoon where a little pick me up snack is required (as I had grown used to the all day fetive nibbling) I popped out to the Tesco Metro near my office. Eating gluten free doesn’t make impromptu snacking particularly easy, as the biscuits, cakes etc I tend to favour are a no go. Obviously I can eat plain and some flavoured crisps, but this time I felt in need of some real indulgence, given the grey skies and cold wind whistling through me on the way to the shop.

Ten minutes later I was still wandering the store empty handed, not through lack of inspiration, as I had selected a number of delicious goodies, one being the Gu chocolate pots. The only problem being that everything that shouted “eat me” had traces of gluten – even the Gu chocolate mousse! Argh!

But, I persevered. One of the commitments I did make to myself whilst taking my delicious gluten free breakfast on a sunny terrace in Morocco last month, was not to be beaten by my coeliac disease. Back in London, I refused to be beaten, and after much searching I opted for a small pack of popcorn, sadly made by Snack a Jacks, whose rice cakes I actively avoid after a career in taste testing them (a story for another time) and a rice pudding.

Walking back to the office, I pulled open the popcorn, one of my favourite childhood foods, when toffee popcorn was all you could get at the cinema, to be thoroughly disappointed. It tasted like watered down toffee, maybe due to the “les than 10% fat” claim front of pack and left a nasty aftertaste in my mouth. This was my inspiration. No more rubbish.

So, from this day forward I am going to eat wonderfully tasty, seasonal and local foods, that are gluten free and utterly delicious made by my own fair hands. I love eating and try to enjoy all my meals, but snacking is particularly difficult, so am off to pull together a list of yummy snacks that can bring a smile to my day and my stomach. And the best bit about making my first ever new years resolution? I am enhancing, not restricting my life, whilst shopping for food and researching recipes to devour. Bring on 2008!