My Dad likes to drink heavy cream. Now I know what you’re thinking. That sounds insane. It is a little insane but let me explain.
My Dad has always liked his little treats. He loves dark chocolate. It’s actually been a grand savior on many occasions when we need to get a gift for him and can’t think of anything. He loves dark chocolate and always has some in the house. That’s all he ever asks for on occasions like his birthday, Christmas or Father’s Day. He also loves cookies and little pastries, all kinds of little sweet bites. He has especially leaned into this since he married a professional baker.
Now it might sound like my Dad has to be overweight if he likes his desserts, but quite the opposite. He has never been fat, just always a lean, mean, eating machine. Not just lean, but in good shape as well. He has been swimming on a Masters swim team for decades and outside of that is an active person. He is working constantly, always in motion. Sometimes it’s exhausting just to watch him. He doesn’t sit down for more than ten minutes and if he does, he will inevitably fall asleep. He is in his early sixties and is in excellent shape, despite all his jokes that he is old and decrepit.
While my Dad has a lot of hobbies and interests, his vices are slim. He is not a smoker, doesn’t do drugs, and will occasionally have a drink or two. He loves gin which is where I get my love for Gin & Tonics and Tanqueray Martinis from. But he still usually only has one or two before he is done and he sips on them very slowly.
Overall, I think he lives a very healthy lifestyle, even including his little treats. Though I have always found hilarious that every once in a while, my very in shape, spry, sixty something year old father, will walk into the kitchen, go directly to the fridge and take out a carton of heavy cream. He opens it, takes a gulp right from the container, and goes about his day. And if anyone gives him an odd look he just says, “Don’t judge me.” Which…is fair. It’s just very amusing.
Sometimes someone will ask why he doesn’t put the cream in coffee or into a drink and he says, “That ruins the cream.” We (my sisters and I) have tried to explain repeatedly that it is pure fat. To which he says, “that’s why it’s so good.” It’s a love that runs deep and true and honestly I have a hard time thinking why he can’t. It’s just a sip, will it really kill him? If it brings him that much joy, is it the worst? Fat isn’t all that bad in small doses. And he works it off almost instantly…
When my grandma was in the last few years of her life, she was only supposed to eat sugar free things because she had diabetes. She was your very typical Italian grandmother who put a lot of fat, salt, and sugar into everything so she had to be careful towards the end. But every once in a while, when she was in her late eighties and early nineties, we would sneak her a regular, full fat, full sugar cookie. She just wanted a fucking cookie. The woman raised five children, six grandchildren, outlived her husband and one of her sons, she earned a cookie.
All too often we make fat an enemy but it doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be. What treats do you love? The ones you crave or can’t resist. Isn’t that the harmony of it all? Sometimes you’re super active and eat healthy, and sometimes you drink sweet fat right out of the container. It’s called balance.
